Williams backs call for more in-season testing

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Frank Williams wants to see more in-season testing in F1.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

The road to recovery (ESPN)

“We just need to have a little more knowledge of our craft. You’re under so much pressure to deliver a lap time for qualifying then you hope it all stays together in the race, which we’ve done for the most part and our car has been remarkably reliable, but there’s always a healthy appetite for a little more testing.”

Channel 4 Formula 1 broadcast rights bid (Graphical House)

Artwork from Channel 4’s bid to gain F1 broadcasting rights. Note the race coverage is described as “unrivalled” but not “uninterrupted”.

Interview with steward Tom Kristensen (GP Update)

“Anything which is given to us comes from Charlie – he has a hand on it and sometimes it’s good for us to see something which we’d like to view. But sometimes it might not come as far as us, as we are there to judge anything which is deemed worth looking at. But we can also prepare a decision and sometimes they are quite easy to make!”

D’Ambrosio not distracted by future talk (Autosport)

“Obviously we are speaking, but at the moment I am still highly focussed on what I do now and if anything Eric Boullier and Gravity are working on that.”

Under Cover (Starting Grid)

“As one of the highlights of any trip to the paddock is a garage tour, it would be very frustrating for guests that have been invited for dinner in the motorhome if they can’t actually see the cars – which are clearly the stars of the show. So a kind of transparent net cover is used, which is also sealed via a cord/cable as required by the FIA (there’s also a camera in the pods above the cars to ensure no illegal work goes on) but the general result is that the guests can still see the cars.”

Terrible message if games cancelled – Bernie Ecclestone (BBC)

“QPR owner Bernie Ecclestone has said it would send ‘a terrible message’ if Premier League [football] matches were cancelled because of riots.”

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Comment of the day

Sw6569 on the under-appreciated championship leader:

I think that this topic shows the staggering unlikeability of the person who starts from pole and wins from pole.

That man has been Vettel this year. Yet he was recently rated the best driver of the year so far by this website – and rightly so. In the wider context of the championship no one can dispute that he is doing the best job.

Its strange therefore that he hasn’t won any Driver of the Weekends. I suppose that it emphasises that most people will support the underdog. An F1 fan wants a driver to do well in a car that shouldn’t be capable of doing that well. Button’s drive in Canada is a great example – where he not only blitzed the field but was lapping hugely faster than anyone else for most of the second part of the race.
Sw6569

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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74 comments on “Williams backs call for more in-season testing”

  1. Bernie and Football should never have mixed. He annoys us F1 fans enough as it is.

  2. I’d take interrupted rather than half the season…

    1. This is proof that Ch4 was interested in F1. Which means that the BBC selling out to sky wasn’t ‘common sense’, or ‘better than nothing,’ it was a logistical move to try and prevent a competitor from taking what is clearly a huge market. The BBC have prevented F1 from staying free to air out of greed. That is disgraceful.

      1. Did you actually look at the bid package Channel 4 put together? There’s very little actual content – most of it is just pictures and flashy graphics. There’s very little ctual content. For example, on the page “NEW SHOWS” there’s this little gem:

        20 hours of archive shows
        Archive shows that celebrate the heritage of F1 for modern audiences.
        But they give no indication of how this will actually work. Where will these archives be available? How will they be presented to fans? Do they intend for it to be aimed at fans, or to use it to attract more interest from the general public?

        And there’s this one:

        Converged formats
        Unique online and connected television innovations with simultaneous gameplay, real-time test drives and circuit interactivity.

        Again, how will this work? What are the planned features, and how will they be unique and innovative? How will they be connected to the television?

        New commercial opportunities
        Major innovations in marketing and branded content in which the teams – Red Bull Racing, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Team Lotus etc. – can reach wider audiences and derive greater value for their sponsors.

        I don’t even need to say it for this one. There is not a single piece of information given about how the teams and their sponsors can get more exposure.

        And it’s not just limited to that page, either. Check out “COVER4GE”:

        20 live races
        Unrivalled coverage of the F1 calendar, from Melbourne to Monaco and from Shanghai to Silverstone on Channel 4.
        How will the coverage be unrivalled? Almost every single synidcated broadcaster of the races (probably all of them, but I can’t be certain) shows all twenty races live. So how would Channel 4’s coverage be unrivalled, particularly if they were going to introduce commercial breaks? What would they bring to the sport that the BBC does not?

