The Twitter outlook

There is one significant change in the Teams’ chart this week, as the Olympics and the Formula 1 break means that the gains are fairly low. In any case, here’s the Top 10 with the biggest and smallest increases:

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,073,461 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 970,503 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
03 – 968,185 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
04 – 468,308 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 411,063 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 248,914 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 245,107 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 185,728 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 167,933 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 163,458 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 10,214 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 7,087 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 6,720 – Jenson Button
04 – 3,971 – Pastor Maldonaldo
05 – 3,242 – Sergio Perez

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 213 – Charles Pic
02 – 275 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 288 – Timo Glock
04 – 386 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 408 – Nico Hulkenberg

Outside of the top ten in the main chart, Nico Hulkenberg has very marginally overtaken Timo Glock. The top four in the increases table stays the same, with both Pastor Maldonaldo and Sergio Perez recording solid increases, the former is probably due to his demo in Venezuela getting him a few extra followers. Maldonaldo’s increase, oddly, was up on last week and up on the week before that as well, the third consecutive week that his increase rate has grown.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 316,182 – Ferrari
02 – 218,717 – McLaren
03 – 143,557 – Red Bull
04 – 141,245 – Mercedes
05 – 126,437 – Lotus
06 – 82,716 – Caterham
07 – 76,410 – Marussia
08 – 72,270 – Williams
09 – 72,258 – Force India
10 – 68,191 – Sauber

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 1,828 – Ferrari
02 – 1,686 – Red Bull
03 – 1,122 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 307 – HRT
01 – 317 – Toro Rosso
03 – 376 – Caterham

For the first time since I started this series looking at the Twitter followers back in April, HRT have recorded the least amount of followers gained in a week period.

Driver and Team statistics as of Tuesday 14th August 2012.

The BBC F1 Team: The Verdict so far

The Summer break is here, the teams, drivers and journalists have gone on holiday, so I have taken the opportunity to revist my series that I wrote in April focussing on Formula 1 broadcasting in the UK. As with the April series, part one here focussed on the Sky Sports F1 team, their strengths and weaknesses. In part two, I move on from the Sky F1 team, to the BBC TV team. As noted in Part 1, I will not be focussing on BBC Radio or Sky Sports News for the purposes of this series, and also that everything written here is a hybrid of my April thoughts and my thoughts now during the Summer break.

Ben Edwards
If you haven’t heard of Ben Edwards, you’ve probably been living under a rock. If you are not a broadcasting ‘expert’ or stick purely to F1, then you’re forgiven. Either way, Edwards is considered one of the best, if not the best current motor sport commentator at the moment. So good, that he is compared to Murray Walker. I’ll leave you to discuss that comparison…. Edwards began his commentary journey in the early 1990’s at Eurosport. His first Formula 1 commentary was at the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix for Eurosport, which was the beginning of a long partnership with John Watson. The two commentated on Eurosport until the end of 1996 (when Eurosport lost the F1 rights due to the new ITV deal), before reuniting for the pay-per-view series F1 Digital+ in 2002, and again commentating on the A1 Grand Prix world feed.

Edwards’ commentary is renowned for having a similar style to Walker, with his ability to commentate fluently during all stages of the race and keep the viewer engaged, whether the action is pedestrian and you are struggling to keep awake, or whether a pass is about to take place on the last lap – in which case Edwards will probably shout at the top of his voice with the emotion in his voice clearly on display. Edwards puts the action across to the viewer informatively and articulately. Although he’s with BBC for 2012, and there are absolutely no faults with him, one has to question why BBC did not pick him up in 2009, nor did ITV pick him up after Murray Walker retired? The fact that Jonathan Legard got the BBC TV gig in 2009 and Edwards didn’t, robbing us of the Edwards and Martin Brundle combination fans have wanted for years, is staggering. No disrespect to Legard, but his and Brundle’s commentary was a bigger disappointment than Shrek 2…

I wrote the above in April, and there is very little worth adding to it. The only phrase that comes to mind is “keep doing what you are doing”. I would like to see Edwards a bit more on air, maybe doing an interview here and there for pre-race pieces, but apart from that, there is nothing more to be said here.

