I am not a special fan of sports - Football - No (I support a local team - but don't follow the progress), Rugby -No, Cricket (I do not love it no - oh no - I don't love it), Olympics (2012 - I was inspired!), there is one sport I like, I follow it regularly and that is Formula One.
I have kept an eye on testing in Jerez, but to me that is inconclusive, teams are testing parts before the season to see what is best working. At time of writing, there is one test out of the way, another test is due, to me it comes down to the first race in Australia - that is when the performance of teams comes out, and we can see who is best.
I follow the tests on twitter, Facebook and even through the team websites. For the second year running, we have two TV channels that are offering F1 coverage, the first (apart from last year) time we have a choice. I did not start loving F1 until 1993 (I did watch it on and off before then), and the year after we lost a good World Champion and F1 driver in Ayrton Senna (I remember that weekend quite well at San Marino), we also lost Roland Ratzenburger and nearly Rubens Barrichello - It wasn't a good time to start watching F1 at all times, that was the worst weekend for over a decade and to see Ayrton, one of the best F1 drivers lose his life on live TV was not a good experience. Throughout the years it has not been a case of what to choose what channel to see the race (and yes I get up and watch the race live even though I have to watch inferior coverage to see the race live), last year the BBC lost the whole rights to show all the races, it hasn't always been that way - after last years performance, I know who I would rather see and if the inferior broadcaster that can only show 10 races a year, I know who I will see live if it is available.
Since 1994, I have seen a few British drivers win the World Championship, being 1996 - Damon Hill (It did bring a tear to my eye when he crossed the line), 2008 - Lewis Hamilton and finally in 2009 and one of the best to see win the World Championship was Jenson Button.
1977 - 1996: BBC
The BBC started off the coverage in 1976, before this not every race was shown, but in 1976 the full season was shown, not neccesarily live but races were covered, throughout the years, the coverage improved and basic races were shown live in latter years and were commentated by Murray Walker, who was joined by James Hunt, latterly Jonathan Palmer after the death of James Hunt. BBC lost the rights during 1996 to show the Grand Prix, they only showed the race during these years and not the Qualifying.
1997 -2008: ITV
ITV won the rights to show F1 during 1997 - 2008, they did improve the coverage, showing Qualifying on Saturday and the Race on Sunday and also they had build up prior to Qualifying and the Race. Murray Walker and Martin Brundle paired up and did do good commentary during Qualifying and the Race, Murray Walker retired in 2001, with his last commentating role at the US Grand Prix. Murray was replaced with James Allen, but it was not the same during the race without Murray. The major let down with ITV coverage was with adverts being shown during the race, especially at the San Marino Grand Prix where ITV decided to go to a break during the last three laps of the race, once they came back on air, they were forced to show the last few laps.
2009 - 2011: BBC
BBC won the rights back to show the Grand Prix for all races during the season, this time they decided to show the Qualifying on Saturday with the full race "Live and uninterrupted" with Martin Brundle and Jonathan Legard taking the role of Commentator, Legard was replaced in the 2011 season with ex-F1 racer David Coulthard, and the BBC decided to keep the same format of a build up to Qualifying and Race with Jake Humphrey as the main presenter, with Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard analysing events before and after the race. With this run of coverage, the BBC decided to do extra coverage via the "Red Button" by showing Free Practice sessions and there was also coverage after the main race with a "Red Button" F1 Fan Forum, with drivers and Team Personnel attending interviews. All the extra coverage brought record audiences to Formula One races.
2012: Sky Sports and BBC
Late in 2011, it was announced that the BBC coverage would be cut back to half of the races during the season in 2012, with full access rights going to Sky Sports which set up a dedicated channel, which allowed extra coverage and special programmes over the race weekend. The BBC also did full coverage at races agreed before the season, including Free Practice, Qualifying and Race and the F1 Fan Forum. If the BBC did not have full coverage over the race weekend it was allowed to show a highlights show of Qualifying and Race day of about 90 minutes (2 hours for Non-European Races), shown a few hours after the Qualifying and the Race taking place. With Sky taking over full coverage, Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz defected to Sky to help with the coverage along with most of the team who supported F1 for the BBC Radio coverage. In my opinion, Sky tried to hard to emulate the BBC coverage and failed, from a personal point of view, if the race was being shown live on the BBC, it would be watched on that channel as the coverage seemed to be better. Late 2012, BBC F1 anchorman, had decided to leave the coverage and would be replaced for the 2013 season by Suzi Perry.
2013: Sky Sports and BBC
The season hasn't got underway this year and with the BBC showing ten races (shown below), Sky will again cover all races live. It is yet to be seen what effect Jake Humprhey's departure will have on the BBC coverage, but I will once again look forward to watching BBC coverage, as I like to see races live I know that for half of the season I will have to watch Sky coverage, but wish they would improve the quality from a corporate feel to a "3 blokes (now 2 blokes and a woman) having a laugh" coverage which would hopefully bring it to a better show, and that's what works with the BBC coverage, it is just a shame I have to wait an extra month for BBC Coverage.
The races shown on the BBC this year are:
SPAIN: 12 May
CANADA: 9 June
BRITAIN: 30 June
TBA* : 21 July
BELGIUM: 25 August
ITALY: 8 September
JAPAN: 13 October
INDIA: 27 October
BRAZIL: 24 November
*venue yet to be confirmed by Formula One Management.
The first race will be on March 17 2013 (Qualifying on March 16), and after a few months of withdrawals cannot wait to see my favourite sport, even though it will be a few early morning (or is that late night) starts to see the race live - bring it on!!!!!
I do hope that Jenson wins the championship in 2013 as I have a bet on him at 13/2!!!!
