As you probably by now have read, Lewis Hamilton has been excluded from the Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying session, with the McLaren driver starting at the back of the grid.
From a broadcasting perspective, it was interesting to see how BBC News and Sky Sports News covered it. From about 17:00 UK time, on Sky Sports News, Ted Kravitz and their reporter Rachel Brookes were stationed outside of Race Control waiting for an announcement, with the Sky Sports News channel occasionally crossing to them live.
The first word, however, came out from BBC F1 web editor Andrew Benson on Twitter at 18:42. Autosport writer Edd Straw was the first (on my Twitter timeline at least) to break the news officially at 18:44.
When the news broke, Sky Sports News was on an advert break. They came back from the advert break at 18:45 approximately. But instead of going live to Kravitz and Brookes they instead went to the latest ‘Football Scores’, a League 2 play-off match between Crewe and Southend. They didn’t end up going live to Kravitz and Brookes until about 18:54.
While that was going on, BBC were live on the BBC News Channel, with Inside F1 presented by Lee McKenzie at 18:45 alongside Gary Anderson and Eddie Jordan. In brilliant timing for BBC, the FIA’s decision was made minutes before Inside F1 was due to air live. Jake Humphrey tweeted: “Quick…BBC News Channel NOW for Pastor Maldonado LIVE and the latest from Barcelona…WE ARE LIVE!!” For whatever reason, the feed went completely at 18:51, which may have been the result of thunderstorms in Barcelona.
Either way, despite Sky being stationed outside of Race Control, and being on air for a lot longer ready for the news with updates, BBC managed to break the news first to their viewers. They also, as Humphrey noted managed to a live word with Pastor Maldonaldo, something Sky did not.
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