David Coulthard
One of the more familiar faces of BBC’s 2012 coverage, Coulthard’s Formula 1 career began at the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix. Initially a Williams test driver, Coulthard was drafted in place of Ayrton Senna, who was tragically killed at the San Marino Grand Prix. Coulthard had 13 wins in a career that spanned 15 years, through Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. Coulthard, like Martin Brundle did 13 years earlier, moved into broadcasting, becoming a pundit for BBC’s Formula One coverage in 2009 alongside the outspoken Eddie Jordan. Coulthard suited the role very well, and quickly grew into it, once he realised Jordan was outspoken in just about everything he said!

Seriously though, the combination of Coulthard and Jordan works well because there is someone like Coulthard that quickly counters insane argument 138 that Jordan throws in his direction. Coulthard moved into the commentary box alongside Brundle in 2011 after Jonathan Legard was dropped, the two having a good rapture in the box together. With Brundle moving to Sky for 2012, Coulthard opted to stay at BBC, partnering Ben Edwards. The combination between the two is just as good as that with David Croft and Brundle on Sky, giving viewers that have access to both platforms an extremely difficult decision to make with regards which commentary line-up to watch.

Due to Coulthard’s and Brundle’s friendship, there will always be speculation about Coulthard’s future at the BBC and whether a move to Sky could be in the pipeline for 2013 or after. My feeling is that Coulthard will stay at BBC, because he is in one of the main roles there now, he is a pundit and a commentator. If he went to Sky, would he be a commentator? Questionable, unless you went down the route of having three commentators on race day. I think Coulthard’s happy where he is, and I would be surprised to see this aspect of the line-ups changed for 2013.

Eddie Jordan
Eddie Jordan started up his own Formula 1 team in 1991, running the team until 2005 when the team was sold to Midland F1 (now known as Force India). During his 15 years, he was known for his outspoken opinions, or opinions that were extremely easy to challenge and disagree with. Jordan’s team had three wins, the memorable 1998 Belgian Grand Prix with Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher scoring the team a 1-2, along with two victories in 1999 season with Heinz-Harald Frentzen at the helm.

Jordan was announced as a pundit for BBC beginning with the 2009 season, in which was actually a move of genius by the broadcaster. Why? In the years’ preceding that ITV were criticised for having a dull pre-show, partially down to having a ‘wooden’ pundit in Mark Blundell, so having someone who has outspoken opinions, along with someone in Coulthard to counter argue him was a genius move and a brilliant way to keep viewers engaged. An interesting point is that Jordan has only been present for the live races in 2012, and not for the highlights races (Australia being the exception). I don’t necessarily mind this, because two pundits for a highlights show is redundant, but I thought it is worth noting. Is Jordan winding down his Formula 1 punditry slowly?

Gary Anderson
From the team owner, to someone who worked for him, we lead on nicely to Gary Anderson. Anderson replaces Ted Kravitz as BBC’s technical analysis. I was sceptical of Anderson in my April, me describing him as a “solid replacement” to Kravitz. I also said how I think Anderson will improve throughout the season, a point that is definitely turning into fruition. Anderson’s “Gaz Pad”, otherwise known as a pen and a piece of paper, is proving to be a hit, and is just as good as the Sky Pad. His pieces to camera as well have improved as the season has gone on. In the highlights shows they sometimes use simple graphics to describe things and the flow of whatever it may be around the car. I mean, why pull out all the stops on snazzy graphics when you can do exactly the same with a much lower budget?

