I have had my thoughts, now it is time to have your say, with The F1 Broadcasting Blog’s survey looking at Channel 4’s Formula 1 line-up.
There are six pages in the survey, each focussing on a different role:
P1. Presenter
P2. Lead Commentator
P3. Pit Lane Reporter
P4. Co-Commentator
P5. Analyst
P6. Technical Expert
Each page has two questions:
Q1. Your number one choice for that role (multiple choice).
Q2. Your order of preference for that role (rank).
The point of having two questions related to each role is that, in some cases, the number one choice may not be available to Channel 4, or there may be multiple people that may fill that role as discussed in the three pieces. All the candidates listed are based upon the comments you made in the posts over the holiday period, alongside my own suggestions in each of the three posts.
Predicting Channel 4’s Formula 1 team
> part 1
> part 2
> part 3
For some of the roles, there are a lot of candidates. I could have removed some choices, but I wanted to keep as much choice as possible and thought it would be unfair to remove some contenders based on my own personal preferences. There are 16 people that could make up the analyst roles, beware when ranking them to make sure no one is accidentally left at the bottom. The person at the top is your favourite for the role, and the person at the bottom is your least favourite for the role. Inevitably there may be one or two names you don’t recognise, but again I did not want to remove candidates based on personal preference.
The survey can be found here, and will close on Sunday 10th January at 16:00 UK time. It should take no longer than ten minutes to complete.
The reason I emphasise the closing date is simple, as I want to write about the results before Channel 4 announce their team. I may extend the closing date, depending on the volume of readers’ who have completed the survey. As usual I’m happy to hear your thoughts below if there is anything I have missed out.
Update on January 2nd at 22:00 – Thanks to those that have already completed the survey, some interesting trends are already emerging. I’ve made two slight technical changes to the survey: a) every question is now mandatory; and b) the ‘rank’ starting order is now randomised instead of alphabetical order so that those at the lower end of the alphabet are not penalised (this was an issue mainly for the Analyst question, but no others appear to be affected).
Motorsport Broadcasting 
One name that popped into my head only just now is Mike Gascoyne, formerly of McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan, Renault, Toyota, Spyker & Caterham. He was called in for technical analysis for a couple of races in 2009 by the BBC, and he did quite a good job. In fact, he actually used something similar to the Sky Pad in his explanations.
Mike Gascoyne has appeared on Sky’s F1 Midweek Report, too… I was really impressed with his BBC appearances. I’d like him to be involved with the C4 coverage in some way, but I think with his other commitments he would only appear from time to time (like Ant Davidson on SSF1)
Outside choices for me.
Presenter on site. Jon Desborough (former presenter of the wrc coverage)
Interviewer. Penny mallory. Again former presenter of their car show and reporter of the wrc
Commentator. What a great shout to possibly have Toby moody in the computer box. Great commentator. Knowledgeable and hopefully able to gel off the coast commentator. Ant Davidson is a shout for 2016. But maybe as I suggested. Jenson button for 2017 when he hangs his helmet up.
Technical analysis. Gary Anderson is the obvious choice. But what about Adrian newey.
And expert analysis. Keep jb and Toby in the box. Bring in someone like Eddie Irvine.
Few names missing from the list for me, including;
Will Buxton
Peter Windsor
Martin Brundle
Buxton and Brundle I deliberately didn’t include as they’re both locked down with Sky and NBC and I don’t see them moving – would be fascinating if Brundle defected though but I just don’t think it’s realistic though.
Should have included Windsor given he is still active in the F1 paddock with FOM (noticed someone put him down when I looked at the early results yesterday).
Brundle moved to Sky because he loves broadcasting it all live and gets a thrill out of it – Channel 4 wouldn’t provide him with that, so definitely not. Plus I doubt they could match his 1 million/year wage
Will Buxton would be great, think he has dine some f1, but his gp2 and gp3 was superb.
He always seems to get the best out of his co commentators too
when will we here from C4 as C4 has not got too long for sorting everything out, when will c4 say which races (bearing in mind C4 can not have 3 in a row as per normal) snd for just this year how will C4 sort out the horse racing on saturday on qualfying clashes
I believe Channel 4 said they would confirm presenters and which races are live/highlights in February. I would imagine early Feb. Horse racing clashes may well sort itself out with the live/highlights decisions, if not then F1 will clearly have priority on Channel 4 (although may have to rush off quickly after the final quali session)
Did you learn that from @F1OnFour on Twitter? Apparently it’s a fake account.
As for horse racing, David made an analysis of the situation here: https://f1broadcasting.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/the-motor-sport-angle-as-itv-takes-over-horse-racing/
Tony Jardine anyone?
A few mentioned during the survey Id never heard of, but some I loved and some I dont want, so put those i dont know in the middle, think that works right
Would have been nice to have a desc of some of those more obscure ones
Peter Windsor,Jenny Gow,and a couple of the SKY and BBC team that are made redundent
some of the decisions were difficult due to the unknown people or like jake humphrey can see him leaving BT
Ben Edwards commentary was exciting and brilliant – I’d love to see him in that role again