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Using Q2 from China, Here's a little demo of Sky's coverage:

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq8309_shanghai-q2-sky-race-control-demo_auto[/dailymotion]

an update on that, N-TV will be showing FP2 live from now on

I came here to post the same thing. Good news for the non-bbc weekends Hopefully they don't interrupt the sessions too much for news bulletins like they did when they had the rights a couple of years ago. Their F3 coverage is pretty decent, except for keeping that enormous news ticker on screen.

No more Sky fapping for me. I cancelled my subscription because I need the money for more important things. Back to the good old Beeb it is.

N-tv did a good job with FP2. They started 5 minutes late due to news, then had a 5 minute studio chat with brief highlights from FP1 and some clips from China. They only had 2 breaks after that, one at 13:30h for commercials and one at 14:00h for a short news bulletin. They stayed until the end of the session and even waited for the results page which they never did a couple of years ago. The news ticker is a bit annoying but I can live with it.

I had a Sky UK stream open on my pc and they took more breaks (but shorter) than N-TV, so N-TV showed almost the same amount of live action as Sky UK.

Now I only miss FP1 coverage during the non-BBC weekends, which isn't too bad.

I like watching LaDeux when the BBC doesn't broadcast, but they really need to work on the audio of the radio message. You almost can't hear them, even though they are silent. I think they keep their microphones on while they are playing the message, and thus its difficult to hear.

for the rest, enjoyable coverage. For everyone else as well? How did Sky compare to the BBC?

Sky this weekend
- Getting Jerome for FPs was pretty good
- Pre-race was pretty decent but I just get bored with Damon Hill...
- Croft just confused me in the race. Sky was all I had - no live timing, no Twitter, no forums. I couldn't work out what was going on for a lot of the time and he was feeding duff information.
- Post-race was fine, nothing special. Oh, but I so much prefer Lee McKenzie to Natalie Pinkham. Sure, all Lee does is ask drivers how bitterly disappointed they are, but at least she doesn't sound like an eleven year old girl who is without her parents for the first time.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Just finished watching the race a while ago, and I downloaded sky coverage, I usually get the BBC's, gotta say that the commentry team isn't as good as the BBC's, I like Crofty doing FP last year and Martin doing the races, but together they don't really work that well imo, Crofty kept making so many mistakes

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I agree with this. Skys one good feature is Martin Brundle. Had they not have every race live, I'd not even watch Sky (I use streams, I'm not paying for it). They have no redeeming features outside of Brundle, everything is worse than BBC 2011. Croft was great during FPs when you can talk more casually, but when under pressure to get it all right during the races, he continually gets it all wrong. He still can't ID cars or drivers correctly, and that pisses me off. We fans can, and he's a professional who still doesn't know Webber and Massas helmets? Lazenby (fake Jake!) doesn't even know the basics of the sport, and Georgie Thompson is just there because she's a set of tits. Putting a convicted drink driver into a motorsport show, is ridiculously retarded anyway.

I know a lot of people say the Brits are spoilt with the coverage, but you can now understand why we were all pissed off about this deal happening last year. BBC 2011 was the height of F1 coverage for us. Sky actually put very little effort into their coverage - they took the best bits of BBC (Brundle, Croft, Ted, etc), and plugged them straight into the standard sports presentation show that they do for any sport, threw in some over complex and unnecessary graphics and called it a day. Now BBC is crippled because all of the good things have gone, and half of it isn't live anymore, and Sky isn't as good as it should be because so little effort has actually went into it.

Competition between Sky and BBC was meant to raise the standards, but it isn't. We've got 2 sets of coverage that are worse than BBC 2011. It's ridiculous. And whilst British fans have suffered the most from this deal, other countries suffer too since they piggy back on the UK commentary team. And those who torrent the races now get 2 options, worse than the 1 option from last year.

^^ This, at the last bit.
Although I don't like Crofty, in his defence those monitors in the commentary box are pretty small standard deff stuff that you can't see very well, try standing 3-4 foot back from a 17" monitor, turn the sound off and identify a car (throw in some background noise), it's not as easy as it seems, especially when we're sat on a nice comfy sofa watching a 42"

Ben & DC made just as many mistakes, although DC saw the Williams spin when the entire Sky team missed it

Ideal line-up would be Ben Edwards leading, Coulthard to provide back-up and Brundle for the sarcastic comments.