Jake Humphrey
Starting off his BBC career at Cbeebies, Jake moved onto BBC Sport, fronting portions of Olympics 2008 and Euro 2008 before moving onto the new BBC F1 at the start of 2009. It was evident clearly from day 1 that Humphrey was suited to this job and that this was one of the right decisions that those at BBC Sport made. I remember reading that Humphrey went and asked if he could be host, although I can’t remember where I read that, so I may be wrong. If that is true, then that shows his enthusiasm for F1 and that he is a fan of the sport. Humphrey’s presenting style is one that keeps both the hardcore viewer and casual viewer engaged.

In my honest opinion, Humphrey is the best F1 presenter in the UK, both past and present, ahead of Jim Rosenthal and Simon Lazenby, while as good as, if not better than Steve Rider. Humphrey has the tools to be BBC F1’s presenter for many years to come, something that I hope does happen as I can imagine him being in the role five, or even ten years down the line Most recently Humphrey has missed races to cover Euro 2012 and London 2012, both of which were fantastically covered by the BBC, Humphrey’s presenting on the latter for BBC Three gaining him more fans. I was slightly confused, though, when Humphrey presented Valencia live, specifically travelling over from Poland and then back again after the race. I know it was due to how the Euro 2012 schedule fell, but what exactly was the purpose of that? I’m not sure whether that was his decision or someone else’s decision at BBC Sport but it seemed odd to me, meaning that Lee McKenzie did not present Europe live as was originally planned.

Lee McKenzie
Lee McKenzie comes from a background full of motor sport. Her father, Bob McKenzie is a writer for the Daily Express. Before joining the BBC F1 team, Lee was pit lane reporter for the now-defunct A1 Grand Prix series. She also was a presenter of the short-lived Speed Sunday show, a show which aired on ITV1 on Sunday afternoons in 2004 when F1 races were not airing. These attributes made Lee a clear contender for the pit lane job. It is clear when interviewing people that Lee has a good relationship with many of the drivers’, something that is critical if you want to get the right words out of someone, or whether you want their style to come across to the audience at home.

I think Lee does her role well, there’s not much more to ask from her, nor would I expect her to do any more in her role. Her role is the same as Natalie Pinkham’s on Sky Sports, there’s not much else expected out of a pit lane reporter. McKenzie also presents the Inside F1 show on BBC News, and has this season presented several shows due to Humphrey presenting other sports. I do think she has been unable to ‘show off’ her presenting skills though however due to the fact that she never presented any live shows as I noted above. Highlights shows are not live and are mainly to the point which meant that her presenting talents could not be showcased as much as they could have been in live shows, hence my disappointment that she never presented the European Grand Prix live.

Tom Clarkson
If you are from Australia and are reading this, you will be familiar with Clarkson as he is a regular voice on TEN Sport’s Formula 1 coverage. As Humphrey is back for the remainder of the season as a presenter, I don’t believe that we will see Clarkson again, but as we have seen him several times, I thought I would give him a section here too. My memory of Clarkson though comes from Canada when he was asking questions to a slightly miffed Mark Webber here,Webber either unimpressed or bored with Clarkson’s line of questioning.

The crucial thing for BBC in 2012 was keeping the majority of the line-up. Although they were served big blows by losing Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz, the fact that they retained the ‘three amigos’ (Humphrey, Coulthard and Jordan) was definitely a big relief for them, as it meant that their renowned pre-show style from 2009 to 2011 stayed largely intact. Arguably, in hindsight one could argue that losing Brundle or Kravitz was not as big as first. Both, are replaceable, as we’ve seen. Brundle has been replaced by Ben Edwards, who has fitted into the commentary role on BBC, as expected very well. Kravitz has been replaced by Gary Anderson, who is turning into a fantastic technical analyst. The only thing you are losing is Brundle’s gridwalk, which is a loss, but it’s not a big loss, given that Coulthard and Jordan will try and get people on the grid instead. In reality, I imagine when BBC were discussing 2012, they would have been wanting to keep Eddie Jordan more, as he brings the most to the pre and post-race shows with his opinions and flamboyant styles. Overall, BBC have coped with the changes very, very well. What they will be hoping now is that they keep that team and stabilise it for 2013. I don’t expect BBC to sign anyone, or approach anyone else, the only way they would lose anyone is if they were approached and signed by Sky, forcing BBC to find someone else. I’ve summed up in the below bullet points the chances of anyone moving to Sky, all my thoughts:

– Ben Edwards – unlikely unless David Croft moved on
– David Coulthard – not out of the question, but rejected Sky last year
– Eddie Jordan – if it was a BBC decision for him not to travel to highlights races, then possible
– Gary Anderson – unlikely unless Ted Kravitz moved on
– Jake Humphrey – Olympics has come and gone, new challenges possibly with Sky although move unlikely
– Lee McKenzie – she said in AUTOSPORT (subscription needed) last year that she rejected Sky, so more would need to be offered to tempt her
– Tom Clarkson – unlikely

Part 3 shall focus on how Sky can improve on their product during the race weekend, while Part 4 shall focus on their other programming and why they are focussing on the wrong areas at the moment. Part 5 will move onto the television ratings and how this deal is affecting the ratings picture. Comments, suggestions, things you agree with, and disagree with are welcome!

The Sky Sports F1 Team: The Verdict so far

A few months ago, I decided to launch an F1 Broadcasting blog. Since April, the blog has racked up over 100 posts and over 7,000 hits. For what is quite a niche topic, I would like to think of that as a success, so thanks to each and every one of you for reading.

With the Summer break now in full force for the Formula 1 teams and drivers, ‘The Verdict so Far’ series makes a return to the blog, with myself looking back on what I wrote in April and adding to my thoughts from the original ‘Verdict so Far’ series. If you have not read the original posts, fear not, you can find them here. Heading into 2012, we had nine new voices presenting, commentating, reporting on Formula 1 for BBC and Sky. Since April, more new voices have been heard on a regular basis. They are:

– Allan McNish (Sky)
– Tom Clarkson (BBC TV)

So both of them will be included in the series from now on, assuming Clarkson will be back on TV reporting. You may be wondering why I am not including Nick Heidfeld or Jacques Villeneuve, who both appeared as pundits on Sky Sports F1 during Europe and Canada respectively. Neither are regular pundits, and both only appeared once as a one-off appearance, so there is not much to be gained from me ‘analysing’ both in detail. I will, however, say that it is good to see Sky using a variety of pundits aside from the regulars, which can add to the weekend broadcasts when it is a different voice being heard. Obviously there’s no guarantee that said voice will be good for the broadcast, but it is a risk worth taking.

As with April’s series, parts one and two will focus on the Sky Sports F1 and BBC F1 teams respectively. Parts 3 and 4 will be reposted from April, with probably minor alterations while Part 5 will be updated fully with the ratings picture as it is currently. For the purposes of this series, I will only be focussing on the two main TV teams, as thus the Sky Sports News or BBC Radio teams will not be covered.

Allan McNish
I’ve always been a fan of Allan McNish, both as a pundit and a driver. It was unfortunate that he only got one chance as a Formula 1 driver with Toyota as 2002, but in any case he has since had a highly successful career in endurance racing. We first saw McNish on screen with Sky Sports F1 during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, alongside David Croft in The F1 Show. Like with Herbert in China, it was stating the obvious very early on, that McNish would be a super pundit for Sky Sports F1 with his breadth and depth of motor sport knowledge so I was very pleased when Sky announced that he would be staying on.

As a pair during practice, McNish and Croft are a much better pair than Croft and Jerome d’Ambrosio as it was before. McNish is much more of a veteran in motor sport than d’Ambrosio and therefore was able to talk in depth about technical issues within the sport. I hope we continue to see McNish on Sky Sports F1 as the season continues.

