How are you watching F1 in 2009?
What channel will you be watching F1 on in 2009?
Over the past year I’ve been keeping an eye out for details of how F1 coverage will look in 2009 as the BBC takes over from ITV.
But this makes little difference for those of you not in Britain, or whose broadcasters do not use the British feed. So, how will you be following F1 sessions this year?
I have a suspicion that, as much as I complain about the quality of F1 coverage in Britain, it’s actually pretty good compared to many other countries.
British fans are not the only ones who will be watching F1 on a different channel in 2009. In Spain La Sexta has taken over from Telecinco, and in Australia a new dedicated sports channel will screen F1.
ESPN Star Sports continues as the broadcaster for 24 Asian nations, with Steve Slater – who I’ve only heard bad things about – manning the microphone once again.
What channel do you watch? Do you get to see all the sessions live? Are there lots of advert breaks?
Is the commentary team any good? Any ex-drivers involved in the coverage? Or do you – perish the thought – live in a country where F1 isn’t even broadcast? Share your experience of watching F1 below.
The F1 Fanatic live blogs, which were hugely popular in 2008, will be back again in 2009. If you would like to get involved in running them, please get in touch with me via the contact form.
More about F1 on the BBC
Scott Joslin said on 19th February 2009, 16:16
Just spotted that as well Francois.
Looks like the practice sessions are going to be showm via the Red Button which makes it a bit difficult record.
The highlights are to be shown on BBC3
The interactive forum looks interesting – I wonder if they will be similar to Keith’s live blogs.
hitchcockm00 said on 19th February 2009, 20:32
I think the interactive forum is just a post-race studio chat where people can text/email their thoughts for the presenters to discuss. They do it after the rugby matches I think but I’ve never bothered watching.
Rodrigo said on 19th February 2009, 16:17
I’m from Brazil and the F1 broadcasting here is made by TV Globo. We usually get to see the qualifying on Saturdays and the race on Sundays live and without any commercial break.
We don’t get to see a pre-show of any kind nor the press conference after the race.
Our official commentator, Galão Bueno, has been doing this for over 20 years and yet menage to suck at it! Luckly I can listen comments from many radio stations that also broadcast the race.
tombong said on 19th February 2009, 16:26
I’m from Indonesia, i watch F1 either on Star Sports altough Steve Slater is very irritating but the picture quality is very good, or on Global TV
wich is good especially with original ITV comentary team but the picture quality is a bit mess, worse usually
Pedro Valenzuela said on 19th February 2009, 16:45
I live in the Dominican Republic, and I’ll watch the races trough Fox Sports Latin America. I only get to see Quali and the race live. They have a lot of advert breaks, that’s the only thing I don’t like. The commentators are very good, unlike those from Telecinco in Spain.
luky said on 19th February 2009, 16:54
another portuguese here that doesn’t pay sportv to watch f1.
they broadcast this in a football traditional channel and you must pay 25 eur (plus other 25 eur for subscribing cable or iptv) a month during 12 months.
and now we can’t even see RTL or RAI because they code the signal comes live f1 (thing that didn’t happen a few years ago when it was broadcast by open signal – btw they used to have ‘long time’ ago fantastic commentators in adriano cerqueira and specially domingos piedade).
so it’s all down to torrent at monday.
for live i use internet: chats, f1.com live timing (precious – you can’t pass without this anymore) and for the image… check star sports, ccctv5, with tvu player or spocast, and hopefully bbc :o]
Alejandro said on 19th February 2009, 19:22
I live in Costa Rica so Fox Sports on cable tv is all we got. The argentinian crew of commentators is rather mediocre and uninformed, don’t be surprised if they don’t know what tyre compound is being used, or if they get excited seeing ‘another pass’ during a replay, etc.
Lot of adverts as well, despite paying for the digital package and all there’s no option to get the Hobbs/Varsha etc. Speed audio. So unless the race is very important I am typically not too motivated to stay up late or wake up early to hear those guys. I usually get ITV or Speed via torrent and watch it later on sunday afternoon/monday
Victor,USA said on 19th February 2009, 17:31
I’ll be watching F1 this on SpeedTv in hd,the only way to watch f1 is in hd. The only problem is bob varsha kinda annoyning
Andrea said on 19th February 2009, 17:36
Here in Italy you have two options: free terrestrial coverage by RAI (public national television) and satellite pay tv (Sky.
RAI offers live qualifing and race (plus gp2 sprint sunday morning race)with no ads during the action (some ads just before and after). Former F1 driver Ivan Capelli is one of the commentators. There is a 30 min pre-race show and 45 min post race show.
Sky in addition to all that offers also all the other practice sessions live and all the other races held in the week end (GP2 feature race, Porsche cup and so on). Marc Gene is invoved in commentary. Sky broadcasts also in HD, which is of course an upscaled version of the standard feed.
Xighor said on 19th February 2009, 18:03
I live in Poland and F1 broadcasting have just started for serious. Early on you could watch it on C+ with quite good commentary team, now when Polsat [commercial, quite popular station] took advantage of broadcasting F1 [smelling god money from Kubica's starts in this sport] commentary team in race is quite good, a lot of information from park ferme included, but they also need to pay attention to ‘newbies’, as Roberts’s first races brang a lot of people to watch f1 racing. In studio, where the situation before and after the race is commented, they have got Maurycy Kochanski [Gp3 driver] who is the most ‘educated’ in technical aspects and Kubica’s father. What I don’t like about the ‘studio part’ is that they are very national-centered, you can say. Commenting a lot about Kubica’s driving, but often forgetting about overall of racing.
