Great to see F1 and the chain back together!

On the down side I have to agree with most in that it's too Lewis-centric. There should be at least some former champs and title protagonists in there before Lewis' bro.

Leave Nicole in though. Much easier on the eye than Kubica ;)

Lets see, can i give my vieuw:

Martin Brundle:

The sqreeky voiced Toyota salesman former F1 driver. Used to be good at crashing cars to the point marshalls where picked up and broke their bones. Keeps refering how he just mightv beaten Schumacher. A 2nd career at ITV where pitched against dumbo Allen, grew to be called an 'expert'. Id say one eye is king in the land of the blind. Is full of himself and does gridwalks where he annoys people. Likes to bash the FIA and its president Mosley and make jokes about pikeys. Lewis love meter: average thankfully not too much but as soon as lewis is in an incident, is quick to blame it on the other party (o my god i think alonso brake tested lewis).
verdict: *** not good but also not bad.


David couldhardt:

The eternal 2n driver. Aimable and easy to approach former F1 driver. Better known for his girlfriends than his drives. BBCs attempt to get another Hunt? Keeps giving mixed answers about his moving over for Mika in particular and his mclaren career in general. Has more or less admitted he did that to safeguard his seat and keep on earning millions. Has also admitted he couldnt quite understand how he got into F1 as other drivers are clearly much better. Thus a pretty unreliable source. Kept blaming others this year for embarassing crashes. Lewis love meter: unknown but probably average.
verdict: ** expect lots of political correct and mclaren a** kissing talking. Nothing controversial.

Edie Jordan:

The former team owner. Known for his flamboyant lifestyle and insitigated many parties where he would drum on stage with (old) rock stars. Bought an 8 milion Chelsea condomenium, a farm next to Damon Hills in Ireland, a private jet and a 90ft sailing yacht. Then refused to pay out his employees for months and sold the team. Famous for saying 'fans want to see racing till the last ounce'' after austria 2002 while that was exactly what he forbid his drivers of doing at spa 98; racing till the last ounce. Lewis love meter: high. Verdict: * even more unreliable and hypocrite commentator.

Murray Walker:

The always friendly very senior F1 commentator. Highly regarded for his friendly attitude and amusing quotes.
Has been teh voice of BBC untill it went over to ITV. Where Murray announced he would retire and write a book, wich then wa spromoted in some kind of world tour. Decided to come back several years later and write yet another book. Wich must now also be promoted. Lewis love meter: very very high. verdict ** Should stay in retirement.

Ted Kravitz

Mr I love Lewis. Sells the fans lines after borefest races like: thank you for staying with us i this very exciting race! Cannot complete a sentence without mentioning Lewis. Probably hired by the bbc to serve the lewis fan base. Lewis love meter: maximum verdict: *

They updated it today with a lot more drivers and less Lewis as a result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtms1IppbPg

If I saw that on TV I wouldn't for a moment doubt it wasn't professionally done. The sound is a bit iffy in places but the rest fits very well.

Indeed, the video editing matches the music brilliantly! The swooshing graphics are a bit cheesy aswell but a mighty fine effort!

With the entire history of recorded music to choose from, if the BBC can't do better than that dirge behind the opening credits then they just don't deserve the broadcast rights.

What about this one:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5tygBFBC81w&..._id=event_42585

Or if you like the track Bohemian Like You, this one

Not a contender, but very watchable.

Yes, very watchable until 2m06 when, correct me if im wrong, villeneuves melbourne crash is included that resulted in the death of a marshall

You're not wrong I missed that, sorry.

OMFG!!!

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showpos...postcount=10570

Just posted by jb at DS:

"The rumoured 'Grand Prix Night' is no longer a rumour. It will take place across BBC3 and BBC1 on Saturday 28th March.

Starting on BBC3, it will switch to BBC1 after Match of the Day and run right through the night until the end of the race programme.

There will be a provisional schedule for this available shortly, which I will try to post once I've seen it. "

It's my birthday on March 29th as well, so might throw a mini-F1 party.

Silence heathen!

More info on the "breaking news" type announcement.

*At least three-hours of qualifying highlights will be shown early evening BBC3 / repeated late evening BBC1. That would take us to at least 4am UK time, partially because the clocks also go forward. I'd expect that to be chatter mixed in as well to be honest.

That leaves three hours spare before blast off, which leaves a very interesting prospect. In jb's words, he says "leaves plenty of time for other programming and chatter".

Some people are already speculating old-races over at Digital Spy - surely not?

I don't care what they show, because this is already a gi-normous step up from ITV1.

You say that, but when ITV hosted their first race back in '97 they had a full weekend (Friday night and Saturday night) of themed programming.
Granted it was themed around "mens" stuff, as well as the grand prix (they showed The Good The Bad and The Ugly), however I do remeber they showed a couple of documentaries and the film Grand Prix.
If I remember correctly it was presented by Mark Little of Neighbours fame...

Three hours of qualifying highlights? How is that possible.

IF they're going to do re-runs of old races,i'd presume for the aussie GP they'd do a re-run of a classic aussie GP,same for brazil,monza,etc (for the newer tracks,eg singapore,valencia,abu dhabi they could maybe pick a classic race from a random track)

That's an all nighter for me on the 28th then

Formula One on the BBC, brought to you by Red Bull.

