Yet again I found Channel 4's live coverage a breath of fresh air if only for the variety of opinions and lack of filler. I was somewhat sceptical of the rotating pundit idea but if there's one thing they've improved on the BBC it's that. Belgium with Webber, Prost & Coulthard should be worth a watch.
By comparison Sky have only had Herbert this season with cameos from Di Resta, Hill & Brundle and it has become extremely tired, formulaic and lacking insight. Having said that, Spain was considerably more watchable with Davidson's excellent analysis and without the white noise that is Herbert. I genuinely wish Sky would have the balls to drop him. He has literally no redeeming qualities as a pundit other than the ability to talk for hours without actually saying anything.
I was disappointed (yet unsurprised) by some of the forced narrative on Sky this weekend. They've always had a tabloid style, presumably to fill their excess airtime, but they were scraping the barrel. Their first question to Toto on Saturday was about the rumours of Hamilton taking a sabbatical, an absurd suggestion followed by more questions about favouritism within Mercedes. After Russia I thought they might have had more sense than to bring that up again.
On the grid walk, Brundle put it to Bernie that perhaps the team owners meeting that morning was to discuss pushing him out of the sport which Bernie unsurprisingly dismissed. However moments later Ted 'quoted' Bernie as saying he believed that was the subject of the meeting, a case of putting words in Bernie's mouth to create a story.
Unfortunately the usually brilliant Rachel was pushing Sky's agenda in the post-race interviews too. Lewis was simply asked, "Do you lay the blame anywhere?" and no more on the incident. Nico on the other hand was treated to an interrogation by comparison. It was put to him that he was distracted while playing with the wheel before she attempted to force him to blame Hamilton by saying, "I take it you don't agree with the stewards?" and, "You lay the blame at his door basically". Pretty disappointing line of questioning from one of the better members of the Sky team.
I get the feeling Brundle isn't toeing the line as much this season given some of his input, particularly his scathing criticism of new qualifying, his vocal opposition of the aeroscreen and his quip to Simon when discussing the 'growing popularity of F1'. His upcoming absence in Baku probably didn't go down well either. His honest opinions are the only refreshing thing in Sky's coverage these days.
As for their features, I can only agree with what has been said. If you want a textbook example of how to do a feature, check out this sublime (and very apt) example;
Lee McKenzie meets Verstappen.