Races and Quals are broadcasted within Polsat platform, which is accessable very easily to every Polish citizen, but training sessions, after-race interviews and all the additional stuff is on the ‘Polsat Sport Extra’ chanell, – provided only with special Polsat decoder [lot of cash per month for this one].
I’m waiting for upgrade in quality of studio commentary, more technical facts, more experts, less speculations and complaining [for bmw mechanics, when sth goes wrong, for Hamilton, when he drives aggresively, for bmw's engines and not giving enough attention to Robert etc.] … and of course for greater accessability, I know that most of polish f1 fans are strict Kubica fans and they watch races just for him, but many people interested in f1 itself also exist. ;)
Xighor said on 19th February 2009, 18:24
PS: No commercial breakes during the race or qualifying. ;]
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 19th February 2009, 22:26
Same for us in Britain this year 8-)
I realise we’re lucky in that respect because we have the BBC. But even in countries where you only have paid advertising channels they should offer ad-free alternatives on subscription, I think.
F1 is already a more difficult sport to follow on TV than, say, football or cricket, because there will always be action going on off-camera that you can’t see. Sticking in a quarter of an hour’s worth of adverts in it makes things much worse.
Serbian Kimi Raikkonen said on 19th February 2009, 18:10
I’ll be watching Formula 1 on Serbian FoxTV, here’s the link:
http://www.foxtv.co.yu/home.php
Their coverage was poor in 2007, but they’ve improved in 2008 by signing younger and well-informed pundits and broadcasting Setanta Ireland’s pre-race show!
Free practices and support races have never been, nor they will be, broadcast for the foreseeable future here in Serbia!
At there’s Novak Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic aplenty on the telly:)
Obster said on 19th February 2009, 18:19
This is absolutely fascinating. Reading these comments you can get a real sense of the worldwide scope of the F1 audience. Great topic!
Being a long-time F1 fan from the US, this sport absolutely requires commentary by someone with a British accent! This goes all the way back to the movie “Grand Prix”.
Yes, here in the US we have Speed channel. Ok, so sometimes there is a beef with a particular commentator, and the commercial breaks are ALWAYS at the worst time, but the coverage is available for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
I have started watching qualifying as well as the race since the latest format kicked in. The cars crossing the line with the clock at zero, and the resulting order changing up and down is pretty suspenseful.
I actually record all of this and watch it Sunday night or Monday evening-you have to stay far away from the Internet and TV if you do this, or else you will get hit with a spoiler!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 19th February 2009, 22:24
Thanks!
No way could I stand not seeing the race live though, even if the coverage was bad, I’d go crazy…
Mark said on 19th February 2009, 18:26
Ironic–seems overall, us Americans are the most satisfied with our broadcast team! A couple other choice quips:
Varsha: Welcome back to Australia…home of Australian rules football!
At Fuji 2007, when Massa made his 3rd pit stop to hand the race lead over to Raikkonen:
Varsha: Welcome back to the Sarcasm Channel, where Felipe Massa is once again coming down pit road *for no apparent reason*! He said he thought he felt a vibration.
Hobbs: He was *told* he thought he felt a vibration, more like.
patrickl said on 19th February 2009, 21:01
Fuji 2007? Lewis won that one. Massa’s race was a mess and his last stop (his 4th) was a necessity for fuel since he already driven over half a race distance on that tank of gas. Besides, it sounds kinda silly to make Massa lose 5 places just to let Raikkonen by.
I’m really wondering which race you are thinking about though. Wasn’t China 2007 either (Massa was never ahead of Raikkonen) and neither Brazil 2007 (Massa had only 2 stops)
Mark said on 19th February 2009, 18:34
Love this comparison clip, of Sato’s pass on Alonso at Montreal, with commentary from four different countries (US, UK, Spain, and Japan):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNGuw7khT98
SoLiD said on 19th February 2009, 19:10
I’m from Belgium,
I do use satellite and believe me, the UK broadcasts are awesome!
Premiere, german tv is pretty good ok, but I don’t
understand it all that good :)
So BBC will be my channel, just hope it’s on a channel I can recieve, wich should be ok :)
Christopher said on 19th February 2009, 19:25
I have to say I am extremely happy NOT to have Leigh Diffey on any F1 broadcasts. He filled in for 1 race last year…ouch
Gman said on 19th February 2009, 22:13
Relating to both this comment and the comment above by Mark, Leigh Diffey filled in for Varsha for China 2008, while Varsha was off in Las Vegas for the Barrett Jackson antique auto auction.
Upon Bob’s return for Brazil, he used the “Sarcasm Channel” remark again after David Hobbs commented on what an absolutley fantastic job Diffey had done filling in during the previous round. ALl in good fun, and it was quite funny.
Seb C said on 19th February 2009, 19:32
I’m travelling alot this year so i’ll be trying to watch it wherever i can. I’ll mostly be watching on BBC when i get to London but i do spend some time in Singapore where i’ll watch the ESPNSTAR coverage. I lived in Singapore for 12 years so it will be nice to have a different view and take on the action. Steve Slater does have his mistakes true (I am quite sympathetic, for he probably loves F1 as much as the rest of us so i’ll give him a break) but Chirs Goodwin, his Co-commentator, is actually quite good in my opinion. Not as good as Martin Brundle, but ex f1 drivers aren’t a common thing in Asia.