More likely to be Carling

The biggest thing I am looking forwards to is the DC/EJ combination. I cannot imagine two more different personalities, so this should definitely be quite interesting.

I think the biggest single difference for me will be the no-commentary option. I can feed that audio through the hifi (or headphones) really loud, the way it's supposed to be, and have my choice of commentary quieter through the TV or radio.

To be fair to the BBC, they usually make a very good job of this sort of thing. It will be interesting to see what sort of content they come up with this time.

Well I reckon if it has a dash of the Early ITV Saturday evening paddock shows with a touch of 21C flare they could prove to piss off most couples/family's relationships come early evening on a Saturday, or at worst Sunday Am.

Also my relationship with my housemates as I will be commandeering the TV, no MOTD for them

Ah, bless. No replies. I wonder why.

Couple of questions.

How can they show 3 hours of highlights from a 1 hour qualifying session, that's a lot of waffle to fill it in.

Also, when I record the race on SKY+ will I have to fast foward 5/6 hours to get to the race. I'd better figure out manual recording on my box.

Well they will start with a static pic of lewis hamilton whilst playing the national anthem, the theme from ivanhoe,the theme from dallas and finally the theme from magnum, P.I.

Then they will switch live to stephenage and switserland, where patriotic lewis was filmed wearing a union jack suit riding a purple milka cow.

Next will be a half an hours discussion bewteen murray walker, mika hakkinen, jacky stewart and stirling moss on the greatness and possible greatness and legendary lewis hamilton will be and can become. Then there is the actuall qualifying itself and the final hour will be flled by intervieuws with the spice dolls, hamiltons grandma, hamiltons former school teacher and several specials on lewis behaviour, an in depht look on how lewis opens doors and ties his shoe laces.

Fancy getting over it at any point?

oh grow up

As long as they dont, why should I? They wanna make it a Lewis love fest they better be ready to be ridiculed over it as im sure im not the only one.

i doubt it can be any more of a lewis lovefest than ITV created

In that case shouldnt you wait until they actually broadcast something before making stupid statements.

You do have a point there

You've never watched their Wimbledon coverage then.

That's never seemed that biased to me, they cheer the brit when he's playing but the rest of the time he/she's ignored.

we could of course wait to see what the BBC do before criticising? But of course some people just like to troll about anything they can.

They were most definitely biased. Their Olympic coverage was even worse as far as bias goes.

Yes, heaven forbid the British Broadcasting Corporation focus on British athletes at an international event!

Of course they'll be biased, because they're responding to what the customer demands. British people are more interested in what Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button than they are in Felipe Massa and Sebastien Bordais - that's completely natural.

The only reason people complain about too much Lewis Hamilton coverage is because they don't like him. Same with Schumacher in the early 2000's - of course there was a lot of coverage of him, he was the World Champion and winning races!

A little bit of bias is OK. It's natural. It happens everywhere in the world. The problem is that ITV went overboard to the point where we weren't hearing anything about anyone else.

Its to be expected on a British TV show especially when doing so maximises viewing figures for the board/shareholders. Its understable if undesirable to the neutral fan.

Did I just defend ITV?

Have to diagree with you there, ITV have always been a bit over top on the brit-bias front for me in all the years they broadcasted F1 and long before Hamilton was ever heard of.

I have no problem them supporting and being happy for a fellow Brit, but I would like to see a bit more even coverage of events and teams and drivers....its not just about one person/one team after all.

It's the Olympics. You try being even handed in your coverage of every nation on earth.

Besides, the Olympics are all about competing for the pride of your nation, so what the hell is wrong with showing a bit of support for the British team?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/

Even though it's for the "wrong" reason I guess, F1 on the main sport page.

The problem a lot of people had with ITV's coverage was not necessarily the sheer amount of Lewis content - and it was a lot - but the shamelessly fawning and sycophantic nature of the coverage. Most of the blame for that has to laid at the door of Steve Ryder who was notorious for dribbling over home-grown talent on the BBC (think back to the coverage in Japan when Brundle was in charge - the coverage had a completely different tone). The scary thing is that Ryder's behaviour was, and is, very much the BBC's house style. The likes of Sue Barker are just as bad. Think Henman. Or the Olympics. Or any British competitor. However I am clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, the BBC has paid attention to the responses to the consultation exercise. After all, they appear to be doing everything else we all want to see. But the reality, sadly, is that the BBC coverage will most likley be as partisan as ITV. We'll carry on indeed!

I am surprised that few people have posted on the no commentary option. With live timing running alongside it is the most intense way of viewing races (other than being at the circuit) . I have enjoyed this option for a number of years and can recommended it to those who share my distaste for continuous burblings.

Absolutely, this will be a huge difference. The commentary means you can't have it very loud at all, but now we'll be able to fill the room with F1 sound, or your head with headphones.

I plan to try a separate with-commentary source at lower volume, or the radio.

Personally I can't see the point of watching without commentary.

I agree that commentary is important. That's what Nige and Hack provide so very well so the TV commentary is just another option

Well said. The Silent Majority were perfectly satisfied with James' commentaries - as ITV's market research proved.

Well, his truth anyways...