I thought that

Fantastic - EJ talking up how great Barrichello is whilst picture shows his start and subsequent crashes from last weekend !

whoa.... ferrari pre quali interview


is this a bbc or fota improvement?

Gotta love DC saying that Kimi is 'lazy'..........as the camera pulls back to reveal Kimi standing off in the corner looking on.

'For sure'

For Sure

Shame they did not show the interview with Whitmarsh immediately after the race where he started spinning the "Trulli passed Lewis" story.

Was pleased to see Dave Ryan referred to as a scapegoat by DC, but would have been nice if they have called Whitmarsh/McLaren out more directly.

They probably went as far as they dared, they need a reasonable relationship with the teams rather than alienating them or they'd be screwed for interviews in the future. BBC Sport has had bad experiences with Sam Allardyce and Alex Ferguscum in the past so I imagine they tread carefully these days.

DC is scared to speak his mind, is he?

Good coverage by the BBC, still not convinced by JL though, he's professional enough but I think you need one calm and one enthusiastic commentator. Doesn't really work with two calm ones.

Have to say though, I wish we would go back to a top 10 individual lap format, we hardly saw Jenson Button at all, and all we see in the last 5 minutes of qualifying is a shot of the finish line with cars setting their times!

They could rectify this a bit by showing the leading cars in-car laps after qualifying has finished. Never see that though.

Holy sh*t!!! Just saw Eddie Jordan on BBC for the first time (didn't watch much pre-race coverage for Aust) and that guy is clueless! DC deserves a medal for not knocking him out with his microphone.

Also, I like that Legard guys commentary so far. I don't need some excited idiot shouting from the commentary box to get into the race. He's an angel compared to James Allen!!! JA's blog is good though, particularly as I don't have to hear his voice

Much much better from Jordan, apart from the utterly pointless question to Domenicali, it looks like he might be bearable after all. (but yes, he's still clueless)

DC to Domenicali: "When Kimi was my teammate he was the laziest driver ever, how do you handle him?"

Lee McKenzie managed to get a laugh out of Alonso.

I watched some of FP3 today, Croft and Davidson were very impressive.

EDIT: yes, Legard fits in very well IMO.

Would hate to have seen EJ last week then

Not BBC's fault - but I'm watching the live timing, and I'm screaming at the TV 'SHOW US BUTTON - SHOW US BUTTON' - that's two pole positions on the trot, and we've seen nothing but the last corner of each.

Doug

That, like you said, isn't the BBC's fault, they take the pictures from FOM, the BBC have no control over what gets shown on screen

You missed it? Now I'm envious.

The Beeb must have given him a talking to, last week he hogged the mike and asked the most interminably long-winded and idiotic questions. This week he talked nonsense, but there was much less of it!

I'm still not convinced with Legard. There are times he doesnt seem to know what to say and just keeps repeating a drivers name 4 or 5 times in a row. THE COCK was not great but at least he came out with a few interesting facts now and then.

To say that this is only the second GP that this team have covered, they are already starting to look polished and I think in a couple of GP's time will be even better. Well done BBC, great show.

They showed the whole lap afterwards..

By and large the Beeb doing a great job and I'm really enjoying the red button free practice stuff - Anthony Davidson does some excellent insider input.

The only thing that clashes just a tad so far is EJ who just needs to quieten down and calm down a bit. Otherwise all good stuff.

I've got no idea what this 'red button' is but wish we had it over here in Australia

I can't even get qualifying on my TV anymore I suppose I'll get used to watching it on a 2"x2" screen on the laptop.

Channel Ten Australia, you suck !!!

You think thats bad I used to watch it on tvu player but then Telstra took away my ADSL

Southern Cross 10 dont have HD channel either

For quali there was the choice of radio or tv commentary.

Brundle is good in the race, (Well, often enough.) Particularly in spotting significance in things. But Davidson seems much more insightful. Deeper on the same stuff.
To put this in context, DC doesn't seem capable of that role.

And Legard does seem to focus heavily on what WE are seeing on-screen. I've said before that someone needs to keep an eye on what we are seeing, but the point of having someone doing commentary on the spot, rather than in a sound studio at home, is that they can put our narrow view into some sort of context - and 'make the picture bigger'.


However, the thing I'm become ever less impressed with is the Jake, David & Eddie show.
Quite apart from EJ forgetting Whitmarsh's name, it was really very UNimpressive that ALL of them seemed to be under the misapprehension that Vettel's Red Bull has the benefit of a 'clever' diffuser.



Regarding picture editing (camera choice - like showing Button's pole lap). People need to remember that ALL the track and on-boards comes from Bernie's mob. Its them, not the BBC, that chooses which camera to broadcast at any specific moment. The BBC have their own cameras in paddock (and maybe pits?), but as regards the show itself, the on-track action, the BBC director seems to have no control whatsoever while the action is actually happening.
It just comes as a completely packaged 'feed'. Captions and all.
Sure there are other feeds (like the race red button in-car one, and the widescreen-only version with the captions positioned differently) but I don't believe the BBC even have the authority to switch between those feeds.

