Really intense title decider, not what i was expecting today. Enjoyed that.
Hamilton made it a bit more of a race I suspect. Not sure what he did was right though in spirit.

Nice one Rosberg, enjoy it!
Johnny was getting a bit histerical with Paddy there, glad the camera went off and followed Nico and Vivian.

I don't really understand why it would be considered controversial to do so. In my 25 years of watching F1 I can't remember such an undeserving title - nothing against Rosberg as it's not his fault but he clearly wasn't the best driver this season.

Congratulations Nico, brilliant race, brilliant season, well deserved.

Agreed, Lewis had to cover all bases to try and win the Championship, there was an oustsde chance right up to almost the last corner, so no one in their right mind would have said, 'Yes OK I will give it all away' !

Rosberg knew he only needed 3rd place so was quite happy to sit behind Hamilton, and not risk an overtake move.

Mind you, he could have let Rosberg past at the very last moment, but... its a race afterall, the aim is to win surely, not let someone else !

Racing on track you say? - **** that, lets cut to a random and pointless shot of Rita ****ing Ora!
More racing happening on track you say? - Nah, lets cut to a random and pointless shot of Rosbergs missus!!
Ooooh, look, Hamiltons Mum, or another random celeb that apparently is WAY more important than the racing on track!
FOM are a bloody joke!!! What a shambles of TV coverage from FOM.

Channel 4 were awesome this weekend. Every weekend they're on live, it reminds me of how much im going to miss the coverage they provide when it becomes Sky-Exclusive.
I flicked over to Sky during the C4 breaks and was instantly left bored rigid with their obsession with over-analysis and Johnny Herbert talking his usual bollocks!

2016 Season - The Verdict: Poor season, little to rave about, hoping 2017 is better or it will be my last!

So funny and yet spot on.

So where's Jenson going? BBC, Sky or C4?

Channel 4

We had both Sky and C4 running here, obviously the pictures were the same, the presenting I would go 50/50 C4 did get hysterical in lots of places, and were also very pro - Lewis, (nothing wrong with that, ) which some on here seem to think is a big No No ! One plus point with C4 is Webber, still think Sky have the edge overall

The Ex-FOM person at F1Fanatics has said that the FOM TV directors do what there told to do by Bernie & CVC as far as showing the trackside ad's, Celebrities etc... goes & that if they were left to do what they wanted to as in the F1 Digital+ days we would be getting the level of coverage we were seeing from them back then.

People complain that F1 is too technical, too emotionless & too cold. Showing that drivers are human & not robots & do have families etc, and showing that there are crowds in the grandstands (I remember when the complaint used to be: "No crowds shots I see, must be cos the grandstands are empty LOL") helps to humanise the sport & make it more accessible. Too often we here people saying "Well F1 does nothing for its fans, it's not fan-inclusive."

Now, I do think that such reaction shots should be kept to a PIP window, much like BT Sport do (or used to do) with their 'BT Box' on football matches, which is showing the manager or whatever while the main action shows the pitch.

So yes, whatever broadcasting reasons are keeping FOM from using PIP windows, it would be nice if they could be dealt with so that PIP can be used to show replays, reaction shots, anything really. It's less jarring then...

Is that official ?

People tune in to the broadcast to watch the race, to watch the drivers do their job on the track not to see pointless shots of their family, which celebrity has been gifted a entry pass by a team or the crowd at the race.

Even the shots of both Massa and Button during the last two races were annoying, and they were sort of understanding, they are infinitely more important than a singer or a socialite best known for shagging on video.


PiP would be better, but most of the are pointless. Most people won't care about how Nico's wife was reacting. We all know she would have been nervous we don't need to see it.

I'm not totally against drivers family's or even team personnel been shown during a race as I do think that at times it can help get across the tension & how much a big result can mean, However I do think that FOM should look at PIP or Split-screen so that it doesn't take us away from been able to watch the track action.

I think an example where seeing drivers wives/teams added something to the coverage was the closing laps of the 1989 Indy 500:
https://youtu.be/OYUjCX5s0DQ?t=2h57m13s
That really helped get across how much tension there was & how important & big winning that race was.