Anthony Davidson
After a short lived Formula 1 career with Minardi, BAR and Super Aguri, Davidson moved into the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary box at the start of the 2009 season where he partnered David Croft. He flourished in the role with Croft, with their commentary style in practice sessions universally well received. Davidson moved into other motor sports, mainly focussing on endurance races including the Le Mans 24 Hours. Davidson moved to Sky Sports in the same role for 2012, except instead of commentating on every session, he only commentated on the practice sessions, with Martin Brundle taking over for qualifying and the race. Davidson’s other role has been with Georgie Thompson in the ‘Sky Pad’.

Due to Davidson’s horrific accident at the Le Mans 24 Hours, his activities with Sky Sports F1 have since mid-June been curtailed, only appearing at the Hungarian Grand Prix in Sky’s London studios. In my April piece, I did comment that Davidson was “under-utilised massively on Sky”. Although I agree still with that sentiment, it is unfair to comment further on it as he has not been on screen a lot since then.

Damon Hill
From someone who didn’t have a successful Formula 1 career to someone that did have a successful Formula 1 career. Hill won his only title in 1996, in a fantastic battle with Jacques Villeneuve which came down to the final race in Japan. Hill’s career went downwards from that point onwards, however, moving to Arrows in 1997 before retiring in 1999 while part of the Jordan team. Hill’s role with Sky Sports F1 is not his first broadcasting role, however. Some may remember that Hill was part of the short lived F1 Digital+ concept in 2002 which seen him join Matthew Lorenzo, Ben Edwards, John Watson among others at Biggin Hill during that season to preside over the pay-per-view channel. Hill has the main punditry role in Sky’s coverage, with him alongside Lazenby and Brundle in the pre and post shows.

While I would not call Hill a fantastic pundit, I do think he is improving as the season progresses. In the first few races, it was not easy to watch Hill and Lazenby together and it felt somewhat ‘awkward’ with both of them new to the Formula 1 broadcasting scene (in Hill’s case, he is not new, but to my knowledge he has not done a lot of F1 broadcasting since 2002 aside from a few ITV commentary duties). Since then, however, Hill has improved somewhat, and definitely seems to be more at ease when Johnny Herbert is on screen alongside him, the two able to bounce off each other. As I said back in April, pundits can make the difference between a dull and good pre and post shows, the combination of Steve Rider and Mark Blundell was one that was badly received in 2008 at ITV, but the combination of Jake Humphrey, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard in 2009 at BBC had the opposite effect. In both cases, very good presenters, but it was the pundits that made all the difference – in the example above Jordan and Coulthard being better than Blundell. At the moment, I do feel Hill is improving, but the verdict is still out on him. Can I see him staying with Sky Sports F1 for 2013? Probably, but in a reduced role, maybe attending a few races in the season but not week-in, week-out.

David Croft
In his 7th season now as a lead commentator in Formula 1, Croft began his commentary journey at the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix with BBC Radio 5 Live commentating alongside the likes of Maurice Hamilton for the first three years. At the start of 2009, he was joined by Anthony Davidson for every session, a combination that has been well received. With the change of broadcasting rights for 2012, the inevitable question was ‘who would partner Martin Brundle?’ While the answer was not Ben Edwards, the answer was David Croft (I’m sure you have your own opinions on which line up would be better). Given how James Allen and Jonathan Legard fared alongside Brundle as a commentary pairing, fans wondered whether the Croft and Brundle line-up would fare better.

There is not much to pick fault with the commentary so far this season, I have not had any problems with the Croft and Brundle partnership, the two are working well alongside each other and is definitely the most successful partnership involving Brundle since Brundle was alongside Murray Walker in the commentary box. Sometimes there is driver identification problems (most commonly involving Sauber’s and Williams’ I tend to find) but again, you can pick fault while looking at a massive television, while Croft and Brundle are calling things on the spot, without the luxury of a large screen in front of them. So that is case of apples and oranges, in my view. Aside from his commentary, I hope we see Croft becoming a regular presenter of a journalists show on Sky Sports F1, which I shall elaborate on in part three.

