F1 Fanatic

Will be watching HD pics from Spanish TV and 5live commentary… as I did this morning for Qualy. BBC hi-lights at 1 were very disappointing, no inbetween chatting. FAIL.

I agee with Spud about Georgie Thompson not being needed. At the moment everything is too awkward, and forced. I think Damon Hill will be a good analyst. I do think this new presenter needs to like himself a little less, but that maybe nerves. Other criticisms for now are the vt’s so far have been a bit poorly edited and unimaginative.

The best parts right now are the things which came from the BBC, but they are established with each other. I am waiting to see how it all turns out. Remember those first shows on the BBC? DC and EJ were awful, and Jake was a fish out of water, but everyone relaxed and improved. As a result today the BBC show was better (not including the cuts in quali) in my opinion.

Oh and does anyone else think brundle looks as though he isn’t enjoying yet?

I missed Jake & DC. Their presenting is much more relaxed and “fun”, for want of a better word. The Sky coverage is more like being talked at. I’ll be watching the BBC build up whenever it’s available. I missed Lee McKenzie too.

The actual on track coverage was good though. I really like Crofty. To be honest I’d prefer to have Ant sat next to him still, but Brundle isn’t awful. One minor point that makes a big difference … the graphics used the whole screen. The BBC annoyed the heck out of me by using the old narrowscreen format for their graphics!

Still can’t stand Kravitz. He tries so desperately to make a drama out of everything. His interview with Boullier had me cringing.

Not sure how much I’ll use the red button stuff, but it’s there in case the racing gets dull I guess. The studio bits with Georgie & Ant looked awful. Like they haven’t finished decorating! A great idea, having Ant analyse the action works well, but it needs a lot of polishing to make it fit in with the rest of the coverage.

Hasn’t cost me any extra money at least. Rating so far: Not awful!

For those saying Georgie Thompson has no role and is generally unnecessary (which I agree with), a quick check of Twitter trends on Friday morning suggested she dragged a *lot* of casual viewers in. While this is somewhat distasteful, it’s obviously working for Sky.

I would suggest Natalie Pinkham could fulfil the same job, while actually getting what F1 is about and doing a better job of it (and having chemistry with Ant from the 5live days).

Also, I thought it was actually really decent for a first show. It has the added bonus that the official online stream is more than double the bitrate of the BBC one, and the Race Control and iPad app actually complemented it well when watching live. Lazenby is obviously unsure of what he’s doing, but so was Jake 3 years ago. I’m willing to give them time, I’m not finding myself missing the BBC much at all.

il be up at 5:30, dont think there will be much covered in the first hour that ive not seen in the past few days ,:-)

It is always easy to snipe, so I will try hard not to. Unfortunately my 1st impression of the F1 show was this way is Essex does F1. Hopefully this will change as new people prove otherwise (hopefully). The format isn’t too disimilar to BBC of recent years (which I have enjoyed) however like others I do feel it is a big over engineered at this stage. But for 1st weekend so far not bad. I like the dedicated channel format and if like me you accidentally set sky + for only the quali build up program and didn’t realise that quali was a separate program you did not have too long to wait until you caught the repeat. I actually missed Jake Humphrey and DC which was a shock however. Martin Brundle stands out, perhaps this is just familiarity but being a saddo, I did watch the BBC highlights for comparison and found MB’s presence was sorely missed. The biggest change however is the absence of ‘The Chain’. It has always been associated with F1 since I was a boy and I kept for joy when coverage returned to BBC and it was restored to its rightful place. I doubt Sky could hijack this part of F1 coverage however. As for the important part – the racing, it will take care of itself and with the added spice of off track controversy and politicking starting already I think this is going to be a classic F1 year regardless of where you are watching it.

sky hd coverage seems ok so far , but everything seems staged for interviews etc, i enjoy the off the cuff catch up that eddie / jake & dc manage when they are walking along pitlane on bbc, skypad is a spin off from football coverage which i dont think really works for f1 , ant davidson is wasted up there, will watch f1 live on bbc when they have races. reminds me of indycar coverage with sky maybe they could get keith heuwen on board :)