F1 Fanatic

He really moved the F1 presenting game on with the live broadcasts wandering around the paddock, but recently Jake’s been more self-satisfied and irritating (also BBC have a great replacement in Lee McKenzie) so I won’t miss him.

A bit surprising if he’s gone for an exclusive deal with BT, when some presenters like Clare Balding seem to be everywhere, on different channels, these days.

If he thinks being sat in a studio once a week with some wooden footballers is moving his career on, then I feel a bit sorry for the guy. But I also wonder if he’s had enough (or Mrs Jake has told him he’s had enough) of all the travelling that goes with F1?

A shame, but not the end of the world. Considering we only see him ten times a year anyway…
I don’t think Lee should host it though, she is definitely good at interviewing drivers but I think there are better anchor’s around.

Seems a bit of a kick in the teeth to the BBC, after all the faith they’ve put in him. I presume a big reason is so he can spend more time with the family – he must spend an enormous amount of time on the road currently.

Jake was really the last bit of why I even watched the BBC’s feed anymore – and now he’s off, I’ll be off too. I was so hoping the article was going to say Jake left the BBC Corporation for Sky (which at least keeps him in the F1 circle)

I’m slightly confused by this. I thought that Jake was all set to be the BBC’s next big sports anchor having hosted the Superbowl, F1 and the Commonwealth Games. After he’d hosted the Commonwealths there were suggestions that it was a warm-up for the Olympics which he ended up not presenting.

I suspect there’s an element of family reasons (it’s hardly sociable to be flying all over the world every other weekend!) as well. It’s a real shame that the BBC insist on having the most inane, highly-paid, smug, self-satisfied, useless presenters on Match of the Day. If it was about opportunities or being at home more, surely the BBC could have ditched Lineaker….

I think Lazenby is far more suited to a studio role, as what little I’ve seen of him outside F1 was pretty good. You still feel there are people better suited to the role, though, and within Sky at that.

Big blow for the BBC to be losing Jake Humphrey though. He really has become the face of F1 in the past few years, and while Lee McKenzie is able, she lacks that je ne sais quois which the best presenters have.

Think this is a family thing mainly. From that point of view, I understand and respect his decision.

It’s a shame that Jake’s leaving, but he seems to be doing it for family (using the BT deal as more local work), so I can’t hate him for it..

About Lee, she was very good when it came to covering the Canada highlights, but unless they get rid of EJ and DC (at least in their front-row pundits selection) I don’t see Lee being as popular. Perhaps the BBC are looking to mix things up by changing things around? I’d say more Gary Anderson would be very interesting, possibly a throw back to Brundle’s technical stuff for BBC/ITV.. There’s always a chance James Allen and Jaime Alguesuari could progress to the TV feed (although I’m not sold on Jaime yet, James is already proven good)