Georgie Thompson
Probably one of the more controversial appointments given her drink driving record. But I don’t think Sky took that into account when hiring her. And neither will I, it doesn’t affect her ability to call and present Formula 1 coverage, so I won’t mention it again. Thompson, like Simon Lazenby, has been with Sky since the late 1990’s, mainly as a presenter on Sky Sports News. Unlike Lazenby however, Thompson has had experience on presenting motor sport, she presented A1 Grand Prix on the channel when it debuted in 2005. Thompson was announced as partnering Ted Kravitz to present ‘The F1 Show’ on the Sky F1 channel.

It would be hard for me to find complaints about Thompson in the coverage. She seems enthusiastic and genuinely interested in the sport. The show, for me has been the best part of the weekend, and her combination with Kravitz is definitely a joy to watch. The two gel together brilliantly and I hope that the Thompson and Kravitz duo is maintained in the latter stages of this season and into 2013. If Sky choose to expand their support race coverage for 2013, then I hope to see her present that, but on the other hand we may well find her in the main presenting role, should Lazenby leave after this season. Time shall tell…

Johnny Herbert
A Formula 1 veteran, Johnny Herbert’s career began in 1989, lasting until 2000. He won three races during that time period, two during 1995 while at Benetton alongside the memorable 1999 European Grand Prix with Stewart. Herbert did not initially feature in Sky’s Formula 1 coverage, suggesting his appointment was last minute. In any event, Herbert’s first appearance was on the March 30th edition of The F1 Show alongside Georgie Thompson, Ted Kravitz and Christian Horner.

Since that show he has appeared at multiple F1 races and multiple editions of The F1 Show. There’s a word used every so often to describe people on the some wavelength, or that can understand each other, and that word is rapport. Herbert seems to have an extremely good rapport with a lot of people, which makes for a better Sky Sports F1 show all around, whether he’s on the Sky Pad with Thompson, discussing something with Kravitz or getting asked questions by Lazenby. Herbert has also, in my opinion, made Hill feel more comfortable in his role when the two are together, a world apart from just having Lazenby and Hill in Australia. Hopefully we shall see Herbert in a lot more races with Sky this season.

Martin Brundle
Another Formula 1 veteran, but probably better known nowadays as a commentator for 16 years. Brundle’s F1 career ended in 1996, his last year competing with the Jordan team. Despite retiring, Brundle stayed in the F1 paddock, and quickly found himself new fame, as a broadcaster and a commentator alongside Murray Walker. The combination, a collection of ‘Murrayisms’ and ‘Brundleisms’ quickly became popular with the public, as did Brundle’s famed gridwalk which was introduced at the 1997 British Grand Prix. When Walker left at the 2001 US Grand Prix, he was replaced by James Allen, whom Brundle partnered until ITV relinquished the rights to Formula 1 in 2008. Brundle jumped ship to BBC for 2009, partnering Jonathan Legard. Although Brundle was well liked, neither the Allen/Brundle and Legard/Brundle combinations were well received. Legard was dropped at the end of 2010, allowing Brundle to take on a ‘fresh challenge’, moving into the lead commentator, with long time friend David Coulthard alongside him. Due to the change in broadcasting rights halfway through that season, the combination only lasted a year. Despite this, the combination helped bring back out the best in Brundle.

Brundle ditched the BBC at the end of 2011, moving to Sky and becoming the main face of the channel, dividing his time between pitlane, paddock and the commentary box. There is not much to add here, as I noted above, the Brundle and Croft combination is in my view the best involving Brundle since he was with Walker. That may not be too hard to achieve given how Allen and Legard were criticised, but it is still worth noting. Brundle being with Sky also means that get superb access outside of race weekends, Brundle at Maranello and Brundle’s Le Mans Diary were both fantastic features and insightful to watch (even if he has driven a Ferrari before!).