Crofty was just like a shouting version of Legard yesterday. He's good at filling the void in practice, but when it matters he isn't.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I agree, however if the TV deal happening the way it did was the only way to get Ben Edwards into the commentary box then I'd still its a good thing and the BBC's output has improved over 2011, at least between the FOM marker and the Podium.
I was never a fan of the matey, blokey 2 co-commentator setup last year and at least this year we have a "proper" commentator in the box.
Now if DC can just learn to shut up when Ben engages excitement mode we would have commentary bliss

Croft even managed to insert a crass footballing reference about the Man U match that had just finished into yesterdays commentary, I think that tells you all you need to know about Sky's coverage.
Far more ITV than F1 Digital, sadly.

I can't see how BBC could have said to have improved over 2011 in *any* way. Edwards isn't even relatively close to Brundle. His "excitement mode" is pretty awful too. Whenever something minor happens he practically spunks on the screen. He's a BTCC commentator, not F1. And without Brundles analysis post-race, it's pretty dead.

For the final time, I promise, I pitch the idea of a Sky stream with BBC Radio commentary for the races that Sky have got live.

Yes, it will be out of sync, but only by a few seconds. It's no more a distraction than if you use live timing which can be up to 15 seconds ahead of the coverage.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Waitttt....someone out there doesn't get Ben?

Maybe its the underdog nature of his career so far making him a fanboy's dream, but to me he's easily been the best F1 commentator since Murray.
(Which, admittedly, isn't hard when you think of who we have had behind the mic since 2001)

There seems to be two schools of thought on commentary, those who would prefer the commentators to keep their heads and relay the facts and statistics and those who want to hear the excitement and passion of the race conveyed through the lead commentator.
I'm definitely in the second camp, whereas my dad for one I know is in the former and it's a great source of arguments between us.
My Dad would sit through truely epic pieces of commentary like Hakkinen at Monza 99 or MS/DC Spa 98 and shout at Murray to shut up having a panic attack and get back to reading out the top ten.
Meanwhile I was revelling in the excitement of the moment that came through every word that fell out of the man's mouth during those incidents.

Ben is a racing fan through a through and that's going to come through in the more action-packed racing we're getting at the moment.
Though I'd also argue he's just as good in the quieter moments like filling time in FP1 as he is when the cars are going side by side, that's his strength as a broadcaster
I'd even forgive Crofty's ID'ing mistakes if they were done in the heat of battle-alas not all of them were.
Sadly I fear he's going straight down the James Allen road of shoe-horning in crass phrases into his commentary because he thinks he's the "voice of the people"

It's funny really, both Legard and Crofty have proved to be a lot better commentating on the radio than TV, I do wonder why that is.
Crofty's live GP2 commentaries didn't make him popular in 2008 and he isn't going down too well this year either from what I'm reading.
Legard was just plain dull on TV but was respected on 5Live as people would happily switch him on to try to escape James Allen in the ITV years.

Conversely what little I've heard of James Allen this year seems to have gone the other way, he's a lot more toned down and less cringeworthy on 5Live than he ever was on ITV, Maybe how these commentators come across has more to do with their relationship with their producers than it does their knowledge or enthusiasm etc.
Could make for an interesting article for someone anyway.

I saw SPEED's coverage for this race. There guys are fucking awesome. Varsha, Hobbs and Matchett should make the commentary for a much needed world feed.

The Speed TV team are truly terrible. I mean seriously awful. It's like listening to a James Allen tribute band. I gave up with them after half a season last year. They are so bad that I don't watch the races live anymore, instead I now wait for them to get uploaded to RFM and I download either the BBC or Sky coverage.

You can guarantee that during every GP, the following will happen with the Speed crew:

- The commentary team talks about "clag" being an issue for overtaking
- The commentators will miss some obvious action on screen
- Someone will do some random / unrelated to F1 blatant self promotion
- A commentator will blame the wrong driver in a clear cut incident
- There are constant mentions of F1 coming back to USA in 2012
- Bob Varsha will say "wow"
- Bob Varsha will say "wow" at something truly unremarkable
- Will Buxton will ask a stupid

And I haven't even mentioned the advert breaks every 6 laps yet.

That all said, had I not had years of BBC (and ITV) coverage to compare them with then I would probably consider them a lot better than they are.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I "get" Ben just fine. I've watched series he's commentated on since the 1990s. I remember him on Eurosports CART coverage, maybe as early as 1997 (someone here is bound to know). I think he's great for series like CART and BTCC, but not F1. I really don't think he's as good as people say, and his "excited" sound is just him screaming at the top of his voice.

