258 replies to this topic

[absinthedude]

To be fair, I was bamboozled when I saw people subbing half the team a few years back.

 

I still don't understand the offside rule, but I have next to zero interest in football. I can, however, follow a match because it is essentially a simple game and one that most if not all of us will have played at school at some point. Very few of us have raced cars. I don't *think* any of us have raced F1 cars. 

 

If I wanted to learn about the offside rule or how many players may be substituted I could no doubt head to Wikipedia. That wasn't possible in 1996 when Jonathan Palmer started commentating. 

 

It is a difficult line. I do think that Palmer did bang on about explaining quite basic strategies too often. But it is worth remembering that hopefully there are newbies every week*

 

*except I no longer hope that. I hope F1 disappears up it's own rear flap. 

Edited by absinthedude, 10 October 2024 - 11:06.

[Risil]

I do think that Palmer did bang on about explaining quite basic strategies too often.

Judging by how some of the races went some of the teams should've been taking notes

[Collombin]

I still don't understand the offside rule

Did you play for Arsenal in a past life?

[absinthedude]

Judging by how some of the races went some of the teams should've been taking notes

 

He was commentating just as Benetton was perfecting it's use of strategy to help Michael Schumacher into his first dominant streak. That was something that F1 had never really seen before (though Bernie/Brabham/Piquet tried it over a decade earlier). The use of computers to help calculate the optimum time to pit and refuel was novel. Though I remember when Tyrell brought that heinous new-fangled laptop into the pits in the 80s people were horrified! 

 

And Palmer being a geek's geek certainly thought this new relevance to strategy and the rather geeky way it was being worked out particularly by Benetton was exciting to him....and as a fellow geek I get some of that....but he really did bang on about it too much. He just wasn't a natural commentator. I always wondered what a team of Murray Walker, Martin Brundle and Jonathan Palmer might have been like, with Palmer the strategic expert and the other two doing most of the "Look at that!" stuff. 

[F1 Mike]

He was commentating just as Benetton was perfecting it's use of strategy to help Michael Schumacher into his first dominant streak. That was something that F1 had never really seen before (though Bernie/Brabham/Piquet tried it over a decade earlier). The use of computers to help calculate the optimum time to pit and refuel was novel. Though I remember when Tyrell brought that heinous new-fangled laptop into the pits in the 80s people were horrified!

And Palmer being a geek's geek certainly thought this new relevance to strategy and the rather geeky way it was being worked out particularly by Benetton was exciting to him....and as a fellow geek I get some of that....but he really did bang on about it too much. He just wasn't a natural commentator. I always wondered what a team of Murray Walker, Martin Brundle and Jonathan Palmer might have been like, with Palmer the strategic expert and the other two doing most of the "Look at that!" stuff.

There were some races in 1995 with those 3 in the box, as Martin shared his race drive and did the odd bit of commentary when he was available

[absinthedude]

Did you play for Arsenal in a past life?

 

I'm afraid I am sufficiently clueless about football to not know what this is in refernce to. 

[danmills]

I don't miss fans wearing those horrendously fake Ferrari and Mclaren jackets with terrible fonts and mismatched sponsor patches.

 

Though they seem to have made a comeback on social media with some of these influencers.

[garoidb]

After much thought I realise that the only things from older F1 that I do not miss are the things that are still there. If pushed, I do not like the six wheeler cars (but they were raced before my time so there was no possibility of my missing them as such).

[chrcol]

Heavy wet racing, watching the racing at 4am, harder tyres, refuelling, better quali formats.