F1 Fanatic

China 2010. As I live in the UK, I decided to record the China race as it was on at 7am. Hoping for a lye in on a Sunday morning, I got woken up at 9am (2hours after race start) by my Nan as she was dropping off my niece, I had to look after her with my mum. I thought, I might as well get up now, so I rushed downstairs, gave my niece a kiss and said hello to my Nan, then rushed to the remote and switched on the TV. Covering up my eyes, I improvised with the Sky remote to get on the recorded race, also pressing mute just in case it was already on the BBC channel. I got it all set up perfectly, yes!! Jamie, your a genius! Only to hear from my Nan, slowly sitting down, “I see that Button won the race.”

What!?!? Please don’t tell me she just said that! She repeated it again. My Nan has no interest in F1 whatsoever, but the one time I decided to record a race, she does!! It was torture, horrible. Being 20 at the time, you thought I would of been mature enough to let it go over my head, NO! I was in the biggest sulk ever.

Being a Hamilton fan, I didn’t like the fact I had to watch the whole race knowing Button got his 2nd in for McLaren that season, and having to find out Hamilton would not win this race. So where would he finish? The only upside (slightly) was to watch Hamilton carve his way through the pack to finish a few seconds behind Button in 2nd place.

Since that day, I have never recorded a race again.

I missed Singapore GP 2008. I had just arrived in the Netherlands and I didn’t have a TV or an internet connection for the first two days, so I had to wait to download it a day or two after. I ruined it for myself by going to a friend’s place and checking on f1.com and finding out Alonso actually won it.

@JT19 ‘I decided to record the China race as it was on at 7am. Hoping for a lye in on a Sunday morning, I got woken up at 9am (2hours after race start)’

And you call yourself an F1 Fanatic!!! Missing a race FOR A LIE IN!!!

Freeview+ box let me down with Singapore 4. I was out for most of race, it didn’t record. Set highlights in evening to record, they didn’t either. Eventually downloaded it from iPlayer

The last time it happened to me was Brazil 2008 qualifying, the climax of that great duel between the cream of British and Brazillian talent. I was at swimming club during qualifying, but some of my friends’ parents had qualifying on the TV while we swam. I came out of the pool, met with Dad (who’d been shopping to avoid the session) and went to leave “to see qualifying without it getting spoiled”. Cue one friend’s parent saying, “So you don’t want to hear that he came 4th?” Given that said parent barely knew what F1 was, probably didn’t know what “spoiled” meant in the context of a sport and that this anecdote happened in Britain, everyone else immediately figured out who “he” was. And just in case anyone was in any doubt, she then said, “Not Lewis’ greatest day.” That was the last time F1 qualifying got screened in my local leisure centre on a Saturday night…

A few times in 2008 and 2009 (before the BBC worked out how to avoid visual spoilers in mid-2009), the thumbnails for races on ITV Player and iPlayer sometimes had the winner spraying champagne on the podium, most notably for Italy 2008′s underdog victory. On the 2009 occasions I was helping Dad avoid spoilers, though there was one occasion in early 2008 where I was the one who got a result ruined that way (can’t remember which race, but it wasn’t the Italy one).

There was also that spectacular near miss in Austria 2002. I was at a gala and my parents had kindly recorded the race on tape (I think this is the only race we have on tape, but I don’t know where the recording was stored). It was very late when I got back, and given that I had exam preparations to attend in the morning, it was agreed that I’d watch the F1 on returning home. My parents understood that I wouldn’t want to be spoilered and my classmates had seen F1 as deeply uncool since Damon Hill stopped doing well in it. Should have been easy – except one of the staff suddenly asked my group of friends, apropos of nothing, “Do you know what happened in the F1 race yesterday? That was very wrong”. I had to hurriedly explain my situation to her, which was thankfully enough to change the subject. Later she asked me what driver I supported. On answering “David Coulthard”, she said “That was a relief, for if you’d said Michael Schumacher, we’d have to have fallen out.” So between these two comments I knew Michael had done something spectacularly controversial. Thankfully I concluded he’d merely crashed into someone perhaps a bit clumsily, rather than the infamous “team orders” incident. Otherwise that could have really ruined the suspense…

Last year the Canadian Grand Prix started here in Aus at 3am. I had to work but who cares, so I woke up and was ready to watch.

Well, we all know what happened with the rain delay, and seconds after the restart, the TV coverage on free to air (all I had at the time due to ONE going digital only) went to the scheduled morning news, and would not resume coverage except on their digital channels. I had no way to watch the race so went to work wanting to know what happened.

I looked it up on the f1 site and found out Button had won, after going from last to first twice and slipping in past a Vettel mistake, making up for being robbed at Monaco! Then, moments later a colleague mentioned how he had recorded the entire race, live on digital, and would put a copy on the company server. So I still got to watch it, but the best race by far of the 2011 season could have been better had I not been in a rush to find out what happened after the 2 hour rain delay.