Natalie Pinkham
More of an entertainment reporter than motor racing reporter with her duties for various Channel 5 programming including The Wright Stuff, Pinkham moved onto the Formula 1 scene in 2011. Pinkham replaced Holly Samos as BBC Radio 5 Live reporter, Samos moving to pastures new. Pinkham has the role of interviewing drivers’, and occasionally smiling on camera whenever necessary. There’s honestly not much to say here, apart from improve the line of questioning. Or is there?

Pinkham was not with Sky Sports F1 in Germany as she was getting married. In steps Rachel Brookes. If you haven’t seen how Sky Sports News are covering Formula 1, then you’re probably thinking “who”? Brookes in the past few months on Sky Sports News has been vastly underlooked by many, so I was extremely glad to see she got a chance to shine in Germany. Brookes appears, to me, to have a better understanding of the sport than Pinkham, despite only being apart of it since the start of the year, and asks the right questions where necessary, unlike Pinkham who appears to ‘rinse and repeat’ the questions. If I had a choice between Brookes and Pinkham for the pit-lane reporters role, I’m afraid I would go with Brookes nine times out of the ten. I really don’t see them making any changes here for 2013, but it is just an observation worth making.

Simon Lazenby
When the Sky F1 team was announced last November, it was no great surprise that Sky chose Simon Lazenby as their presenter. After joining Sky in 1998, Lazenby was Sky’s Rugby presenter for the best part of a decade, before moving over to their Formula 1 team. At this point, you could argue ‘why did Sky choose someone with no motor racing experience’. The answer is quite simple, and that is because they preferably want someone in-house. This is a tendency that all broadcasters have, ITV moved Jim Rosenthal to their Formula 1 coverage when they began broadcasting the sport in 1997, while BBC did similar with Jake Humphrey when they regained the rights for the 2009 season.

I wrote the above in April. The other day though, I read a piece by Tony Dogkins over on AUTOSPORT (subscribers’ only) written last year. Towards the bottom, he spoke briefly to Jon Desborough who works for Sky. So, let me just summarise this. Sky have two motor sport presenters working for them (the other is Keith Huewen), yet they went for someone who has never presented motor sport? Now come on, where is the logic in that? There is not. The only feasible reason I can see for Lazenby getting the Sky Sports F1 job is because Martin Turner, Sky F1’s executive, also wanted him to make the jump to Formula 1 from Rugby.

Now, to get onto the point in hand, is Lazenby as much as a motor sport enthusiast as Desborough or Huewen? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that both Desborough and Huewen have motor sport experience under their belts, stretching back over ten years. Lazenby, possibly due to the lack of motor sport experience, has not found his feet as quick as I thought he would. Of course, the F1 paddock is a much different environment to the calm Rugby studios, but it makes me wonder if Sky made a mistake in moving Lazenby over to the F1. Unfortunately, while I do agree that Lazenby is not the best F1 presenter, he has been unfairly criticised by certain sections on the gutter press, more information on that is here. The jury is still out on Lazenby, there is still nine races left of the season to go, so we shall see if he improves as the season concludes.

Ted Kravitz
One of the best aspects of the Formula 1 coverage is hearing what the pit lane guys have to say. It always has been, getting into the nitty gritty of it, but also putting it across to the viewer in a language that they understand – without dumbing down. Which is always the fear. Kravitz’s F1 career began in 1997 with ITV behind the scenes. He moved onto pit lane reporter in 2002 when James Allen moved into the commentary box. I was extremely glad when Kravitz moved to BBC in 2009, as I always considered his pit lane tidbits one of the better aspects of ITV’s coverage. With free practice sessions live on the BBC Red Button from 2009 to 2011, Kravitz excelled as we got his tidbits on all three days of the weekend. Furthermore, his video blogs helped us dive into the post-race strategies and gave us a great summary of the majority of the teams’ on the grid.