On digital broadcasting, its a 'user interface thing' to access temporary additional channels and teletext that are (usually) related to what the main channel is (or has just been) broadcasting.
However, it also provides additional channels offering different content while the main channel turns its attention to mainstream programming.
So for example, it seems that today, ALL DAY, they are looping a repeat of their quali coverage, accessible via the 'red button'.
Meanwhile, another BBC red button channel is looping a preview of the Grand National.

Hence, for F1 practice, the BBC just broadcasts the picture feed from FOM and the commentary from its (occasional, not full-time) digital-radio-only channel. Its a low budget operation, and doesn't interrupt/offend people wanting to see their regular programming. That radio channel is also used (kinda like a red button channel on the radio) for continuous test match cricket coverage, and occasions when there are plural 'major' events happening simultaneously - like European Cup soccer matches - so they can provide full coverage of more than one match.

I'm loving the red button to get Croft and Davidson's commentary, it makes the whole experience far more involving, exciting and amusing than listening to Legard ( ) and Brundle.

It would be nice to see it at the time. It's like the producer from both races so far is blind to the colour purple when it comes to the timing screens.

Doug

Eddie Jordans whitterings make my blood boil - he even contradicted HIMSELF at one point. Its as if he is asked a question and he doesn't know what to say so he just makes something up. Also, PLEASE would someone at the BBC tell him to stop waving his notes in front of the camera!

For once NZ has something over the Aussies, we don't have to use our 'red buttons' on our Sky remotes, Sky just broadcast all the sessions, with BBC/Radio 5 live, on their usual sports channel. I will never complain about the cost of this. This is the best coverage I have seen, even though I only emigrated 12 years ago, the old coverage in the UK never used to include practice then.

Reckon I can get there before the race starts?

Does anyone know whats happened to GP2? iTV4 used to show it - now what BBC have taken over i have no idea about it! I found GP2 more interesting thaN F1 but thanks to BBC they have shelved it.


The only good thing about BBC is the world service radio anything esle i hate about them

don't know about the GP2 main series yet, doesn't seem to have been any word on it, though british eurosport have highlights of this mornings GP2 Asia race at about 8.45am (GP2 and GP2 Asia have 2 seperate TV deals, as the main GP2 series comes with the F1 TV package,whereas GP2 Asia doesn't)

cheers, just noticing the gp2 started under safety car.

The old BBC coverage sometimes didn't even include the whole race!

"And we leave the French Grand Prix for live coverage of the 1:15 from Doncaster..."

Things move on though.

At one time ITV and Co were not interested in showing F1 at all. BBC was the only place it could be seen and gradually went from a highlights only, late night package to live race coverage as the popularity grew. There is no doubt in my mind that the coverage would have continued to grow regardless of which channel had the broadcast rights.

Still not convinced by Leg-end, I'll be listening to him closely in this race.

At the last race when a car went out with a drivetrain problem he said "problem with the driiiive"

Ross why all the agro with the BBC coverage. I like most people here have never heard of a driveshaft boot. I doubt the vast majority watching on the BBC had ever heard of one either.

Davidson's commentary from what I can tell has been excellent so far and has given some good insight in his commentary.

In terms of dumbing down coverage. Davidson tells us what a driveshaft boot is. Brundle on ITV was showing us how you use a semi-auto gearbox.

why does the BBC feel the need to use background music constantly? It's annoying

Brundle is magic.

Let's do the Toyota diffuser dance

"Shuffle to the left! Shuffle to the right! Do the diffuser dance!"

Great grid walk by MB.

2 BBC Grid Walks and no "celebrity" interviews. I hope it is a BBC instruction and that it continues, I only want to hear from F1 people on the grid.

Why is Lee there? Is it to make the female viewers more comfortable?

I love that they take a break for the national anthem, always bugged me when ITV talked through it. Not that I'm desperate to listen to it but shows what a class act the BBC are. If only drivers would sing along when they win I'd be fully satisfied with the national anthems in F1!

The sky looks horrible.

This thread is about the BBC not Sky.

At least it was refreshing to hear no Hamilton love fest when there was feck all Lewis-related on track activity to report. Entire laps went by without him being mentioned - on ITV it took a race retirement for that to happen.

Legard seemed to struggle to mention any of the drivers in anything approaching a 'live' sense.

The coverage is amazing, but still not sure about legard

Guess the cancelled the F1 Forum due to the hours chat at the end of the main coverage. :\

Chuck him on your ignore list. He's bitter, resentful and seems to hate anyone who posts on this forum. Many forecast an improvement in footage for the BBC (I did) - Ross was adamant we'd end up disappointed.

And we're not

So he's bitter about being wrong.