Partly agree, but Hamilton was unlucky with the safety car and red flag timing, he'd just done a pit stop from 2nd place and switched tyres for a one stopper! And at the end, Vettel was never going to get past, as his soft tyres were way past their best by then and he was pushing too hard when he went off.

Channel 4 will be my F1 supplier, and I was impressed with this first attempt. Steve Jones is much better than I expected. Professional. Knowledgeable. Gave the impression that he genuinely knew what he was talking about, unlike Susie, who always appeared to me to have swatted up just before the programme aired and seemed to think that she was ever so clever to be a gurl talking about F1. Which is surprising really, 'cos she was very good in Motgp. DC was totally overwhelmed by the sheer force of Mark Webber, but he and Ben Edwards were, as usual, fine in commentary. Good input from Lee (thank gawd they persuaded her to climb aboard) and Karun. I'm guessing they'll both have more to do in the full live programmes.

All in all, very happy. I got the impression that C4 are keen to do a good job, whereas I think the BBC lost interest as soon as they had to give Sky the lions share of the cake. The adverts mid race on these highlights programmes isn't such an imposition because you know that you're not going to miss anything important. The editing seemed to be well done, with only one occasion when I momentarily lost track of where we were.

I hadn't been looking forward to Murray's bits, but in the event it was amusing to see a couple of brief clips of him trying to play The Chain, allegedly, on a guitar. If his appearances are limited to that sort of cameo, fine.

I'd say eight out of ten. maybe even nine. Pretty good for a first attempt at a highlights programme.

Breaks on a highlights show is no biggie. The acid test is what they do on live coverage. Race commentary was no different to hearing it on the BBC with the important exception that Karun Chandhok was definite added value for his technical input from the pit lane which I missed from when he contributed to the 5 Live radio coverage of free practise in former years.

How much of the race did they show? I think BBC showed about 1hrs worth.

Someone did a summary of laps lost in the highlights over on the coverage thread.

Yeah, It was kind of "swings and roundabouts" for Hamilton.

Prior to the red flag he'd set himself up for a solid 2nd place and any advantage that strategy might have yielded was negated by the red flag.
On the other hand, Ferrari failed to take the opportunity to counter Hamilton's strategy so it worked out in the end.

Fundamentally, though, if a car/driver can't pass other cars, they don't really deserve the win and Hamilton just couldn't get past either of the STRs he was stuck behind at various times.

Australia tends to yield some strange performances though, even if they're not always reflected in the results.
Maybe it's something unique about the track layout or surface or maybe it's just that the teams & drivers are a bit "rusty" at the first race.
I think we need to wait another couple of races to get a true idea of relative perfomance.

If things ARE as they currently appear, it'll be interesting to see how things work out through the rest of the season though.
After all, the Ferraris (or any of the other cars) don't seem quite as fast as the Merc's and if the Merc's can't scythe through the field then it's going to cause problems for all the top drivers at some point in the season, no doubt.

Also possibly worth noting that, despite another cycle of development, Button's McLaren spent most of the race running in last-but-one position, only ahead of a Manor.
Ron Dennis is probably relieved that the media has other things to talk about - for the moment.

Thank god they got rid of the Quailyfing format it worst idea they have had for sometime and should never try it again

Alonso was a very lucky boy to escape without injury, also great race and well done to the Hass team for finishing the points on first gp

Plus did Ferrari make a mistake by not changing Vettel's tyre's when the red flag was out

C4 have said previously that live races would be shown in full, uninterrupted by adverts (presume there might be more ad breaks before and after the race to compensate for that).

I was pretty impressed with C4's coverage, it felt slick and modern, opening credits looked awesome. Steve Jones needs a bit more time and at least 1-2 live races before we can really judge but so far I'd say he's doing better than Suzi did when she first started. He's presented a variety of things (I remember him doing '1001 ways to leave a gameshow' on BBC a few years ago), albeit uncertain if he's previously covered anything live, but he should have enough experience to be able to deal with anything.

I'm not the biggest fan of Hamilton (he just comes across as smug to me, not sure why, but has done for a few years) so I was pleased he didn't win today, but fair play to him for coming back from that bad a start. Nice podium for Vettel (my personal favourite driver, have supported him since his Toro Rosso days), and Raikkonen had awful luck again - if he'd been able to go to the end then I think he could have possibly been in the mix for the podium places.

I don't feel this season will be the boring procession that it was last year - Ferrari seem to be closer to Mercedes, Haas will be exciting to watch to see how they do compared to the established teams, Maldonado is out so not as many safety cars needed

Roll on Bahrain!

