Not really BBC more FOM, but coverage news all the same...

At the moment there is no intention to show viewers when a driver is hitting their KERS button, which seems pretty absurd given A1GP does.

Radio conversations between all the teams and drivers will be opened up, including the likes of McLaren and Ferrari. Hopefully that will lead to more insight into what is going on.

That is a BIG problem. I thought they were going to have on-screen graphics for kers? something was said about that some months ago. If we don't know when kers is being used then overtaking will be meaningless, we won't know if it's skill or just pushing the little button, like FPA.

Bernie is really losing it, being 79 and fixated on paying off the 2.5bn loan with track fees he's not developing the show. No HD either .

Having said that, it was the same during the turbo era, and that wasn't that big a deal. Both cars hitting the boost button and both going down the straight 10mph faster...

Given that F1's KERS will almost certainly not be used as a push-to-pass system, this probably isn't going to be much of a loss.

Tbh i thought it didnt make A1 more appealing. As soon as driver A wanted to overtake, driver B would also press his overtake button and both would have similar velocities.

And then there are tracks where you simply cannot overtake even with a thousand more horsepower. Jos Verstappen said he never used the button on tracks like laguna seca. That means that in F1 tracks like monaco, valencia, singapore, hungaroring some cars are probably not even fitted with KERS at all.

It worked reasonably well in CART, where the push-to-pass was limited to 60 seconds use during an entire race. It generally got interesting in the last half of the race, as drivers who'd used it less during the first half began gaining advantages over those who'd used theirs up earlier.

Still a gimmick, but a slightly interesting gimmick at times.

That sounds a bit like the turbo era days.

I sometimes watch those old 80s races and just drool on how much overtaking there was wich no refuelling and adjustable turbo boost. Perhaps they should limit KERS on a total amount of time used instead of resetting the limitations each and every lap?

It will be used as push-to-pass. It can only be used when there's spare traction available, from say 130 kph, the laptime gain is marginal, and some cars may not have it. Overtaking is its one trick. With 25hp less available from the engines at only 18,000 rpm it will make even more difference, from 725 hp to 785. A kers car will eat a non-kers car for breakfast down a straight.

A little update:

Quoting jb26: "There are a large number of other innovations the BBC have planned, which for obvious reasons haven't been leaked. There is no doubt you will be pleasantly surprised though."

Its nice that a large number of things are being kept secret, hopefully we will be surprised.

And according to our old friend (not really BBC related, but FOM related) : "This season the radios will be open all the time from every team, so you should hear some much more insightful stuff and get a feel for how the big names come across on radio in the heat of battle."



I'm very happy about this - hopefully we'll get a good balance of different teams in the transmissions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/20...els_like_a.html

Hmm.... Motor GP blog. Should turn interesting.

So do you reckon the bbc will incorporate the open radio into their transmissions? Or will be able to specifically select a radio transmission to listen to?

Just for clarification.... are you wondering whether we'd be able to on the Red Button choose which driver we want to listen to for radio transmission?

If so, I don't think we'd be able to.

And I don't think the Beeb will incorporate it.

If it's open all the time I presume that the feed will be time delayed somewhat, could get a little confusing.

Sorry was a little drunk last nite
What i meant to ask was will there be an option to just listen to the radio> Whatever the radio feed may be; for example the way you would be able to choose the onboard feed?

hi all, i am trying to 'catch up' with the latest regarding th bbc f1 2009 coverage, and it seems that
according to all websites/news and posts in this forum, there wont be hd coverage in 2009.

this is simply SAD.

in anycase, my question is: since 2008 (almost) all the races have been transmitted in hd, for the 'f1 in cinemas' programme. (basically all the gp's suited for uk timezone cinema viewing)
That signal was transmitted by satelite feeds into the uk for (almost) every gp in 2008.

-So f1 HD Feed DOES exist and DOES get transmitted in the uk.
Therefore, why is that chap from the bbc saying that f1 hd transmission is 'not available' ?

any info or further news on the F1/HD/BBC issue appreciated.

ps: also, during the 2007 silverstone gp, there was a huge tv truck at the paddock with HDTV written all over it, with tv screens inside / satellite dishes on its roof, etal. When my mates and i approached and asked them if they are recording the race in hd, they didnt want to answer.(basically acting like conmen confronted by tv reporters - lol)

F1 In Cinemas was an upscaled SD feed and was only done for a few races, not proper HD.

My guess is a straightforward no.

Shouldn't it be up to the local networks if they want record in HD or not? I am unsure how the recording works. I know that for the pre race shows and grid walks each country can film their own.

For the race itself, does the local country film the race and the FOM director chooses what is shown. Or does Bernie's gang take their own cameras to each race and film the race? And if it is the latter, what is stopping the local country from having a seperate camera crew, who can record in HD if they wish to?

No, it's one FOM camera crew for almost all races.

Agreed, its often not a time delay of a few seconds as well, it's often half to a full lap out. Too much radio would get pretty annoying imo.

I don't think so, because whilst there is only one feed for the whole world, you notice the cameras concentrate on whoever is the favourite in the country where the GP is. In Italy, for example, they would rather film a Ferrari driving around the track with nobody about, than a fight for position with other teams. Same goes in the UK with Lewis, or Spain with Fernando. I may be wrong, but if so the FOM crew would appear to want to please the local crowd.

