To celebrate the fifth anniversary of The F1 Broadcasting Blog, we are looking back at five races from the archive and chewing over them. Being a broadcasting site, these races are not being analysed from a racing standpoint, but instead from a media perspective.

The five races include Grand Prix from the BBC and ITV eras, crossing over from the Americas, into Europe and Australia. Some races picked are your usual affair, whilst others have major significance in Formula 1 history. I did think about looking at five ‘major’ races, but each race has equal merit from a broadcasting standpoint, irrespective of how great the race was.

We are heading down under for race four in the series, the start of a new Formula 1 season. Formula 1 aimed to put a controversial 2007 season behind it, with 2008 set to offer another close championship battle between McLaren and Ferrari. McLaren, led by Lewis Hamilton following Fernando Alonso’s exit, would fight both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.

The journey starts with the 2008 Australian Grand Prix! ITV enhanced their Formula 1 offering for 2008 with live World Feed coverage of Friday practice via ITV.com, a welcome addition and the first time that UK viewers received live practice coverage since F1 Digital+ in 2002. The key broadcast details can be found below:

• Date: Sunday 16th March 2008
• Channel: ITV1
• Time: 03:30 to 06:40 (re-run: 15:45 to 18:30)
• Presenter: Steve Rider
• Reporter: Louise Goodman
• Reporter: Ted Kravitz
• Commentator: James Allen
• Commentator: Martin Brundle
• Analyst: Mark Blundell

For 2008, ITV retained the same team as in 2006 and 2007, with Steve Rider continuing to lead the presentation line-up.

Pre-Race
The pre-show covered three main strands: McLaren’s expectations after turmoil in 2007, a preview of the new drivers and teams, and the rule changes that have come into effect for the 2008 championship. With an hour-long build-up, and only one commercial break, there is ample time to cover the three angles.

We join Rider in a scorching hot Melbourne situated outside the McLaren garage alongside Mark Blundell. The two talk about Hamilton’s early season prospects following a poor qualifying session for the Ferrari opposition, Blundell describing the hot conditions as “very tough for the boys out there.” In between, the VTs and interviews, Rider and Blundell discuss the various teams, with BMW Sauber’s strong performance getting a mention.

Both Ted Kravitz and Louise Goodman voice the first feature as they run down the complete grid in a quick fire manner. It is a good way to introduce viewers to the new faces and revamped teams (Force India) on the grid in 2008 for those that do not follow the off-season gossip. This kind of feature has disappeared in recent years, as there is an expectation that viewers have followed Formula 1 in the off-season, which is not always the case.

Kravitz also talks through the rule changes for 2008, with the likes of Nico Rosberg and Hamilton giving their opinion on the new regulations, including the banning of traction control. “It’s lovely to see a car with opposite lock on, fantastic,” says Blundell, noting that it will be good to see drivers’ make mistakes.

Attention briefly switches back to McLaren with Anthony Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa giving live interviews. The Hamilton interview does not bother me; it is short enough to be harmless in the context of the show, whilst de la Rosa gives good insight into the strategy for the race ahead.

James Allen voiced over the qualifying report, appearing in-vision at the start of his piece. ITV’s virtual grid graphics are lovely, scrolling down the grid row by row, with an instrumental version of ‘Lift Me Up’ in the background. Following some post qualifying interviews, Allen and Brundle recognise the “changing of the guard” that is taking place due to the new regulations, giving control back to the driver, with recognition for Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel who has benefited as a result.

I enjoy it; it’s a challenge for everyone. This is real racing. I’ve been saying for years that I wished that the cars were like what they were in the Senna and Prost days and we’re slowly moving more towards that. Without traction control, it’s tricky. It’s hard work. – Lewis Hamilton speaking in a pre-race interview with Steve Rider.

There is some foreshadowing at two stages in the build-up around Honda. With Jenson Button on the cusp of a new three-year deal, Nick Fry states, “Our objective is to make him world champion.” Later on in the build-up, Dannii Minogue has a good bit of fortune telling, “Things are looking up [for Honda], I saw Ross [Brawn] with a smile on his face. This year and the next, they’ve got a long-term plan. The team morale has lifted; it’s wonderful to see because I’ve followed Honda for a long time.” Even this early on, there are signs of 2009 looking good for the outfit!

It is time for a lap of Melbourne, Brundle on top form with his voice over of Hamilton’s pole position lap. An excellent sit-down piece between Rider and Hamilton follows; it feels more down to earth than a present day Hamilton interview, with emphasis on technical detail. ITV’s cameras catch Hamilton chatting to mechanics with Rider and Blundell talking in the background about the mechanics camaraderie from both sides after the frayed relationships in 2007.

The next feature looks at the new venues on the 2008 calendar, Goodman at the location of the 2008 European Grand Prix. The comments in hindsight are amusing, a long-term contract, with an exciting layout. Err… Martin Brundle is out in Singapore. “I can see drivers adoring this race track,” is the comment made from Brundle. Nine years later, it is still on the calendar, Singapore a lot more loved than Valencia ever was.

A further feature on McLaren focusses on Ron Dennis after speculation that he might leave Formula 1 following the spy gate saga. The one piece of fluff that does make its way into the broadcast is a chat between Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen, which focusses on the raw characters of the two drivers. Brundle’s grid walk rounds off the pre-show, but is one of the more difficult segments due to the warm weather conditions and it being race one of the new season, leaving Goodman to conduct most of the grid interviews.