If that's the case then let's hope Liberty Media try to change things drastically.

Unlikely. They are from the land that brought us over-exposure of celebrities: America. Look at the Kardashians, such a pheonomeon was unknown in 2002 when F1Digital, was dying out, but now a few years later, celebrity culture has invaded sport, music, film, tv, everything.

Look at other "extreme sports" (which will be the angle Liberty will frame F1 as) like the Red Bull X-Games, its all about the celeb factor, and even in other American sports, you have celeb singers singing the national anthem for TV, and look at the NFL superbowl, a whole half-time show that has sod all to do with American Football and is basically a music concert designed to hawk products via over-hyped TV adverts for all kinds of unrelated tat...

That's the American way, and I bet you, F1 will go down that route now that they're owned by an American media conglomerate..

Even if they are instructed to do it, they still surely have the freedom to choose when to cut to the pits, at points we seemed to just go pit shot to pit shot with barely any track action between, its not like there aren't plenty of boring bits of that circuit to slip in an occasional 2 or 3 second garage shot without lingering on Rita Ora with a face like a slapped arse for half a lap. Pit shots can help add to the tension if used right, but if they take you out of the race too much they have the opposite effect.

I personally didn't see Rita Ora, but I might have got her confused with Nico's girlfriend. I can understand the shots of Jenson's family etc. as it was his final race. It'll be interesting to see how many new fans they bring the sport though, if they tweet/instagram/whatever about it to their millions of followers. Celebrities have die hard fans who'll do anything for them, so if a celeb says they like you, then you've got a new fan. Times that by a few million

I remember visiting Westfield Shepherd's Bush several years ago, when the Kardashian sisters were extolling the virtues of Dorothy Perkins in the main atrium. A crowd of hundreds of women were there and plenty of bemused boyfriends/husbands too.
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I listened to the conclusion of the race on 5live as I find this Tilkedrome sends me to sleep. Thanks to #44 for livening up the end, many may think it was desperation, but Jack and Allan seemed very, very excited by Hamilton's intentional lack of pace.

As usual with most F1 races nowadays, its the dull middle part that's annoying.

So I wonder what's the thread think of the broadcasters this year?

Think Sky need to freshen up a bit but a good effort this year. C4 have made a great impact since taking over from the BBC.

Rubbish end of season review clip from Channel 4. BBC's always used to be fantastic.


I agree that Sky need to change things around a bit but on the whole i've still been happy with there coverage.

I've not watched a lot of the C4 coverage this year but from the bits I did see there pre/post race stuff seems good but I still just don't like there commentary as I just don't like DC's style of commentary & don't think that Ben is anywhere near as good as he was in the past.

I know that Croft gets a lot of critisism on here & at times I think he deserves the criticism but I still prefer him & Brundle over Ben & DC.



Sky over-running waiting to see Rosberg/Mercedes celebrations so I hope they don't drop the Senna V Brundle program as I was looking forward to watching that.

Watching the pit crew or celebrities's faces when something happens is like trying to watch a Youtube video by watching the numerous reaction videos!
IMO of course.

Also, that shot of Jorge someone and Federer talking during the last 10 or so laps... They clearly didnt care about the race.

(FOMFan, how could you miss Rita Ora? She was named on screen!)

They clearly understand that racing is not all about going as fast as you can and legging it into the distance.

Lewis didn't need to run off into the distance, he needed Nico to get overtaken to win the title. Today Mercedes have once again shown they are not the fair and equal team they like to claim to be. The facade slipped today.

There was no reason for them to interfere in the race today, the constructor's title was already wrapped up (in reality it was months ago), and they should have just let the driver's race. The only thing that should have been important today was the WDC.

They were effectively telling Lewis to let Nico win the championship, that doesn't sit well with me. Sod off Mercedes, the race result didn't matter it is the final race of the season, the result of the driver's championship is what mattered today.

I never get this opinion. A lot of sports involves trying to hamper your opponent.