        Your conspiracy theory that the BBC is trying to shaft a rival broadcaster out of an audience is unfounded. Channel 4’s proposal is really very poor – it’s all style and no substance. They keep talking about how they’re going to make coverage of Formula 1 bigger and better, but not once do they mention how they’re going to do that in anything more than general terms.

        Observe pages 22 to 26. Page 22 is “H1STORY & ARCHIVE”. Page 23 is given over to a one-page image. Page 24 is once again “H1STORY & ARCHIVE”. Page 25 reads “Channel 4 will broadcast more archive programmes than any previous broadcaster – the people, personalities, the lives, the deaths and the disasters”. Page 26 starts the next section, “M4JOR INNOVATION”. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were Bernie Ecclestone, I’d want a little bit more – actually, a lot more – information from Channel 4 about what they have in mind for this archive they want to broadcast.

        1. Mark Hitchcock
          11th August 2011, 7:47

          Quotes from the summary by the designers of the document:

          In support of their bid for exclusive Formula 1 broadcast rights, Channel 4 appointed us to design this pitch document. ”

          and

          ” Bernie Ecclestone took time to personally compliment C4 directly on the innovative approach of their presentation.”

          IT was a supporting document, not their entire pitch. And Ecclestone was impressed, so you can’t really blame this piece of shiny meeting-desk decoration for the failure of the bid.

          In short, it was supposed to be a shiny, content-light leaflet to give to people while they listened to or read the main pitch.

          1. you can’t really blame this piece of shiny meeting-desk decoration for the failure of the bid.

            That doesn’t make it a conspiracy by the BBC to deprive Channel 4 of the rights.

          2. Mark Hitchcock
            11th August 2011, 15:45

            @PM,
            You were saying that the limited amount of details in the document was lacking in content, and implied that was the reason for the bid being rejected.
            I was just pointing out that the document isn’t the actual bid so your point didn’t make sense.

            I never said anything about a conspiracy.

            But after the deal was announced, Bernie, the BBC and Sky were making it seems as though the only way any live F1 would stay on free to air tv is with the current deal.
            That is clearly untrue, so you can see why people think this was a (successful) attempt by the BBC to deny their closest competitors a chance at broadcasting F1.

          3. Mark Hitchcock
            11th August 2011, 15:46

            That first sentence should read:

            “You were saying that the document was lacking content, and implied that this was the reason for the bid being rejected.”

        2. PM remember to close the “blockquote” tag after the quote!

          1. To add to that its the “/blockquote” in between you have to put at the end of the blockquote.

      2. Agree matt90, looks like BBC have ruined it for us. They were probably trying to get out of a big fine also for dropping their coverage one year early.

        I would have liked to hear C4’s pitch but by looks of SUPPORT document, and what Bernie says it sounds good which is even more irritating.

        Problem is no matter how good they were they wouldn’t have had the funds to compete against a joint bid by two broadcasters.

        1. C4 actually proposed a lot of general things. Even without any specifics, they would’ve needed a LOT of money to pull it off. Even more extended coverage than the BBC? (they mentioned no red-button hideaways) Shows that use the FOM archive? Those things don’t come cheap. And that’s without even going into C4’s limited budget – even with the ad breaks.

          All this is secondary to what they’re willing to pay Bernie, that is true. But I also think C4 was promising the moon here, and ended up being an unfeasible option.

          1. Mark Hitchcock
            11th August 2011, 19:05

            I dunno. Regarding the “no red button hideaways” thing; Channel 4 seem to struggle to fill their morning and daytime schedule most of the time so they would probably have loved to put the practice sessions on during those slots.
            Whereas the BBC obviously have lots of old-people and childrens programs to fill those gaps so they stick F1 on the red button.

            It would have cost C4 a lot of money to do, but would also have earned them a lot more because they could charge a lot more for ad breaks during F1 practice than they can for ad breaks in the millionth repeat of a Friends episode.

  3. “we’d been warned in advance that although the exacting leader of F1 might be difficult to impress, disappointing him would be a cinch.”

    nicely put!

    I am a bit amazed that after about a week with all the uproar over the Sky robbing us that more than about 14,000 haven’t signed that government petition thing.

    1. Probably because it officially closed on the 4th…

      1. the 4th of August “2012”

        1. Indeed. With it being August 11th, 2011 and the first race of the new season – the Australian Grand Prix – being scheduled for March 18th, 2012, there are still seven months to go before Sky starts broadcasting anything.

