Sky Sports F1 HD

Shock as Bernie Ecclestone hands over award to expensive subscription-based broadcaster.

Too cynical?

Sky won the award for what exactly? For forcing us all to suffer Damon Hill's awful attempts at being a pundit?

I can only think of one thing that I enjoyed about Sky's coverage and that was the F1Show. That's it, and even then only on the odd occasion when it was done well. The show with Max Moseley for example was actually very good.

The pre-race build up and post race analysis on Sky were so awful that I just gave up on them after 3 or 4 races.

Brundle? Nope. Kravitz? Nope. They both seemed shadows of their former selves this year.

Coulthard is now for me the top commentator in F1. He to me represents everything that was good about Brundle back in the late 90's.

When you then team him up with Ben Edwards it creates a fantastic balance that reminds me of Murray and Martin, again back in the late 90's, very early 00's.

In my opinion the BBC's coverage was exceptional once again, and I'll do exactly the same as I have done this year, in 2013. I'll only watch Sky if the BBC are not covering the race live.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

I suspect this was a political decision rather than one actually based upon truth.

It says everything about the FIA really.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Glad I'm not the only one who thought like that!

"presented by Bernie Ecclestone at the 2012 FIA Prize Giving Ceremony"

Couldn't get much more cliche than that for a political award...

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You know you want to. [judgegrudge.mybrute.com]




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2012 11:30PM by flat tyre.

DC has developed into a fabulous commentator. He's switched-on, knowledgeable, has great foresight, makes witty comments but not so many it distracts from the race, and he's completely inoffensive - there's not one thing about him I can think of which annoys me. That's a pretty rare combo.

I don't know if he's better than Brundle as such, but he's definitely in the same league, and I never thought I'd be saying that about any other commentator after Murray retired.

And no, Gav, you're not too cynical. That's exactly the kind of thing I would've posted if I hadn't seen your post first.

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He is a brilliant commentator which, to be quite frank, took me completely by surprise. When he was announced as a commentator at the beginning of 2011, I thought that he'd be cringeworthy. I could picture him being a bit nervous and hesitant to say anything, much like when he first started as a pundit. And that's not to mention his thick accent not exactly lending itself to commentary. (btw, does anybody else remember the first BBC broadcast in 2009 very well? It was so different to what we've got used to now, it's unbelievable! I remember it vividly)

But, like you, he's become a favourite of mine now. I really do like this Ben and Dave partnership, it hit the right notes for me even from qualifying in Australia. Just brilliant.

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You know you want to. [judgegrudge.mybrute.com]

I tell you one thing that was exceptional about the BBC coverage this year that not everyone might have got to experience.

Their coverage of the Free Practice sessions with Ben Edwards and John Watson.

Really enjoyed them. Must of been a buzz for anyone who used to watch Eurosports coverage of F1 back in the 90s.

James Allen even got in on the action and was very good with his insight.

Gary Anderson has been fantastic too.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

I will admit to a thing: Ben Edwards has grown on me. There are a few old Eurosport clips doing the rounds on Youtube and these have definitely helped me to appreciate that he's got a greater background in F1 commentary than I first thought.

I'd only ever heard him in BTCC and F1 season reviews, so I've had a partially clouded opinion.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

Do the F1 Season Reviews still have that really awkward commentary style?

I do have the ones from the last few years but I honestly can't for the life of me remember. I know they used to do it in the 90s.

Watch this and you'll know what I mean





Btw, what a race. I miss 1999.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

The BBC, got the commentary teams spot on this year. Even James Allen freed from the moronic ITV fake enthusiasm and dumbing down returned to some genuine insightful contribution. Watson was good as well, it's always good to have a driver from that era, and a long experience of broadcast for a more matured driving insight.

Gary Anderson had a shaky start, but again he settled into being another genuinely excellent addition and who cares about the clipboard and rubber band? His technical analysis was compelling and more often than not on the ball too.

If Adrian Newey can still pen his cars on a drawing board, then I can cope with Gary Anderson using a clipboard. He doesn't lend himself to TV, but he's been a solid pit-lane reporter and does come with some knowledge that Kravtiz can only dream of. Kravitz is the better all-rounder though.