Overall, it is a strong build-up to start ITV’s season, with McLaren the common denominator. Yes, the majority of VTs were dedicated to the team, but it was not repetitive, with each VT focussing on a different element. Rider and Blundell mentioned most of the leading teams, and gave credit where due. Next, it is race time!

Race
Allen sets the scene for the start of the 2008 season, with attention on the hot weather conditions. Within a minute, the first piece of team radio comes from Nick Heidfeld in his BMW, along with a nice graphic showing his key Formula 1 statistics, the same also appearing for Hamilton. The grid graphics on display are plain in terms of format, but do the job nicely, no jazz necessary.

Tyre strategy discussion starts as the drivers head to the grid, with a white line down the middle groove denoting the soft tyre. Whilst tyre choice is important, it is not deemed critical enough for Formula One Management (FOM) to display in their on-screen graphics. “When the five lights go off, the 2008 championship will be under way… and it’s go in Australia!”

The start was confusing, with the World Feed failing to identify whether Massa had spun out of the race during a melee at turn one. Only after a multitude of replays did we identify who caused what, with five cars eliminated. Whilst the director focussed on the leading drivers in the early stages, FOM used replays to pick up overtakes not seen clearly by external cameras. A camera looking back from Nelson Piquet Jnr’s Renault captures Kazuki Nakajima overtaking him from some distance back.

A lot of on-board footage is shown from Raikkonen in the early stages, tracking his progress nicely through the field, a rarity to see so much on-board Ferrari footage on the World Feed compared to even five years earlier. Allen uses the quieter gaps to add context and ‘colour’ to the stories that have not been covered, such as Super Aguri’s takeover.

Raikkonen trying to distract [Honda’s Rubens] Barrichello rather than trying to overtake him, he’s getting frustrated. Isn’t it great to see the cars moving around, the drivers fighting the car, all the way through the corner, they cannot point the nose in any longer and floor the throttle, let the electronics worry about it and think about the next corner. They’ve got to drive these cars every metre of the race track, great news. – ITV co-commentator Martin Brundle

The Ferrari driver eventually gets past Barrichello in a move that FOM managed to miss live but like previously aired in the form of a replay. The ‘ticker’ is a key form of FOM’s product in 2008, but is too transparent to be useful compared to the rest of the graphics set. Also seen here is an early version of the driver tracker during the first pit stop phase as Hamilton regained lead with Kovalainen exiting the pits just in front of Raikkonen (who had not yet pitted).

Allen interrupts an interview between Goodman and Toyota driver Jarno Trulli half way through, as Massa’s front left tyre connects with the right rear of David Coulthard’s Red Bull! The latter retired immediately with a lot of damage, causing a second Safety Car. Straight away, we hear analysis from Brundle, who gives both perspectives on the incident from how Coulthard and Massa would have seen the accident, using his driving experience to good effect. Coulthard used some colourful language in his interview with Goodman to describe the incident!

ITV did not miss much action during this race, with Safety Car periods helping. Ferrari’s day deteriorated, with Raikkonen taking a trip straight across the gravel attempting to overtake Kovalainen, and then spinning attempting to overtake Timo Glock in his Toyota, both incidents caught live by the director.

Shortly after, Glock was involved in a high-speed accident, causing the live camera to shake violently as the operator struggled to keep up with the speed and velocity of Glock’s car. The on-board shot of this would have been interesting to see, but was never aired (presumably the camera was not live at the time).

The Safety Car rules meant that Kovalainen and Alonso were unable to enter the pit lane as the Safety Car came back onto track, resulting in both cars exiting at the tail of the pack once both pit. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais was briefly fourth before he retired with engine failure, Allen referencing his time in IndyCar where Safety Car periods are prominent. After a dramatic race, Hamilton wins! Heidfeld finished second in his BMW Sauber, with Rosberg third, the latter claiming his first ever podium.

Post-Race
Kravitz gets the first interview with Ron Dennis as the cars head into parc ferme. On this occasion, the podium room is full of joy, Hamilton jumping around and congratulating Rosberg as Allen and Brundle remind viewers of the relationship between the two.

Following the podium procedure, Rider and Blundell praise Hamilton’s performance, Blundell calling it “very mature” given the number of Safety Car periods. The two review the start from the various angles provided by FOM, also commenting on the strong performance of the Ferrari car when Raikkonen was in clear air, although Blundell described some of his moves as “absolutely unbelievable”.

ITV aired the complete English-speaking press conference, an unusual occurrence. The remainder of the post-race programme flies by, with the major incidents covered by Rider and Blundell. The two start with Massa and Coulthard’s crash, before moving onto the mid field runners such as covering Barrichello’s performance in his Honda. All of this is in quick fire fashion, but given the number of incidents in the race, this should not be a surprise.

By ITV standards, the post-race segment is long at around 30 minutes in length, even that amount of time is impossible to cover every story that happened in the race. Kovalainen joined Rider and Blundell live, Kovalainen giving his reaction to his battle with Alonso in the closing laps (Kovalainen accidentally hitting the neutral button).

Kovalainen and the presenters preview Malaysia, before Rider and Blundell wrap up the show to conclude the 2008 Australian Grand Prix!

Note from David: I’m coming to the end of this initial series of five races. Is there interest in having a flashback piece every month, or something of that nature? Please leave a comment if you would like to see more pieces after the fifth race. It is still a work in progress, so tweaks will be made along the way.