F1 Coverage on the BBC
This season in F1 has been hotly awaited since Lewis Hamilton prised the title from Felipe Massa in the last round, in fact the last corner last year. We have also been keenly awaiting F1s return to the Beeb and the ensuing lack of advertising breaks as well as superior coverage as F1 returns “home”.
I’m not sure that I’ve been convinced by the BBCs commitment to the F1 cause, the coverage seems to be a back to basics approach and a general dumbing down of the sport. Each week we are treated to Jake Humphrey talking above the more seasoned and frankly more interesting guests. In Sundays Chinese GP coverage he even cut Mike Gascoyne short to cut to a montage of the drivers, I’m not sure that this is the type of presentation that F1 needs. He constantly reigns in David Coulthard and anybody else talking about anything interesting and brings them back to an inane point that *he* made.
Martin Brundle’s new co-commentator doesn’t fair much better in my opinion, he seems to offer little extra to the commentary and can actually be very annoying, lets relive the last lap of a great drive by Sebastian Vettel - I’m pretty sure that it was every corner he repeated, “Just keep it on the road”.
Now I know that I’m probably more technically interested in F1 than most and that I might actually understand the diffuser row. And that I’ve been following it for a good few years and therefore know quite a lot about the teams/drivers/personalities plus I understand the difference between understeer and oversteer but it just feels that all of the coverage is simplified. Some of the ITV crowd seem positively downhearted when they are asked to explain things.
The website doesn’t break the trend either, it’s badly organised, filled with superfluous content and hides all of interesting information, case and point; before the first GP I could find information on who each of the drivers fancied but I could not find the practice times anywhere. Not to mention the poor pre season testing coverage.
I’m sure that most of these gripes are part of the teething process and that the coverage will improve but I’m not impressed so far. At least advertisement break gave you the opportunity to make a cup of tea rather than running the gauntlet of missing something you could have seen (We won’t mention Imola). Given that the BBC have spent a lot of money of F1 I must admit I had expected more, but then the pre-season hype didn’t fill me with confidence, “The greatest car chase”, not how I would describe F1.
Good Hunting