Initial Conditions

F1 coverage is returning to the BBC next season. In the grand scheme of things it makes little difference, but on the whole I am quite positive about this.

The obvious advantage is the lack of adverts, ITV’s constant downfal. They were contractually obliged to show 5 three-minute advert breaks during each race, and while most of the time this doesn’t miss much (you’ll be lucky if you see more than ten seconds coverage after a safety car is deployed), there have been some terrible mishaps. My three “top” ones are:

2005 San Marino Grand Prix. Enthralled by the battle between Schumacher and Alonso, the director neglected to show the last advert break… until the third from last lap. The public missed the last three laps and ITV tried to pass them off as “live” at the end of the ad break. Those who listened to Five Live knew the result, those who didn’t knew they were being duped. Jim Rosenthal grovelled at the following race, but the damage was done.

2006 Japanese Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso exits the pits and ITV cuts to an ad break. While the public was enjoying cat food adverts, Michael Schumacher’s engine blew up at the second Degner. During the afternoon re-run they shifted the ad-break (as commentary still happens for the benefit of other countries who use the ITV feed) so it was less embarrassing (try and find James Allen’s commentary of this incident on youtube, it’s brilliant)

2007 Brazilian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton has a bad error in the first corner but had started his comeback. Cut to commercial, cut the power to his engine. The boy wonder is down in 18th place and we all wonder what on earth happened.

I will admit though that it is tough to decide exactly when to go to an ad-break as anything can happen at any point, butthis is a problem the Beeb has never had.

In other respects, though, the beeb has much to live up to. ITV’s pre-race build-up is often (but not always, I’ll come to that later) interesting and informative, but, judging from the BBC’s Moto GP coverage, this may not be so hard for them to acheive (as a side note, can we please have Suzi Perry front the coverage?). Anyone who remembers how the coverage was before ITV took it knows how vile it actually was, so they will want to improve.

It remains to be seen if the BBC will be as Hamilton-orintated as ITV was in 2007, but if Radio Five is anything to go by, then this won’t be a problem and they’ll find more interesting things to do than interview Hamilton senior every week and more interesting commentators than James Allen. Keep Martin Brundle though, I like him (particularly his outbursts at foreign directors getting it wrong).

Anyway, yes, good thing indeed, very much so. Although I suspect there may some complaints from people who feel their licence fee is going to waste on this (the BBC wisely didn’t disclose the fee), but to be honest that’s exactly how I feel about certain other element’s of the BBC’s output (seriously, all those Lloyd Webber shows and Weakest Link celebrity specials can go jump). You’ll also get the Guardian readers who will argue that the BBC is promoting pollution or some nonsense. All I can say to them is that F1 is currently going through a phase of using biofuel with a view to it one day being used as standard not just there but for all road cars, which is something at least, no? Maybe that’s a weak argument but it’s something.