As expected, I really enjoyed James Allen this year. I don't how much was ITV's doing, how much was him not being a natural commentator and following Murray must have come with huge pressure to try to emulate, how much was other commentators after him showing you could do it differently (Brundle, Legard), and he must have known of the fans criticism of his OTT enthusiasm, but he came back sounding much more natural and genuinely enthusiastic rather than Hungary 2006 enthusiastic.

Ben Edwards is a great example of a "set your own trousers on fire" commentary style. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's entirely genuine. It always has been. I didn't get to hear him during the Eurosport F1 days, but I did hear his 90's CART commentary, and him commentating on Michael Andretti and Montoya bashing wheels on the last lap at Michigan at 240mph will be with me to my grave. He goes ultrasonic at times, and only dogs can here him, but I like that. It gets me excited about the racing too - only Murray has done that in F1 previously.

to be honest i wouldn't say there was much between them.

I see a lot on other forums that those that don't have sky have to bash skys coverage and those bought sky for the f1 have to bash the bbc (just to be clear, i'm not saying thats happening in this thread, just a lot of the rows i've seen elsewhere seem to boil down to this)

i've had skysports for years so for me the shared deal had 0 impact. i was quite happy with watching F1 on the beeb, but at the same time i've no issue with watching it on sky either.

for me, the bbc seemed solid as usual(i'm really glad ben edwards finally got his chance) and i thought skys coverage evolved over the season as they got more comfortable with it.(as we saw in 2009 with the bbc)

for every criticism you throw at one theres an equally annoying thing about the other. (eg, sky have the dullness of damon hill, the bbc have the embarrassingly bad eddie jordan)

i'd say i drifted more to watching the races on sky as the season went on but thats mainly because they have all the races live.

2 interesting side effects of the new deal though.
first, i would say i've watched more GP2 and GP3 this year than I've ever done before. (even though GP2 was available on eurosport before, i didn't tend to pay it much attention)

secondly, because i've got sky and the first races weren't live on the bbc, our other F1 fan friends ended up coming over to ours to watch them.
this then started a tradition which stuck for the entire season of everyone gathering at our flat to see the race whether we were watching it on the bbc or not.
which turned it into a more social event which for me at least, was a more enjoyable experience.

Little bit of news. Suzi Perry is going to present F1 on the BBC for next year. and also the 10 races that the beeb will show.

Live Grands Prix:
China, 14 April
Spain, 12 May
Canada, 9 June
Silverstone, 30 June
TBA*, 21 July
Belgium, 25 August
Italy, 8 September
Japan, 13 October
India, 27 October
Brazil, 24 November
* venue yet to be confirmed by Formula One Management

one question... where is monaco?!?

Looks like they have a pretty good selection once again.

Montreal, Silverstone, Spa, Monza, Suzuka and Interlagos are probably my favourite tracks on the calender, so pleased that the Beeb have those.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Was kind of hoping that Lee would get the gig, but Suzi is cool too. Good(ish) selection of live races but not Monaco nor Singapore? WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Suzi Perry?! @#$%& YEAH!
If Lee is like fine Guinness, Suzi is like fine Guinness with an added depth charge of something awesome-tasting.
I'm going to try and keep my enthusiasm on here under control once the coverage starts airing, but might find it a touch difficult. :P

And this news comes on the day I got the keys to my beautiful new flat.
I'm kinda happy right now! :D

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I realise this is a highly subjective topic, but sorry, no.

I liked Perry doing the MotoGP, but she's mid-40s now... Lee McKenzie is a sort of age-less beauty. And more to the point, she's well-informed among the F1 paddock, has been the stand-in and has done so well in the most trying of conditions. Perry has always been a biker chick, albeit a good one, but that seems ever so long ago now.

She's always been more than a casual fan of F1 too AFAIK. I remember in the mid-2000s reading about it and wishing ITV would hire her to present their coverage.

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Boring .... guess it's gonna be sky even with all its foibles. Jake Humphrey was annoying, I think he's best suited where he is and I can't for the life of me, see why they hired this Suzie Perry but I guess they are just limited on real personalities for this sport, my opinion of course.


" Perfection is not a gift ....... it comes with practice."

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