I think thats possibly up to the local tv director. AFAIK there's a different one for each grand prix.

I haven't noticed that, that would be a director issue if it is the case. If that genuinely is the case it's probably a matter of simply wanting to please the local crowd/host broadcaster, bearing in mind the jumbotrons show the World Feed.

The one or two races with local directors do have that - most notoriously Fuji TV and the Japanese GP with their love affair with Takuma Sato.

Brazil this year was an unusual arrangement IIRC, FOM cameras were there but TV Globo had their own director to produce a Brazilian feed e.g. one with lots of shots of Felipe Massa.

Finally, a bit more news:

*Firstly, I *think* the announcement is now late February, so its been bumped several weeks.
*There will be an "Inside Sport: Grand Prix Special"
*There will be "A Question of Sport: Grand Prix Special", with Lewis, Coulthard and Brundle possible guests.
*The above two shows will be shown in the week leading up to Australia and will be repeated on the Grand Prix Night.
*The provisional schedule for Grand Prix Night appears to have vanished, pointing towards a possible re-jig.
*BBC's contract allows for full access to all FOM material including older than 10 years back (which explains the Donnington 93 footage the other week). This will be made use of on programmes like A Question of Sport, Inside Sport, Top Gear and others.
*The Chain was used on several occasions during the Rehearsal Tests this past week - jb says the footage from the rehearsal tests is "fantastic".

The Question of Sport special will be great... I wonder who they'll have.

I'm looking forward to the QoS show. especially if it is all F1 based

This is excellent, will they be showing old races, on the weekends between the F1 events ?

Showing replays of the current seasons races at say 10pm each sunday, when there's a race, with replays of old races in the other weeks, would really build an audience, and increase the knowledge of said audience, and educate thse whose F1 knowledge begins in 2007......

NO.

There's no way they will broadcast old F1 races on a main channel like BBC2.

It's also doubtfull anything like that will appear of the red button. Your best hope would be the BBC website but I would think that's a long shot.

Yeah, look at football. It's an enormously popular sport, but broadcasting old matches simply doesn't happen on a mainstream channel. I think the BBC is committed to eventually opening all of its remaining archives up as an on-demand service; provided Bernie doesn't intervene, that's probably our best chance.

Any 'serious' motor racing fan will have them all on VHS or hard drive, anyway, though.

I think you will find that this is all that it will be, not broadcasts of old races in their entirety.

Tony.

They often show old tennis matches when they are showing the grand slams on the red button so you never know. They also showed a lot of old European cup matches during Euro 2008 on the red button.

Being an huge Snooker fan I can tell you lot we'll not be able to hack BBC's feed like we were with ITV's one. They know the proxies, they don't allow the proxies to work but for a few new ones and just for a while then they block them as well... I'll miss the Friday's practices, for sure, not as much as I miss The Crucible, though...

The old tennis matches are only shown when there are rain delays.

GOOD

Maybe now the people who the feed is intended for (and who pay for it) will get to see it without it being flooded and ruined by worldwide viewers like always happened with the ITV one.

Whilst the rest of us go back to our crappy 2 to 6 hour delayed television coverage that we have to wait until midnight to watch.

not our problem.

Precisely, my friends. We watch the good old races from down the years whatever is on the TV between coverage. (Although as a personal rule I try not to watch anything whilst the current season is going, I find it distracting...). At least the bbc will broadcast races without interruption, and that is more important to me than anything.... and no James Allen.

Man i would move countries to watch live f1

where are you then? (Sorry if you posted earlier and didn't see it)

The UK

Yeah, nice one. Silverstone this year for the last time. I'll get to see it live.

Its quite handy
Still havent been to a race tho

Not in 08, they showed quite a few in the run up to wimbledon on the red button.

True, especially as now we pay for the coverage.

Perhaps they can show "classic races" when the live GP gets boring.

Great, I'm looking forward to Retro Boredom

In case we've already forgotten how annoying the adverts were there was a nice reminder in the FA cup last night. Shades of Hungary '97, not that beeb would have a little gloat or anything!

Haha! I was just going to post this and bump the old ITV thread. Was it Imola 2006 where they plonked adverts in three laps from the end?

Yep, it was Imola 2006.

I made a joke on another forum about the reaction of forums if that had happened on the last lap of Brazil 2008.

RTL 7 here in Holland do this a lot .

"Were going to take a short break so we can be present for the final laps to the flag!!"

Not taking into consideration that in a lot of races the drivers turn down the revs and in effect stop "racing" to save the car/engine!!

Still at least they have picture in picture during ad' breaks.

Tony.

2005 if we're being picky; the year when Schumacher couldn't pass Alonso, rather than the other way around in 2006.

They did come back from an ad break during the 1998 Japanese GP just after Schumacher had to retire so the first words were along the lines of "you're now looking at the new world champion". Similarly we did just get the briefest glimpse of a red car billowing smoke as they went to adverts during the 2006 GP, which while not deciding the title, changed the outlook completely.