Edwards gets far too over excited, and isn't at F1 commentary level. He doesn't display the knowledge or understanding that Brundle, DC or even Croft do.

Croft meanwhile is more of a 'banter' commentator. He excelled in Free Practice sessions because it was a more relaxed atmosphere. Under the pressure of a race situation, he continually makes basic, but serious mistakes.

Right. Because I'm the one being paid to be a professional commentator. Wait, I'm not. And I'm not pretending to be. *insert sarcastic rolleyes icon here*

When you rely solely on commentary, with no live timing or twitter (as was described by a few this weekend), Croft makes it extremely confusing to follow. He doesn't just get cars mixed up, he gets drivers mixed up, and he does it continually. Whenever a car makes a pit stop and rejoins a pack, he is completely unable to tell which car and driver is which.I doubt any single one of us could mistake Massas bright yellow for Alonsos red, but he manages it. I doubt any of us would mistake Hamiltons Senna yellow for Jensons Union Jack, but he manages it.

Hos job is to commentate on the race and describe what's happening. He isn't good at that. He was exceptionally good during FP, raising points and having detailed conversations about multiple topics. However under race pressure, no, he isn't as good as Brundle or DC. And since this conversation has largely been about comparing BBC and Sky to last years coverage, I'm going to stick by my guns, no matter how many sarcastic smilies you want to throw in. Last year, BBC recognised the commentators core strengths and put them in appropriate positions. Sky hasn't done that, and because of that things have taken a major step backwards from a year ago.

Just remember the next time you criticise a driver, that we can now happily pull out the "Well I'd like to see you do better" card, since you seem to think that asking a professional in their field to do there job to a high standard means those unhappy believe they can do better.

I gave Legard less than 18 month. However I was willing to put up with Legard because we'd just come from James Allen, who at the time was the worst commentator many of us have ever experienced. Judging by his Radio 5 Live performances, he has improved over his ITV days, however everything is relative and Legard was (at first) a step up from what we had been putting up with for the last 7 years. To put that in perspective, I don't know of any other commentator who had a campaign designed purely to get him off TV, nevermind having that campaign called Stop The Cock. Legard wasn't good, but he was a step up from what we had. What we have now, is a step down.



Maths for the sake of maths? It doesn't matter if there are 1024 pit stops, and Lewis loses even more time from sticky wheel nuts - it's not really possible to confuse his helmet with Jenson's. You don't need to anal-retentively analysis the commentary. Once you notice it, you keep noticing it. It was like Brundles stupid "Look but never stare" thing that he did for a while in 2011. If you aren't paying attention, it just floated by. But once you notice it, that's all you hear. The difference between those annoyances is, once Brundle said it, it was over for another 2 weeks. Meanwhile Crofts mistakes actually make it difficult to follow a race.

Croft has his strengths, but race commentary isn't one of them. It's the same reason nobody disliked Allen as a pit lane reporter - he was damn good at it. It's the same reason Mark Blundell went on to do nothing (except the odd caravan review show...seriously) after ITV - he had no strengths. With Murray there was a compromise. Nobody is perfect (which is why everybody let "Look but never stare" slide), but Murrays mistakes were made up with a massive amount of raw emotion and passion for the sport that we struggle to even comprehend, never-mind match. Nobody else is even in the same ballpark as Murray for that, especially Ben in "excitement mode".

You have to understand why people are annoyed here. We went from poor coverage with ITV, to good coverage with the BBC, which just kept on improving. By the time 2011 rolled around, we had one of the best, if not the best, TV coverage F1 has ever had, in any country in the world. It was almost perfection (if they'd binned EJ then it probably would have been). Now we've got 2 half assed coverages, that requires a lot more money to watch the races live, and no reason for it to improve any time soon.

As for replying to you by being an unsufferable asshole, you don't even know the half of it. Nothing in this thread was personal until YOU made it personal by attacking me, and whilst I know my reply at the top of this page to Codename was possibly a bit snippy, I also know he knows I wasn't attacking him, and the lack of smilies makes its look a bit harsher than intended. You were the one who lowered the tone of this thread by taking it away from commentary and onto personal issues, so don't sit there and tell me to stop being the insufferable asshole. I've defended you both publicly, and privately, despite not getting on with you, but I'm begining to see the other side of it.