          The petition was opened on July 29th, 2011 (I think). In the two weeks since then, it has acquired 15,289 signatures. Assuming that this rate remains constant, the petition will gain 100,000 signatures in just six and a half weeks, which means it will hit the required number some time on or around September 17th. The 17th is a Saturday, so we can assume that the petition would be debated within the House of Commons when parliament resumes on Monday, September 19th (though it obviously won’t be the first item on the agenda). This means that the petition will be discussed 180 days, or five months and twenty-nine days before the first practice session of the Australian Grand Prix (when Sky officially start broadcasting).

          In short, there is plenty of time for the petition to gain enough signatures, be debated within the House of Commons and the sport be given protected status (or, as I predict, rejected, because as I have previously demonstrated, the Sky-BBC deal satisfies every word of what the petition is calling for).

          1. I’d be really surprised if it did make it to 100,000, I think that most people who were going to sign it would have done so already.

          2. Assuming that this rate remains constant, the petition will gain 100,000 signatures in just six and a half weeks, which means it will hit the required number some time on or around September 17th. The 17th is a Saturday, so we can assume that the petition would be debated within the House of Commons when parliament resumes on Monday, September 19th (though it obviously won’t be the first item on the agenda).

            I like your optimism for how quickly the House Of Commons works. Not in a million years would it be debated the very next working day. IF it reaches 100,000 signatures (the site crashing and it not being as clear as it could be when your signature has been counted don’t help) then it goes to a sub-committee to decide whether it is worthy of debate…at which point they decide when it can be fitted into the Parliamentary schedule…

    2. I am pretty sure people in the UK were focussing on a bit different uproar in recent days (look at the one about taking away benefits to those convicted of looting already getting 91.000 votes!) :-(

      And its got up to over 15.000 votes, looks like gainging about a thousend per day since monday, and still 4 from the top in front of those wanting to reinstate capital punishment.

      1. I am pretty sure people in the UK were focussing on a bit different uproar in recent days

        Smash cut to wild insinuations that the Sky-BBC deal is the cause of the London riots.

        1. If those were a large part of the audience, it’s good that race attendane isn’t always easy :-p

        2. Can see what your saying PM about the time available but with all the coverage fading from the issue I can’t see the rate of signatures being anywhere near that level.

          You would think like Ed24f1 says that anyone who was going to sign it would have done so by now. Hope not!

          8 million! watched the Canadian GP BBC coverage yet can only find 15,000 to sign form so far.

          1. Even the most popular petitions on there have far fewer signatures than the ones on the previous government’s e-Petitions system. I wonder if something in how it works is putting people off. It certainly took me a while to get that blasted Captcha thing right.

          2. I wonder if something in how it works is putting people off.

            In a word: Yes. It certainly put me off signing more than the first one I signed (which was the F1 one).

            Personally I’m now resigned to not being able to watch all the races in full. What I will really miss is having the option of downloading the full race coverage via iPlayer to watch when I get home if I’m busy when the race is on – though I remain hopeful that the BBC decide to make the full race available via iPlayer even if they only air a highlights show, as I understand they have to rights to show the race in full as long as it’s delayed…

          3. I can’t get on the site since yesterday as was just keeping a watch on the numbers.

            The average person who is not a big F1 fan will probably get fed up very quickly if isn’t an easy process. There’s defo something not right that their is only that amount. Maybe Newscorp has hacked it! joking!

            How about someone start a petition for all those in favour of the government using a decent site to host the petitions! lol

  4. How come a couple of guys have 4 Quizzes??

    1. I didnt finish a quiz & it kicked me out. Then when I did the quiz again, & now it says I have 4quizzes. Doesnt matter as i was useless in the answers anyway

      1. Interesting, I had that as well, but I have only 3 quizzes. Maybe its an issue?

    2. It’s a mis-reporting error, don’t worry, there is no secret fourth quiz! I’ve updated the table.

      1. Some people still seem to have 4 quizzes marked for them, though?

        1. It’s a process of weeding them out owing to an earlier problem. Just updated it again.

          Nice score by the way!

          1. Thanks! It would be even better though if I scored higher by 3 points. :D

            Don’t keep that new quiz too long, eh? ;)

  5. Is the BBC’s coverage ad free?

    1. Yes, all their coverage is. They are funded by the public, and I believe it is illegal for them to advertise in any manner. They have slipped up a couple times in 2011 though..

