I noticed some sites commented on Sunday’s very late-breaking story about Jerome d’Ambrosio joining Virgin, questioning whether the unusual timing of the press release was significant.
Maybe there was, but it’s hardly likely anyone would expect something as obvious as that to go unnoticed. It’s probably just as likely someone set the distribution time on their email software for midnight instead of noon.
Here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Indian Grand Prix is going to be big, says Ecclestone (The Times of India)
Bernie Ecclestone: “No one can repeat what Singapore and Abu Dhabi have managed. I wouldn’t want anybody to copy that actually. I like to see each circuit and race with its own characteristics. The Indian Grand Prix is going to be grand.”
F1 urged to make push for better future (Autosport)
Gerard Lopez: “There is all the historic video content for example – and people would pay. I would, for example, love to really look at the Ayrton Senna/Alain Prost Suzuka accident, and I would pay to have monthly access to any race I wanted to watch. We know that all the races, including all the black and white ones, are now digitised, so there’s a huge amount of historic content that you can sell.”
Name our new pit and paddock (Silverstone)
Enter this competition from Silverstone and win race day hospitality for next year’s British Grand Prix. Share your suggestion for names in the comments.
Comment of the day
Keep an eye out for Adaptalis during the Singapore Grand Prix:
See you guys there! I’m going as a track marshal at turn 16.
Adaptalis
From the forum
Damonsmedley has started a thread to find F1Fanatic users on Twitter.
Site updates
I’m afraid we’re still experiencing some problems with the commenting system. This is affecting a small number of users and causing their comments to go into the moderation queue when they should be published live instead.
Apologies if you’re being affected by this problem, it is being worked on and attempts have been made to fix it but so far without success.
Happy birthday!
No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
One year ago today the WMSC decided Renault should not be punished further following revelation that Nelson Piquet Jnr had crashed his car deliberately to help team mate Fernando Alonso win the race.
The decision did not go down well, with over 70% in a poll of almost 3,000 saying the punishment was too lenient. Renault had dismissed Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds from the team for their part in the plan.
Read more: Renault escape ban for crash
Mike-e
21st September 2010, 1:06
gerrard lopez may want to pay for monthly access to historic racing, but i think it should be freely available as it is part of history. Just because you own the distribution rights to formula 1 doesn’t mean you own its history. Share the history and the future of your sport may be brighter.
Hamish
21st September 2010, 1:22
Amen to that.
I see the sport as somewhat of an elistists club so I have the absolute most respect for people like Lopez and Tony Fernandes when they make the effort to connect with the fans.
Funny thing is, all these improvements are only actioned when someone within the F1 circle mentions it. Im sure 99% (don’t quote me on that) of improvements or changes in the best interests of the fans have either been mentioned on here or other f1 sites.
The sport could save themselves a whole heap of time and money by merely seeing what the consensus is amongst those that actually follow the sport.
codesurge
21st September 2010, 4:45
I agree his thoughts on bringing F1 closer to the audience, especially the bit on drivers interacting with the fans – I remember bumping into Alonso on the way to the paddock in Singapore ’08 and he literally ran away from the fans like we were carrying the plague!
Joey-Poey (@joey-poey)
21st September 2010, 5:27
Considering the schedule they have to keep, I kind of don’t blame them. It’s probably pretty easy for the bigger stars to get caught in a sea of people demanding attention in whatever form. That’s not to say I think drivers NEVER have to interact with fans. I think it’s awesome that some of them stay pretty humble and try to make time. But all the same, they have a job to do and something fans need remember is their weekend is like our weekday with deadlines and things to be done.
BasCB
21st September 2010, 7:32
I agree with a lot he is saying there as well. I don’t think it’s so bad to have the possibility to pay in a way for high quality content on demand or other things.
Just leave the possibility for some self shot footage and lower quality to circulate for free on the internet.
Great to hear Renault’s majority owner wants to develop this. I remember Lopez is close with Bernie, and it would be a lot better to have him take it further than get Bernie to hand Flav the job of promoting F1.
As an afterthought, if is funny to think Kimi offered himself to drive for this guy though, or did he rediscover the fun of meeting his fans in WDC?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
21st September 2010, 1:43
Would you rather the Lopez system where you pay to view historic content, or the Ecclestone system where there is no historic content to begin with?
BasCB
21st September 2010, 8:00
Nice one. I would pick the option Lopez suggests, where the content is available!
18is9
21st September 2010, 9:44
but doesn’t the Ecclestone system actually sell access to historic races to the broadcasters – its just that none of them really has the space in their schedules to air anything, so it’s useless.
codesurge
21st September 2010, 10:19
Now that you mention it, Star Sports did broadcast some F1 classics highlights in Asia last year. Presumably Bernie/FOM-approved?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
21st September 2010, 10:26
Sky Germany do highlight reels from old ’80s and ’90s races too.
