Formula 1 TV Coverage discussions

Extended highlights are great to be fair, but avoiding all media during the day is painful.

Even radio presenters will say "And Lewis Hamilton has won..." rather than "In the Saudia Arabia Grand Prix which has just ended...." to give you two second to mute.

Coverage is good for a few reasons (money, etc), but atmosphere aside, the truth is F1 is much better to watch on TV than at the track. I spent 2 hours in Singapore, in an good seats near a screen, with little clue what was happening.

Sky is complete and utter thrash. Channel 4's presenters are 1000 times better. They have a better grasp of facts, they're more informative, they're more impartial, and they're far better to listen to without exception. Coulthard and Webber both have a very strong understanding of what's going on, to the extent that they predict things so well I sometimes wonder if the commentary is recorded post race, but then they do make incorrect predictions too so I'm pretty sure they don't. The Welsh guy (can't remember his name) makes a good anchor, knows his role and moves things along nicely. Lee McKenzie is a good interviewer and asks the right questions. I was a long term fan of Ben Edwards since his Eurosport days with John Watson but Alex Jacques has slotted in and replaced him quite comfortably.

Meanwhile on Sky the only people who ever come across as actually knowing what they're talking about are Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg, but they only make occasional appearances when the clowns like Hill or Herbert take a weekend off, presumably so they can focus all their minute brain power for a week to coming up with their next inane xenophobic conspiracy theory.

Crofty is annoying as hell and seems completely incapable of following what's happening in a race. Di Resta has an amazing knack for droning on endlessly without actually saying anything at all. Davidson has a fair grasp of what's happening but they usually cut him off and talk over him when he has the cheek of analysing facts and not going along with the tabloid narrative of the day that they're trying to push. Rachel Brooks seems to think she's there to cheer up the drivers rather than interview them. Brundle does have a sharp wit but he's also increasingly bitter as he gets older, always going on about his bugbears and getting on his high horse, in addition to making it very clear from his tone which teams and drivers he does and doesn't like and allowing it to colour his commentary significantly. And Simon Lazenby fronts it all while never failing to hide the fact he'd rather be talking about football.

And due to Sky's exclusivity deal, our only other legal option is the C4 highlights after the fact. We're locked out of the F1TV streaming service that the rest of the world gets and which costs a fraction of what Sky charge for the privilege of listening to their garbage.

When they do the on-board graphic in the driver list, the image is too small. And they cut away to replays, as said before, they need to keep a second picture in picture or side by side.

I would like an F1 world feed option for audio. I've had enough of Croft. Bring back Allen!

I watch F1TV - didn't notice it during any of the on-track action, but during the post-quali interviews (i.e. when you can actually see the people speaking) the audio was definitely out of sync. Not by a lot, but noticeable. I had just put it down to my own equipment though.

Monaco has it in the contract that they do the TV production each year. So it's a local who directs it and it's mostly people who do the local news and whatnot.

FOM provide the in car cameras but it's then sent off to a truck that's not normally used for F1.

Years ago it didn't matter as most races were done by a local team who focused on the local driver or team and now we are used to the FOM feed being pretty good. (It's not perfect!!) But its a hell of a lot better than years ago.

I watched a youtube video recently that said they are looking to upgrade the in-car cameras soon. Something about a 360 camera? Your always going to have latency it's on a car going 200Mph around a 6km circuit even fiber takes time. Remember the time when it went under a bridge and it dropped out? Ah they were the days.

What about Skys fixation with Christian Horner ??? 🙄

I think their commentary team and presenters are excellent.

Croft - hes fine, knows his stuff.

Brundle - absolute class, knowledgeable, and a bit of sarcasm when he wants.

Button - really good, relaxed and of course knows his stuff also..

Chandhok - very good also, also understands whats he explains ..

Patrick - hmmm, a bit 'excitable' for me ... says a lot, but doesnt really say anything ...

DiResta - very good.

Davidson - very good explaining the details.

But their love in with Horner every weekend is very annoying to me, and i like Red Bull.. !

Theres other teams in the pits !!!

Agreed on the coverage, though I didn't have much success activating via a VPN. I ended up signing up legitimately while visiting the Netherlands.

I haven't had to activate the VPN to watch yet, and back in Ireland after watching Monaco away.

Maybe once after login, or even (thinking back) it wouldn't log into the tv app because the VPN was active. (That was the issue for me signing up via VPN - i followed the steps on the bargain alerts thread but it didn't work out)