      1. I’m pretty sure they advertise the Ipad for apple :)

        1. I think Jake Humphrey made a point about his IPad used for the BBC being as generic as possible.

      2. Still doesn’t stop them from turning up to a Shell PR event, and basically use 5 minutes of air time to advertise for them.

  6. it would send ‘a terrible message’ if Premier League [football] matches were cancelled because of riots.”

    By all means, offer the animals a football game to distract them from wanton looting and mayhem. Inspired strategy.

    1. No, you misunderstand Bernie. Its a terrible message because it hurts profitability of his club and its worth long term.

      1. I suspect both of us are right.

        1. possibly, only them being “poor” (not having the last model from RIM and this seasons 3D LCD TV etc) would mean they won’t be able to afford it :-P

    2. Yeah because holding a football game when there are rioters on the streets is a ‘great message’.

  7. So Frank Williams is just as much a hypocrite as any other F1 team manager. Testing ban should be lifted now that Williams is in trouble. I thought he and his team were the main reasons testing was dropped in the first place?

    He wasn’t even willing to compromise last year!
    http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/23800.html

    1. Sam Michael said that. Not Sir Frank. Sam Michael has had his resignation accepted – by Sir Frank. Maybe get your facts straight before using big words. ;)

      1. So you think Sir Frank and Sam Micheal don’t communicate with one another? That Sam Micheal would express an opinion as a representative of Williams without knowing the teams views and opinions of these things?

        Big words as in ‘Hypocrite’, ‘compromise’, or ‘manager’? what are you, 12?

        1. So, Sir Frank isn’t allowed to change his mind on something? He’s not allowed to reassess a situation with new information? He’d only really be a hypocrite if he said “none of the teams should be allowed to test” and then went off and had his own team run test sessions. But that article was written over a year ago. Where is it written that he is not entitled to change his opinion?

          Plus, one of the reasons why testing was banned was to cut costs in the middle of the recession. Now that the recession is largely over, cost-cutting isn’t as necessary was it was a year or two ago.

          1. So Red Bull say no team orders last year, then this year team orders are good – That makes them Hypocrites.

            Williams say no in-season testing last year, then this year in-season testing is good – that makes them NOT hypocrites.

            No, I think he’s reassessed the situation that his car is a piece of trash, he’s about to be outdone by a team that has been in the sport for a year and a half, and his stock value is going to plummet.

            And the recession is largely over??????
            Do you live under a rock mate????

          2. The recession is largely over! What planet are you living on.

          3. Dam, forgot the ? mark. failed again.

          4. Wow, great news. The recession is largely over! Call Wall street and all to governments to tell them they made it and its up and running again :-o

            PM, I think stating the recession is largely over after seeing stock markets lose about 20-30% and hearing how growth in the US and Europe has largely stalled and might drop back again is pretty much off mark. Good thing you are not a market analist :-D

            As for FW, I do get the difference between the RBR hypocrisy and this change of mind by FW. But either the article of FW do fail to explain why the strong change in tune from no way (they were most opposed to ALG and possible Schu testing) to yeah, sure it makes sense.

          5. So Red Bull say no team orders last year, then this year team orders are good – That makes them Hypocrites.

            The rules changed. At Monza last year, the FIA announced that from 2011, team orders would be permitted provided that the teams were transparent about it – they can use team orders provided they don’t speak in code.

            I think stating the recession is largely over after seeing stock markets lose about 20-30% and hearing how growth in the US and Europe has largely stalled and might drop back again is pretty much off mark.

            The recession was accepted as being over at the start of the year. However, in the time since, more problems have come up. Most market analysts that I’ve heard believe were are teetering on the precipice of a second recession.

        2. Hypocrite is a big word. Big as in offensive to the recipient. Coupled with a poor supply of evidence for it’s use, it is downright insulting and shows as poor an attitude as your username suggests, Cacarella.

        3. Cacarella…imho, if you think FW is “as much a hypocrite as any other F1 team manager” ie. they are all the same, and that bothers you so much, why do you watch F1?

          SM’s remark from last year being referenced for this discussion is “the current system guarantees equality of opportunity”…that’s a fact…it just means that the lower budget teams have a better chance of staying within reach of the most resourced teams that could test endlessly if they were allowed, such are their resources.