Calum
21st September 2010, 10:59
Are BBC redbutton still doing classic races?
bosyber
21st September 2010, 20:46
I have seen some of that on ESPN or Car Channel occasionally too, and loved it. But an “F1 classic” channel as an extra option for my digital subscription would be very welcome, as would an interactive option – I might not watch all the time, but having the option of looking at races, yes please. Surely better than not having it, also for Bernie.
I suppose he is selling it, but at too steep a price to get much traction though.
nik (@nik)
21st September 2010, 17:52
The cost of bandwidth for streaming high-quality video is high. Some of the CDN providers charge up to $2 per gigabyte for streaming video.
I would rather pay for the rights and have it done properly, then complain about not having it for free and not getting it at all.
FOM do need to bring in a new breed of management though, they are stuck in the 70s. Lopez is of the new ilk and understands modern technology and that sports broadcasting is very competitive – so F1 needs to set a benchmark for modern broadcasting, not be stuck in the dark ages.
Feynman
21st September 2010, 19:12
Wasting your time Nik.
Some sort of 19th-century square, daddio? Don’t you realise that everything is free, there are no costs, no not ever, and something for nothing is now a human-right.
Tell you what fellow commenters, let’s all selfishly argue that point back and forth, whilst Keith sits and picks up the bill for bandwidth and server-resource.
Mr Lopez, best of luck; but if we can’t get people to pay for something as neccessary and vital as internet-porn, then trying to flog pay-per-minute access to a compilation of Mansell post-victory press conference could be, err, a challenging exercise in marketing.
Either way, largely moot, if it appeared the whole archive would be cracked, decrypted, voraciously sucked down the wire, and in a mega-torrent by the following weekend.
Which is, sadly, where we came in I think.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
21st September 2010, 2:53
I agree with Gerard Lopez we FOM talks about money all the time so they should let fans access & see some old races, & also why don’t they released DVD’s of old races?
Pinball
21st September 2010, 4:56
I agree with Gerard Lopez that F1 has really failed to embrace the internet.
I’ll use my own personal situation as an example. I live in Australia. In Australia Network 10 (which is a commercial channel with ad breaks etc) has the rights to broadcast Formula 1, which they do on their digital sports channel One / One HD. They broadcast the races live, and only if there is nothing else more important on at the same time (such as Aussie Rules football, or Indian Premier League 20/20 Cricket) then they will broadcast qualifying live, else wise it’s delayed. They do not broadcast any of the practice sessions (excluding the ones for the Australian Grand Prix). So if you want to watch qualifying live, and / or the practice sessions, you’ve got two choices, fiddle around with programs on your computer that make it look like you have an English IP address and watch the BBC broadcast online, which I’ve found to be pretty slow, (probably pretty good if you have an actual English IP address though), or find someone on the internet that is I guess illegally broadcasting a live stream, which works okay (quality is low, which understandable, as I think it’s just other F1 fans using their own internet connection to provide a service that F1 should be providing for it’s fans). So just to try and watch your favourite sport you have to do all these sneaky things, and it’s simply because F1 doesn’t provide any legitimate alternative, such as official internet streaming, like IndyCar does.
Having questioned why they don’t have online streaming, I’m not even sure that they understand the internet? Why take down all the YouTube clips? YouTube is an excellent promotional tool. Why doesn’t F1 have an official channel, and upload highlights from the races? If they did fans could share these links with friends, and in turn gets friends interested in F1, which in turn means a larger fan base, which in turn means more people at races, and more people watching broadcasts, which in turn means more interest from sponsors, which in turn means more money.
codesurge
21st September 2010, 5:03
In my opinion, one racing series that has that nailed down is the FIA GT1 championship. They broadcast the races live over the internet and have also made use of social media to promote their series.
Of course, I can understand why Ecclestone would be hesitant to wander down this path with F1 given the megabucks he’s making from exclusive TV rights to the content providers, so I’m not holding my breath for an official F1 stream anytime soon.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
21st September 2010, 6:24
SPEED gets it wrong here in the US with qualifying. They delay it by 5-10 minutes so they can start the broadcast on the hour and still have time for a lead in before Q1. This makes live timing (the one and only useful thing FOM has managed to offer online) completely useless, as it then just becomes a spoiler. Another rub is that they only broadcast FP2, qualy, and race. They own the rights in the US, they could very easily stream FP1 and FP3 online to IPs within the US, but it is a rarity that they do. Those of you in the UK have it good compared to those of us in the US and Australia (from the sound of it), both in terms of the quality and extent of coverage you get as well the times the majority of races are broadcast.
In any case, FOM could and should be doing a lot more to reach out to the average joe worldwide, and with the myriad opportunities the internet offers for promoting the sport, it seems they’re squandering a great opportunity in favor of pinching a few pennies for Bernie’s vast and expansive pockets. Kind of reminds me of how out of touch the recording and motion picture industries are with regards to how their products are consumed by the masses in the modern age. At least we can hope that like those industries, when the old guard is gone a new, younger, savvier generation will take over and embrace the internet. For the time being it seems that FOM are in agreement with Prince, that the internet is over.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
22nd September 2010, 2:20
@ Pinball
Agree with you they can have their official Youtube page, like you I too is only able to see the qualifying & the race, no practice session for me.
