I've just put up a load of links on the current Freeview Motors TV thread for those who still want to see some live race action or race highlights now Motors has gone from Freeview Ch. 240.

I'm pretty certain it wasn't meant to be a joke, the facial expressions of Johnny and Alonso show that. Especially Johnny's reaction- he didn't look like he took it too well!
And I think to call the piece from Herbert 'well thought out' is not an assessment that I would support, as discussed earlier. That is probably why Alonso was so angry, it was a bit of a hatchet job to be honest.

Most of the new HD onboard footage looks great (especially the Williams) but some cameras offer a blurry mess unfortunately.

This is hugely reminiscent of Herbert's rant against Grosjean - stating that he completely lacked the capability and spacial awareness to ever be worthy of being a F1 driver. He was absolutely wrong then, and is absolutely wrong now.

Herbert veers from bland inanity to ridiculous hyperbole. In his style he lacks the capability and awareness to ever be worthy of being a pundit. That he has been Sky's go-to guy for any punditry slot on any show is completely to their shame.

Channel 4 don't hang around when the session ends do they.

Nor did BBC.

I'm actually liking the Channel 4 coverage much better then BBC's past efforts.

I think Channel 4 & Whisper films are doing a fantastic job so far.

Although the Ch 4 graphics have Hamilton's point difference as +7 rather than -7, which seems a bit strange.

Lots of Bernie time across all outlets this weekend, great summary by Lee of the qualifying changes - one of Sky's failings is that they expect viewers to have read every tabloid, magazine and website when they're discussing the 'big news'.

Early days but yes, I think it's fine. I hope Steve Jones settles down into the role okay, he'll need a few races.

Must say though that Karun Chandhock is an excellent choice, most informative and clearly knows what he's talking about and has a very easy style. I could listen to him all day.

It may not be something you support but it is an opinion that he has thought through and used multiple viewpoints to support. It may not be correct but it was well thought through as an opinion piece.

Bernie talking crap again on C4!
Blaming the teams for the qualifying fiasco because they voted for it instead of something else he might have come up with that could have been worse????

Meanwhile, Jones & Webber calling it exactly as it after that interview with Eddie Jordan.

I disagree with Bernie entirely on the engine front (although the fuel flow limit should be scrapped), but as for qualifying, I don't have a problem with a time penalty based on the driver's result in the previous race. It's not that gimmicky as a reverse grid or a random ballast, and it still requires the driver to push to the max in qualifying.

Watching C4 with the DC, DR & DK driving around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and really enjoyed the car-car radios.
Can you imagine how much fun that would create when Rosberg and Hamilton are chasing each other down. The sledging would be amazing. Even in the last race the conversation that Vestappen would have had with Sainz would have been really interesting!

But would they, There's nothing stopping them running with the engine turned down or without the ERS enabled to try & qualify lower down so that they start higher up when the grid is mixed.

Think back to when we had the single lap sessions, I can recall times like the 2004 British Gp where drivers would back off in the 1st session in order to get an earlier start time for there Q2 lap if rain was expected towards the end of Q2 (Funnily enough they just showed this on Sky as I was typing).

Surely there's one way to be able to continue with qualifying in its current format:

state that cars must start quali with full tanks of fuel, and have a tyre (such as the hard compound) that the cars will just be able to run on.

Doing that, you would think you'd have the all (or most) cars on track at the same time as they'd want to be burning fuel to be able to set the fastest time possible come Q3.

Edit: That Q2, was as bad as, if not worse than Q3 in Australia.

I doubt they'd gain much tbh. It all depends on how you apply the penalties, and how big of a penalty they are. Also, if the penalties apply to all the top 10 point scorers, then they'd go down en-masse surely (If their quali pace is as good as their last race pace), so I think a lower runner would only gain 1 or 2 places tbh. I don't think that qualifying much slower would make a difference. If it was a reverse grid, i'd understand, but it's not. It'll be the equivilent of a driver qualifying on pole (providing he's won the previous race) say being penalised so that he gets pushed down to 5th.


What I don't understand in this format (or qualifying in general tbh), is that Rosberg had like 4mins remaining in Q1 today, yet he backed off immediately after failing to beat Hamilton's lap the 1st time round. But why did he back off? Surely if you've got 4 mins it's worth giving it another lap or two?

Tyres & fuel.

The tyres are only at there best on the 1st lap & so they only fuel the car for 1 hot lap at the end because according to Brundle every lap of fuel you carry cost's you 1 tenth.


Anyway still didn't like it, I thought both Q1 & Q2 were worse than they were in Melbourne. Was less track action Less tension/excitement & the segments were both over early again.

Q3 was better because Ferrari did a 2nd run but ultimately it still wasn't as good as under the old format where more often than not you would have the top 10 all out the end & we still had the positions decided with 3 minutes still to go.

That's messed up, the tyres should be able to do more than 1 lap at their best, and the driver should be able to make up for that fuel defecit on track by pushing harder, or maybe the FIA should enforce a minimum fuel level for qualifying and forbid refuelling during the whole hour, to ensure that drivers don't underfuel that badly, at least you'd get some (engine disparity aside) more equal performance re. fuel level then. Or better still: Bring back tyres solely for qualifying, that let a driver knock in 15 or so quick laps before qualifying finishes (Regardless of the quali format used). I hate this nonsense about "You have to start your race on the tyres you qualified from", cos that incentives you to run less then, because you want to preserve your tyres for the race.

If they were to tweak they could do the following.

Eliminate say 2 after 7 minutes (and perhaps making the change that if you start your lap it is allowed to count), so in effect keeping the need for everyone to race at the start of the session, but then only eliminate the remainder at the end of the session.

So perhaps you have a lot of activity at the start of the session, and then also at the end. (Perhaps wishful thinking on my part.)

Yet another shambles of a qualifying!
Instead of playing politics, the teams, FOM, the FIA and the WMSC need to get their heads out their arses and sort this shit sharpish!!
4 minutes to go of Q3.... same in Q2 and well, you get the gist!!

Crazy qualifying, who would have guessed.

I know it's not a typical show for Ch 4 - lots of quality content to talk about, Bernie keen to support them with 2 interviews, Alonso annoyed with Sky, team bosses annoyed with FOM - but their build up was the best I have ever seen in a qualifying show.

Hopefully they can come close to keeping it up this standard over the year. They also had clips from a 30 minute interview of Jenson by Murray, which is on the website if you weren't aware.

I thought the Jenson and Murray bit was truncated and missed a lot of bits but I'm sure the full half an hour would be good.

Indeed, other than the grid walk and Bernie interviews I can't think of much else on Sky, BBC or Ch 4 build-up that shouldn't have been dropped for the full 30 minutes.

When is the qualifying going to appear on All4? It's over 3 1/2 hours since coverage finished on Channel 4 and it still hasn't appeared. I can't watch it live, so I rely on the catchup. BBC took an hour or under, but C4 are taking hours. What's the hold-up?

Me too. Thankfully the dreadful Suzi Perry was ditched but C4 had the good sense to retain the woman who really does know something about F1, Lee McKenzie. Susie Wolff shouldn't be part of the C4 team but I guess you can't have it all.