Qually was a complete disaster but at least they've dumped the changes. Steve Jones did a good job and overall the coverage was pretty good though the adverts just seemed to happen at random but it was highlights so I'm sure they won't do that for a live race. The good news was EJ didn't appear.

As for the race there was some good overtaking and wheel to wheel stuff and Palmer did well on his first start as did Grosjean finishing in the points for Haas and Alonso's crash was about as scary as it gets.

The (very) short clip of Murray Walker worried me.
He didn't look (or sound) well at all.....

C4 did a good job and I read they will not air adverts dduring a live race, anyone remember when |itv went to a break and missed the final laps and winner..you could hear the russtle of p45s being handed out post that.

But Im a sky sports f1 bod, love the build up and the reaction to the race more than the race itself, so highlights dont cut it for me.

But like I say 4 did brill, Msrk was a fav driver of mine,his over take at Orougue sp? was mind bending mate.

Just read the sad (but inevitable) news that Sky have exclusivity of live broadcasts from 2019 they're putting the British GP live onto a freeview channel every year apparently, but even that just feels like throwing a scrap out for the dogs to feed on.

So highlights only. Won't make me buy sky, I think their coverage is crap tbh.....but don't like the thought of no more full or live F1 races either.


Thanks sky.

Get yourself a NowTV box and you can buy a days sports pass for £6.99 or a whole weeks (so you can watch quali and practice etc) for £10.99.
That's what I do!!

Sad news for F1 to be going pay to view. This is reported to have had a terrible effect on German audiances. Then the lower viewing figures are meaning less revenue to the sport from sponcors at all levels and can lead to team or drivers not being able to compete.

The most important thing, that I think we are all forgetting, is that Bernie gets his money. Without this deal he could have been out on the street.

As much as I enjoy watching F1 I'm not going to give Sky any money ( not for this or any of their channels ). Can't understand why anyone would pay to watch channels with adverts.

Oh well, bye bye F1.

Beginning of the end, its not as if its such an exciting sport now that new and existing fans will pay the premium, I have Sky and the races are shown as a part of the package I have (not inc Sports) but if this changed I wouldn't pay for Sky Sports just on the basis of getting F1.

I

Every sport that goes to PPV is lost. I haven't watched boxing for years & now have no interest in it, I have no interest in cricket now & so on. I will watch F1 as long as RTL & Channel four have it. After that I will get whatever free means there are going. We all knew it was the thin edge of the wedge when sky got it.

The torrent sites usually have a file of the entire coverage within 3 or 4 hours of the race finishing, in HD and 5.1 sound as well...avoid the news for a couple of hours and this is one way that people may use to watch the race 'as live' and for free, should they be minded to do so of course.

Anyway, let's not wish our lives away, we still have 3 full seasons and have to be grateful that ch4 jumped in (probably regretting they did now!). I'm sure sky were ready and keen to start their exclusive right now. At least it's 2 fingers to them for a while.

BT Sport is as much to blame for this as sky. Once BT started challenging sky's football empire it means sky had a lot of content budget to look at spending elsewhere. Also they have to find other sports to make exclusive to sky to try and build up the prestige of their sports channels.

Personally I think Sky's F1 coverage is exceptional and is pretty much the only content that keeps me with Sky these days. However it's a real shame and potential disaster for F1 to go fully PPV in the UK. I would expect attendances to the British GP to drop and the race to eventually disappear. Bernie doesn't care, though, as long as he replaces UK viewers & fans with viewers elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Grand Prix Drivers' Association wrote an open letter complaining about the decision making and governance of F1. Ecclestone replied largely agreeing with them which made me smile bearing in mind his role in all that and one of the GPDA's complaints was the aborted qually rules which he was and is still keen on. Ecclestone is actually part of the problem.

Interestingly the GPDA seem concerned about the demise of live races on FTA in terms of its impact on the popularity of the sport.

Well that's that then. As of 2019 Formula 1 will be all but dead to me. Just when you think the sport couldn't be hammered any further, out they come and prove us wrong. Sky TV... massive subscription fees and ads galore (generally, not a comment about their F1 coverage)... no wonder they can afford to destroy so much.


Oh yeah, because that's value for money!

This could pose issues for the teams - if less people watch, sponsors will be a little less lavish with the cash, - although if F1 keeps going the way they are, will their be any interest in 2019?

on another note:

I have a good idea - lapped cars are disqualified during the race!

that would give em the hurry up!

Perhaps ITV could make a bigger fuss of its Formula E coverage to compensate.

If teams' budgets are driven down by this move then maybe it will move back to rewarding the best engineers rather than those who can afford to scatter-gun solutions at the car.