Formula 1 is very quickly heading towards Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix, but before then there is the small matter of the final test in Barcelona.
Sky Sports F1 will again have a 15-minute round-up on each of the four days, this time with Rachel Brookes presenting for Sky Sports News. David Croft returns with #AskCrofty at 21:15 on each day. There is also a 30-minute F1 Report special looking back at testing.
Elsewhere, although I am not restarting the scheduling pieces properly until the end of the month, I should note that the IndyCar Series returns next Sunday (12th March). Live coverage of the first race from the streets of St. Petersburg airs on BT Sport//ESPN from 16:30 to 19:00.
Tuesday 7th March
21:00 to 21:45 – Day 1 Highlights
– round-up at 21:00
– #AskCrofty at 21:15
Wednesday 8th March
20:15 to 21:00 – Day 1 Highlights (R)
21:00 to 21:45 – Day 2 Highlights
– round-up at 21:00
– #AskCrofty at 21:15
Thursday 9th March
20:15 to 21:00 – Day 2 Highlights (R)
21:00 to 21:45 – Day 3 Highlights
– round-up at 21:00
– #AskCrofty at 21:15
Friday 10th March
20:15 to 21:00 – Day 3 Highlights (R)
21:00 to 21:45 – Day 4 Highlights
– round-up at 21:00
– #AskCrofty at 21:15
Saturday 11th March
20:00 to 20:30 – F1 Report
If anything changes, the above schedule will be updated.
Update on March 11th – I know that test two has already happened, but I’m not in a position to publish the Australia schedule yet. So a note that there will be an F1 Report Development Special on Wednesday 15th March at 20:00 with Natalie Pinkham alongside Mike Gascoyne and Craig Scarborough. Tonight’s special for those wondering will be David Croft alongside Chris Medland and Jon Noble.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
It’s really fantastic that Sky having been putting the testing highlights and Ted’s Notebook up for free on the Sky website. I really appreciate their free F1 Report throughout the year as well, I hope it continues that way.
Not thrilled with “Ask Crofty” replacing Ted’s notebook for the second test. Whilst Ted often has some interesting insights into whats going on “Ask Crofty” typically deals with answering questions from the loud uninformed masses and there’s usually not a lot to learn if youve been paying attention to the coverage elsewhere.
I completely agree with the above. Croft is no substitute for a decent F1 journalist like Ted. I hate the dumbed down Twitterati approach, it’s more annoying than those bloody hashtags on C4!
I’ve found some decent pieces from Will Buxton on YouTube, but am not sure I’ve seen them all. He appears to be doing pieces for both FOM and NBCSN, but I only get to see it if someone prominently posts it again on YouTube – I wish there was a better way to find his material.
Will Buxton is wasted on NBCSN. If Sky culled most of their platitude-spouting ex-drivers etc, I’d love to see a pit lane and paddock reporting crew of Ted, Will and Pat Symomds – ie people who know their F1, and can talk about it in an eloquent and informative fashion.
I can’t believe it’s taken Sky so long to get their own technical specialist. It seemed an obvious gap, especially considering how popular Gary Anderson was on the BBC.
Hopefully with Pat Symonds now on the team, we’ll get some better coverage from Sky this season. If they made better use of Mark Hughes, their coverage may even begin to get close to something near to value for money!