Eric
21st September 2010, 2:55
its about time they let us put short clips of interest up on YouTube or anyplace else and not have it deleted.
its not as if it was a song or video which has actors or singers involved that are going to be done outa money,
we are only promoting the sport when you think about it, not doing anyone out off money.
Joey-Poey (@joey-poey)
21st September 2010, 5:36
Actually, they do hold the rights to those images (except for stuff you’ve shot on your own little camcorder at the track. THAT sort of hassle they’ve made is really silly) and they DO make money from them on the yearly DVD’s and whatnot. They limit who can re-post their content so they have control of where/how it’s released and ensure the best way to see those clips is by buying their product when all is said and done.
That said, I agree that they ought to embrace the internet a little more readily and have their own Youtube page or somesuch besides hosting their race edits on f1.com. They do seem to missunderstand how much social media does in terms of free advertising.
LewisC
21st September 2010, 10:37
I agree. Fair enough they want to maintain the copyright of their ‘official’ recordings, but it REALLY annoys me that even fan-video from the stands is deleted off YouTube.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
21st September 2010, 3:23
There’s talk of Flavio Briatore being Bernie Ecclestone’s successor … but after reading Gerard Lopez’s comments, I think he might be a better candidate for the role. He’d have to give up control over Renault because that’s a direct conflict of interests, but I think he’d be quite good for the role.
BasCB
21st September 2010, 8:02
Maybe keeping warm Renault and making a success of it again before the car manufacturer continues on its own in a few years can be seen as some sort of apprenticeship or test before taking on the whole of F1.
LewisC
21st September 2010, 10:38
Lopez and Ecclestone are very closely linked already, I believe, through Genii Capital. They were trying to buy Saab a while back.
Scribe (@scribe)
21st September 2010, 11:51
I can’t belive Flavs succesion is still on the cards, I mean come on now. Maybe before the whole crashgate debacle but the only one with any hope is Flav, an the mans a loon.
Lopez could be good, but I’ve always hoped for a Premiership style team owned sport, with FOTA as the admin, especially as it’s proved it can be neutral with itself and not tear apart.
Magnafw07
21st September 2010, 4:23
Eric, that would require commonsense, and we are talking about f1.
Mole
21st September 2010, 10:28
BBC broadcasts classic highlights as part of each race weekend but only online/interactive tv. I’d love to be able to watch entire races again in the off season; especially as I only started in 2009. I missed the Hamilton alonso rivalry, reading up on it is no substitute :(
Steph (@)
21st September 2010, 10:36
Whenever Keith links older articles from F1f and I read through the comments I’m amazed at how much I disagree with myself. I think it shows that I’m as consistent as F1 stewards, F1 moves so quickly and that this blog and the community challenege my usually wrong opinions so thank you all!
Also is anyone else being driven mad by the wait for F1 2010? I’m not even a big gamer.
I do have a slightly geekish question but it wasn’t worthy of a forum topic and I’m hoping someone can help. When the teams put their numbers on their cars can they use any font? I swear some look in completely different styles. Sorry, just it’s been bugging me the past few days!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
21st September 2010, 10:47
Yeah there’s no set font but there is a minimum size and restrictions on position I think.
There’s honesty!
Adam Smith
21st September 2010, 11:03
I’d love to read your review of F1 2010 Keith! I thought it was coming early this week. I can’t wait to get it.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
21st September 2010, 11:04
Today or tomorrow…
Alex Bkk
21st September 2010, 11:58
What I’m thinking is that with F1’s resources why doesn’t F1 do it’s very own on line stream so that we don’t have to get it 2nd hand by whoever might be streaming it. I think that would be a good start.
I never get to see free practice except from some choppy stream in a language that I don’t understand.
As far as historical events go… I say give them away as a way of promoting the sport and redeeming the exorbitant costs of racing and attending the vents.
codesurge
21st September 2010, 12:03
‘cos Bernie doesn’t want to upset the content providers who’ve paid multimillions for the exclusive rights to broadcast F1 in their countries.
DGR-F1
21st September 2010, 13:26
Bernie provides the footage anyway, so it wouldn’t make any difference to him if they were upset or not, he’d just end their contract and find another provider……
Ash
21st September 2010, 17:19
Let’s hope the Indian GP is put together a little better than the Commonwealth Games…
José Baudaier
21st September 2010, 20:00
I myself would happily buy a DVD/Blu-ray set containing all (full) races from F1’s first 50 years for example.
bosyber
21st September 2010, 20:52
Yes, I would also like something like that, provided I wouldn’t have to pay around EUR 500 or something like that, which I sort of guess would be the minimum Bernie would ask for it – he probably believes publishers that he needs to aks this money because in no time it will be available on torrents, forgetting that most people who get for nothing then wouldn’t have payed his price for it anyway because they couldn’t afford it. /end rant