          And that doesn’t mean SM wouldn’t agree with FW’s quote, the other one I wish to highlight, that being…”but there is always a healthy appetite for a little more testing.” I would say that remark could have come from any team manager from any season throughout the history of F1…it is also a fact…even teams that dominate are thinking of ways to improve at all times, such is the very nature of F1.

          My point…neither of the articles or comments referenced really imply SM or FW were ‘dead set’ against more testing, nor insistant at this point that more testing be reinstated. Hence I think your comments are rather heavy handed. Just my opinion from someone who admires Sir Frank Williams and his racing spirit which I think has always been honourable. He’s always been in F1 to race for the sport of it, not the share value, and not to win at all costs, the ends justifying the means like some teams have done in the past.

          1. Furthermore, it may be that now that SFW has had a chance to digest F1 without in-season testing for a few years, he has reconsidered, as PM has hinted at…that doesn’t automatically mean SFW thinks it should be a free-for-all such that the most resourced teams would be able to test endlessly while others are left in the dust.

            Perhaps, for all we know, all he has in mind is that the teams could stay on through Monday at some venues, while they’re already there, thus making some in-season testing easy and affordable and not requiring a seperate testing team. And thus satisfying to some degree the ‘healthy appetite for a little more testing’ SFW speaks of and that we should all hope always exists amongst the teams in what is supposed to be the pinnacle of racing and development.

            It would also afford a little track time for new up and coming F1 drivers such that they are not being thrown out on the track on a race weekend with so little experience that they pose a danger to others on the track.

            F1 rules and regs get tweeked all the time.

          2. Robbie,
            It doesn’t bother me that all team managers change their minds for the betterment of their teams, or that they would want specific rules changed to ensure their success, it’s been apart of the sport i love since its inception. What bothers me is when they claim to be above all of that, and their fans say things like ‘You can’t call SFW a Hypocrite! that’s offensive and downright insulting!’ when in reality he (and the team) is just like the rest of them.
            With all due respect, perhaps I jumped to the heavy handed comment because of the amount of exposure I’ve had to endure of Williams fans who think that SFW is ‘always honorable’.

            The article I linked was the first I found but in reality is just a small example of the many things that the Williams team has done to ensure the end of in-season testing, unlimited budgets, and overall excess in the sport. The idea behind all of this was that teams like Williams wouldn’t survive if costs didn’t come down and that they couldn’t compete with the big teams. Now I find it aggravating that the team is still not competitive and they’d like relaxing of the rules that they fought so hard to get in place.

            LET ME MAKE THIS STRAIGHT to the next person who’s going to jump down my throat,
            I don’t disagree with cost cutting measures and think that it’s very IMPORTANT that the smaller teams are looked after.

      2. Oh, almost forgot, read the article… it’s an intimate interview with Frank Williams.

        1. recession was technically over as soon as there where two consecutive quarters of growth, but that doesn’t mean that all the trouble it caused is gone

        2. Cacarella…fair enough…I don’t disagree with you entirely…just not convinced that what SFW is being is a hypocrite. Rather, someone who has been trying to adapt and stay as competitive as possible as time goes along and rules change as a team that doesn’t have all the resources of the biggest teams yet more resources than some lesser ones. I agree it is frustrating that they haven’t been competitive since JV won the WDC in 97, and it sounds like it has become a mystery to SFW as well as to how they haven’t gotten it together by now.

  8. There are many people making similar comments to sw6569, myself included. It’s good to hear that people are passionate enough about Vettel and are appreciating his talent. Usually you can’t hear them for all the stick he gets irrespective of what that weekrnds particular result was.

    1. But it’s trendy to hate the guy in front. When Hamilton joined McLaren and had all that success in 2007 and a World Championship in 2008, a lot of people pointed to the fact that, unlike his rivals, he had never had to spend a season in a bad car. When he did in 2009 and started leading the team, a lot of those complaints vanished. But by then, those people had moved on to disliking Jenson Button, claiming his championship was only because he had a good car and that he coasted to the championship after the Turkish Grand Prix.

      Oddly enough, 2010 was devoid of people hating the championship leader, probably because the leader changed every other week and Vettel didn’t actually lead it until he won it. Instead, hatred was directed at Red Bull for (supposedly) mistreating Mark Webber (but I still reckon there was a lot going on that we didn’t see; we only ever got Webber’s version of events).