Kravitz’s role expanded further for 2012 on Sky as he became host of The F1 Show alongside Thompson. As I noted earlier, the two have gelled together brilliantly. Kravitz’s relaxed style makes the show all the better, as well as seeing him poke around old machinery and seeing him explain new inventions on the Sky Pad. One of the explanations so far is with the Mercedes diffuser, which wasn’t dumbed down, but still made the hardcore fan like it. I’m glad Kravitz made the jump, because I would have hated seeing BBC cut his contribution down to shreds in the highlights shows, if anything, Kravitz deserves all the exposure he gets on Sky. Kravitz is also now doing his notebook’s for both Qualifying and the Race, with the Race version being broadcast live on the Sky Sports F1 channel. Very quickly, it is turning into, for me, the best bit of the post-race show.

The above is a hybrid of what I wrote in April and my thoughts now. Some sections remain virtually unchanged, while other bits have been ripped up and torn apart depending on how my opinion has changed. Since April, Sky have added to the line-up with Allan McNish, a definitely much needed addition to the team. It also gives a bit of a variety to the punditry and allows them to rotate it around each race which helps keep the program fresh and ‘new’ to the viewer. There is no need for them now to add anyone else to the team for the remainder of the season, although no doubt the team will be reviewed at the end of the year depending on when talent’s contracts expire.

In part 2 of this series I’ll focus on all the BBC TV team members, in a similar fashion to what I have done above. Again, some sections will remain the same as April’s series’, while some will change.

Comments, thoughts, disagreements and suggestions are welcome!

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 5th August, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 31k – The F1 Show (Friday, 22:01)
2 – 10k – F1 Legends (Friday, 19:30)
3 – 9k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
4 – 6k – Hungarian Grand Prix Highlights (Tuesday, 21:00)
5 – 5k – 1999 Season Review (Friday, 21:00)
6 – 4k – Hungarian Grand Prix Replay (Monday, 19:00)
7 – 4k – Hungarian Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 18:30)
8 – 4k – F1 Legends (Friday, 23:31)
9 – 3k – Fast Track (Tuesday, 19:30)
10 – 3k – Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 12:30)

When I first seen the figures, I thought to myself. Do I really need to state the obvious? I’ll simply say two things here, the first is that the channel reach is the lowest yet, and well, Olympics. The figures are not surprising, Formula 1 is on its Summer break and the Olympics destroyed all.

The Twitter outlook

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,066,741 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 963,416 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
03 – 957,971 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
04 – 465,272 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 408,206 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 245,672 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 241,136 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 184,825 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 167,181 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 162,361 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 12,286 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 9,771 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 9,738 – Jenson Button
04 – 3,929 – Pastor Maldonaldo
05 – 3,756 – Bruno Senna

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 258 – Charles Pic
02 – 360 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 417 – Timo Glock
04 – 438 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 587 – Nico Hulkenberg

Interesting to see both Williams’ drivers recording high increases in fourth and fifth respectively, furthermore, Maldonaldo is the only driver to record a higher gain week-on-week, despite the break.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 314,354 – Ferrari
02 – 217,595 – McLaren
03 – 141,871 – Red Bull
04 – 140,700 – Mercedes
05 – 125,437 – Lotus
06 – 82,340 – Caterham
07 – 75,753 – Marussia
08 – 71,785 – Williams
09 – 71,701 – Force India
10 – 67,635 – Sauber

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 1,913 – Red Bull
02 – 1,727 – Ferrari
03 – 1,597 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 344 – Toro Rosso
02 – 382 – Williams
03 – 466 – Caterham

The main movement is that Red Bull have finally moved ahead of Mercedes, as the graph shows, Red Bull have been closing on Mercedes for the past few months:

Twitter followers - Red Bull vs Mercedes vs Lotus — A comparison of the amount of Twitter followers Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus have between April 2012 and August 2012.

The graph also shows Lotus closing on Mercedes, but they are closing on Mercedes marginally every week, so it is highly unlikely that Lotus will overtake Mercedes until very late this year, unless Lotus win a race of course!

At the opposite end of the spectrum, while Maldonaldo and Senna made big gains in the Drivers’ table, Williams recorded the second lowest gain.

Driver and Team statistics as of Tuesday 7th August 2012.