It’s been a thrilling start to the 2012 Formula 1 season, but actually witnessing all the action is not as straightforward as was previously the case. Thanks to Sky and the BBC’s joint coverage arrangement, and due to not having Sky myself, I’ve only seen two of the first four races of the season live and in full. Bearing in mind that the last time I missed seeing a full Grand Prix (either live or re-run) was Germany in 1997 and you’ll get some idea of how keen I am on the sport. I therefore expected horrific withdrawal symptoms to have taken hold by now, but actually being Sky-less hasn’t been too bad.
I have (in part) been consoled by how poor the limited amount of Sky coverage I have witnessed thus far has been. I should add that such experience is limited to the Season Preview (thanks to little known available-on-Freeview-Sky-programming-repeater Pick TV) and coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix. Credit for that goes to a Sky-owning friend who organised an excellent F1 breakfast, with thanks to the Co-operative for the edible meat-based breakfast supplies (they are “good with fudd”, apparently). But this brief taste of mediocrity (the programme, not the sausages) was enough to convince me that Sky’s coverage simply isn’t worth the asking price. For starters, everything has been so completely (and predictably) ‘Americanised’ (or at least ‘football-ised’) – since when has the off-season been known as the F1 “transfer window”?
In terms of presenters, lead anchor Simon Lazenby came across as professional, if a little dull and vacant. ‘Vacant’ doesn’t even begin to describe Georgie Thompson, who appears to spend her time locked in a shoebox with poor Anthony Davidson and a giant iPad (hence it being called the ‘Skypad’ I suppose). The two of them only appeared on screen once during and after the Malaysian Grand Prix - surely the long red-flag stoppage was as good a time as any to introduce the orange one and her orange-haired accomplice. The only use the giant iPad has is seemingly to allow Davidson to touch the screen to show a replay of the start of the race – wow, cutting edge use of technology there. And as for pit lane reporter Natalie Pinkham, her ineptitude reached new levels after the race when she had to be corrected by Kimi Raikkonen after she told him he had finished where he’d started the race (the Finn having originally qualified, and finished, 5th but actually lining up 10th on the grid after a gearbox change).
The actual race coverage was better, largely because the race is shown in full and commentators David Croft and Martin Brundle are both more than competent. But even those two joined in with the most singularly frustrating aspect of the coverage – the constant self-promotion of Sky’s own features. Every time we went onboard with a driver, we were reminded of the ‘Sky Race Control’ gimmick, whereby we could watch the progress of our favourite driver (or should that be ‘Most Valuable Player’?) from inside their car. Indeed, every time something happened in the race off-camera, the commentators excitedly referred to having ‘seen’ said event using ‘Sky Race Control’, rather than using the myriad of timing screens in the commentary box (which have presumably been made redundant by Sky’s amazing technology). And during every break we were reminded about how to subscribe to Sky Sports F1 HD. Again.
Even the never-ending post-race coverage wasn’t very good. As well as Pinkham’s error, Sky somehow failed to run an interview with Sebastian Vettel – the first time I heard his disparaging comments towards Narain Karthikeyan was on the BBC website. And they saved the very worst for last – having failed to get an interview with man-of-the-moment Peter Sauber (which the BBC managed while he was still on the pit wall at the end of the race), Sky cut short their interview with Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn to bring us (exclusively no doubt) their “Sounds Of The Weekend” – a short sequence featuring such classic race-defining moments as a paddock pass being swiped (and accompanying beep) and Jean-Eric Vergne playing boules. It made ITV’s misguided Beverley Turner-fronted lifestyle features of the mid-2000s look positively inspired.
So that leaves me with the BBC’s coverage. The Australian Grand Prix highlights were fine – while I used to take a masochistic pleasure in waking at 4am to watch the race live, I won’t lie and claim that I wasn’t slightly glad not to do so this year. I watched the Malaysian highlights after witnessing Sky’s live coverage, and must say that hardly anything was missed (bar the red flag period which wasn’t exactly action-packed). The Chinese race was of course live on the BBC, and the programme seemed near-identical to last year’s coverage. But (and it’s a big one), the Bahrain highlights simply weren’t long enough.
After around 75 minutes of highlights for the first two races (easily enough to show all the action) the racing from Sakhir was brutally cut down to just 50 minutes. In any other season this wouldn’t really be a problem, but given the closeness of the field this year it quickly became difficult to follow the action. After every pit stop cars change position and get stuck behind slower runners due to the lack of field spread compared to the past. This in turn made it rather tricky to spot who was running where, and what their ‘real’ position was - it’s much easier to keep track of pit stops when you see the majority of them happen in front of your eyes. The other thing I missed was the little, less significant events that make F1 so interesting to watch, such as the progress of the smaller teams (I don’t remember seeing a Caterham during the Bahrain coverage, and was unaware of Charles Pic’s retirement until he dropped off the running order at the bottom of the screen). Unfortunately, it seems that all European races (which in terms of start time, Bahrain was lumped in with) will have the same shorter highlights. It’s particularly annoying to see pre-race features intrude on coverage of the actual race, but I guess the BBC are contractually bound to only show a certain, limited amount of race footage.
On the presenting front, the loss of Brundle is obviously a blow, but the enthusiastic Ben Edwards has made a good start to life in the commentary box alongside David Coulthard, who also seems to have livened up a bit this year. Eddie Jordan only seems to be attending selected races, which is no bad thing, and his former designer Gary Anderson has improved somewhat after a nervous start. Anderson is hardly a natural in front of the camera but he does have some enlightening things to say, if you can make them out over the noise of the engines when he’s in pit lane (I find his heavy accent slightly difficult to interpret when competing with background noise). Jake Humphrey remains an irritation, but he will be taking time out of his busy schedule of patronising Formula 1 drivers and team bosses alike to present coverage of both Euro 2012 and the Olympics later in the year. This is not so much a blessing in disguise as rapture in an unconvincing wig, but nevertheless indicative of how far F1 has fallen down the BBC’s sporting pecking order given that Humphrey is inexplicably one of their favourite presenting sons. Equally inexplicable was the decision to hire James Allen as Radio Five Live’s commentator, and as expected he’s picked up where he left off at ITV by being utterly awful. Luckily I’ve only sat through his drivel for one practice session this season, and I won’t be doing so again (as a tip, Edwards seems to do the first practice session at each race, so that’s the one to watch/listen to). But Allen’s inclusion does make Five Live’s previously decent race previews and Chequered Flag podcasts almost un-listenable these days.
But, despite all the negatives, I’ll be sticking to the BBC free-to-air coverage for the time being (even though they stole my idea for their MotoGP trailer…). Sky’s corporate, technology-heavy and Americanised coverage cannot compete at present, and as long as the BBC continues to show at least half the races a Sky subscription simply isn’t worth the money (unless you already have one, of course). For the remaining European races on Sky, a trip to the pub may be in order (no bad thing) as a few local establishments are now promising live F1 coverage, a promise which is more likely to be met now the football season is almost over. But failing that (and this is probably the single worst thing about relying on the BBC coverage), I’ll be spending every fourth Sunday trying to avoid the news, and therefore the sodding race result, for a few crucial hours…
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Taking the above into account, it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to join Twitter, but I’ve gone and done it anyway. Expect comments on breaking F1 news and events (at least for those races appearing on the BBC). Why not* follow me @PitsTakeF1?
* Because I’ll probably tweet even less rarely than I update this blog (at least until I get the hang of this new-fangled technology), that's why not…