  9. I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for more testing, outside of testing young drivers. If everyone can test, we’re pretty much back to Square One.

    1. How about “this is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sport”? It’s like having a world class football team that’s only allowed to practice for 1 week each season. It’s ludicrous! I’d like to see the best engineers with all the tools at their disposal (in that same vein, I’d love to see the technical restrictions significantly loosened”)

      1. As you say, with no loosening of regulations, testing won’t bring us anywhere near that, which is assuming that the idea of an absolute pinnacle – rather than a relative one – isn’t a load of romantic BS in the first place.

    2. But if you don’t have testing you can use ever more expensive and exotic computer simulations and wind tunnel time to beat the low budget teams.

      1. These are increasingly limited by the Resource Restriction Agreement, though.

  10. I’m curious as to how people divorce the car from the driver when deciding who is “driving the car beyond what it is capable of” and those that have “superior machinery”? Webber’s Redbull has been consistently beaten by a McLaren, in fact, one has finished ahead of him in 8/11 races, if I based my decision on that, I’d have to assume that the McLaren was the better car. It seems to me that the only metric we’re using to judge that the Red Bull is the superior car, is that Vettel is dominating with it, how do we divide that dominance between the car and driver?

    1. The reason why I think people are dont think any higher of Vettel is because of Webber, he’s allways been to me a average driver, so being beaten by a world champion mclaren driver doesnt mean much to me. The only way Vettel can get rid of the “its just the car” idea, Is to go against a good driver, Hamilton, Alonso or Kubica would be great for Vettel to boost his reputation. It worked for Hamilton in 07, and it would work for Vettel, except Red Bull are very happy with Webber “not beating” Vettel that they wont replace him, meaning Vettel can run off with his second and third title, and he will remain a a “just because of the car” Champion.

      To me a driver becomes great through their team mate, Senna is considered the greatest, he “only” won 3 titles but his battles with prost are legendary, Schumacher won 7 titles , dominated the sport, but is not consisdered as great because of him team mates, Hamilton reached huge amounts of fame in 07 by beating 2 times champion Alonso. Vettel has had… the mighty Bourdais? or the all conquering Webber?

  11. Only 9 points behind the leader on the quiz leaderboard…now that’s a gap I can close if the right subjects come up. (Very good timing that I’d just read James Allen’s book on Schumacher right before the Schumacher quiz!!)

  12. Also happy birthday to Lucas Di Grassi, who is 27 today

  13. Cancelling the Bahrain Grand Prix didn’t send out a terrible message…all the dithering over the decision did though.

    I think more testing would just spread the field out even more, rather than giving Williams (and Lotus, Renault etc) a chance to make up lost ground.

    1. Very good point made Bullfrog.

    2. When you’ve got teams like Ferrari with vast resources (Maranello for example) then you’re really going to make life complicated for yourself.

  14. About the channel 4 bid.

    The problems with there offer was that they said they coudn’t take the coverage untill 2013.
    Also as I understand it Bernie never praised the Channel 4 bid, He was sceptical of how they would handle F1 throughout & said this publically afterwards.

    Also some of the things they pitch in those documents are unrealistic considering they are not exactly doing great financially.
    I doubt they would have been able to afford archive material or be able to spend enough to be able to maintain the sort of quality the BBC have & what sky no doubt will.

    The way the whole deal played out as I have been told is that when it started to become clear the BBC couldn’t continue there coverage, Sky approached them & pitched them the offer of shared coverage.
    The BBC then informed Bernie they were talking about a deal with Sky & he basically told them to work out the details & then go to him when they have all the details sorted & He would decide if it was a deal worth going ahead with.

    BBC & Sky worked out the details & went back to him together with there proposal which as we know he accepted.

    The BBC wanted to keep the coverage, Only reason they had to consider dropping it was because of the need for budget cuts. They actually desperately wanted to keep F1 which is why they saw the share deal with Sky as a good option as it keeps F1 on the BBC through 2018.
    Also as I hear Bernie loves the way the BBC handle the coverage & He was quite keen for BBC to keep F1.

    I know from when I was at FOM from 98-06 that Sky have made offers to cover F1 in the past. They wanted the F1 Digital+ service but coudn’t untill 2002 due to ITV’s exclusivity deal & they had a deal for 2003 but F1 Digital+ closed at the end of 2002.

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