Sky Sports have unveiled their schedules for the Christmas period, including a plethora of new content on Sky Sports F1.
– The Brabham Boys looks back at the Brabham Formula 1 team. This was filmed over the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, and will feature Herbie Blash, Charlie Whiting, Bernie Ecclestone, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Martin Brundle. The Brabham Boys is currently set to premiere on Saturday 3rd December at 14:00 (repeated near to the Christmas period).
– The F1 Report team review the season in a one-hour special that will air on Wednesday 7th December at 20:00.
– Nico The Brave reflects on the shock retirement of the current champion, with an extended interview and analysis from Martin Brundle, Damon Hill and Ted Kravitz. The special will air on Thursday 8th December at 20:00.
– The Journalists Special makes a return (guests to be confirmed), and will air on Wednesday 14th December from 20:00 to 21:00.
– Bernie Meets Brundle is a 30-minute special with the F1 supremo chatting to Martin Brundle. This is an extension of the feature airing over the Brazilian and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekends. I’m pleased in particular to see this given that there are bound to be snippets that were not included in the race weekend cuts. The premiere date is currently Friday 16th December at 20:00.
– Sky’s 2016 F1 Season Review is a one-hour special looking at the year gone by. This doesn’t appear to be a studio based show looking at the programme description. The premiere date is currently Saturday 17th December at 11:30.
– James Hunt: 40 Years On is a 30-minute special looking back at his 1976 championship winning year. The programme premieres on Saturday 17th December at 21:00. I suspect this might be bits from different segments cut together, but again it is nice to see it in one long piece.
Alongside this, the channel will also be airing highlights from the AUTOSPORT Awards whilst Mario Muth’s Senna vs Brundle documentary will be shown following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Anyone who follows this site regularly will know that one of my biggest criticisms of Sky is their failure in the past year or two to produce long-form original programme. The Christmas schedule above is a pleasant surprise and hopefully a sign of things to come as the channel heads towards 2017.
Channel 4 will be airing their own 95 minute review called Nico vs Lewis on Sunday 18th December from 12:30. Steve Jones, Mark Webber and David Coulthard present from the Mercedes F1 headquarters in Brackley. At this stage, the schedules should be locked into place, but there could be reviews pushed back due to the sudden retirement of Nico Rosberg.
Updated on November 25th to reflect The Brabham Boys being brought forward. Updated further on December 2nd with Channel 4’s details. Updated on December 5th with details of Sky’s Rosberg special. Updated on December 14th revising length of Bernie Meets Brundle.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
Brilliant news! Was just hoping it wasn’t going to be the lazy mans javelin sport again, I did get 6 months at half price after I complained about that last year, so some good came of it!
This is really cool, but it would be nice if Sky got into a partnership with FOM, so that FOM could then release the documentaries (after a suitable window has passed) worldwide on DVD & Blu-Ray for the next year. Yes, Sky would probably take a cut of the profits, but it would be a nice way to get such content out to the masses, plus it would save FOM the hassle of having to film them themselves…
Not worth watching. Most of it will just be shots of Rosberg’s unbearably smug face.
Sky have updated their schedules following Rosberg’s retirement with a full day of Nico’s 2016 wins from 6am tomorrow on Sky F1 under the title ‘Farewell Nico’.