The dust has settled on what has been an extraordinary few weeks of Formula 1 action with thrills, spills, controversy and drama. With it, Channel 4’s first stab at covering Formula 1 has concluded.

Sky Sports selected Australia as one of their exclusive races, meaning that Channel 4 aired extended highlights. Alongside that, fans were treated to a special edition of Speed with Guy Martin in the build-up to Australia. I wrote a piece looking at Saturday’s qualifying highlights programme from Australia.

Channel 4 have since aired live coverage of every session from the Bahrain Grand Prix, meaning viewers have now seen a sample of both Channel 4’s live and recorded coverage. What are your early impressions of the presentation team? Was there anything that disappointed you throughout the two weeks? Where would you be looking to improve the coverage?

The best thoughts and opinions will be collated into a new post which will be published in the lead up to the Chinese Grand Prix.

Text updated on April 3rd following the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Saturday 19th March and the 2016 Australian Grand Prix weekend will now be etched in Formula 1 folklore for all the wrong reasons. In the broadcasting world, it marked the day that Channel 4 hit the air with their first Formula 1 highlights programme.

The day had been prepared for. It has been three months in the making since it was announced in December that Channel 4 would be taking over the television rights from the BBC. Channel 4 have been interested in Formula 1 for a long time, dating back to at least 2011. Over the past weeks and months, the channel alongside production partner Whisper Films, have been assembling a team that, according to Channel 4’s Chief Creative Officer Jay Hunt, is “the greatest, extraordinary and most dynamic line-up yet for Formula 1.” What are the early impressions?

In Melbourne we have Steve Jones, David Coulthard, Mark Webber, Ben Edwards, Lee McKenzie and Karun Chandhok covering the action. You are never going to learn everything in one show, but the product that Channel 4 produced today is a sign of the direction that they plan on taking (minus the shambles in the middle).

> June 2012: A look back at ITV’s first live Formula 1 broadcast in 1997
> July 2012: A look at BBC’s [2012 German Grand Prix] Qualifying highlights programme

Structurally, the 105-minute show from 12:30 to 14:15 had 30 minutes of build-up and 15 minutes of reaction. The qualifying edit was 60 minutes long, excluding adverts. Out of the 45 minutes of on-track timing, only around one minute was edited out. Normally you would have 45 minutes, plus a further four or five minutes combined after the chequered flag, necessitating the need for some edits. Because that was not the case here, it meant that Channel 4 viewers received qualifying in almost all its glory. There were five internal breaks, at around 12:40, 12:55, 13:18, 13:40 and 14:05. The show lasted 82 minutes in the 105-minute slot.

The post-qualifying round-up was okay. We got two in-depth pieces with Lewis Hamilton and then Toto Wolff and Christian Horner in one. Hamilton aside, there were no driver interviews from within the top eight: we had no reaction from the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg and Max Verstappen. On a normal day, I think that would have been unacceptable, but today was not normal circumstances. Editorially, a decision would have been made on whether to cover the fiasco in the wrap-up, and Channel 4/Whisper Films made the right decision covering it, even if meant losing some driver content, in my opinion.

I thought the graphics were visually stunning throughout the show. Simple, but effective. The integration of the C4F1 hashtag works for me as well to drive conversation through to social media, which is critical if they are in turn going to draw viewers towards their programming. I’m surprised that proper graphical integration has not yet worked its way through to either Sky’s or FOM’s graphics set. MotoGP, even in their new graphics set, have done this to perfection but Formula 1 seems to struggle to integrate the social element.

Channel 4 have also integrated the social media element into their break bumpers, with different styles depending on the content that is coming up. Quirky, different, distinctive, which is what Channel 4 wants to be. The dubstep music may grate sometimes (not my cup of tea), but the differing backgrounds and hashtag integration is significantly better than your standard break bumpers with a generic background. Seeing Daniel Ricciardo try to play The Chain on a guitar falls under the quirky category, but remember: this is about showing personalities, something Channel 4 are committed on doing. It keeps the viewer engaged instead of a generic VT piece for the sake of a VT piece which does not add something to the end product.

Speaking of The Chain, Channel 4’s new opening titles are significantly different to what we have ever experienced before for Formula 1. The new titles are a collaboration between Whisper Films and Framestore. Less colourful and flashy were the first thoughts that came to my mind. First off, the titles are distinctive in that they will be radically altered for each race, with the lettering changed depending on round. They feel like a 2016 version of ITV’s first effort from 1997 to 1999. At the moment, I’m neither here or there with the titles. The first half of the sequence works really well but the latter half once The Chain properly breaks out into its element, not so well. It is one of them which needs multiple viewings, the titles may look better on the big screen and in clearer quality rather than on the laptop.

Impressions of Steve Jones on screen are good. As I’ve mentioned previously, Bahrain will always be the acid test being Channel 4’s first live Grand Prix. But today, I didn’t get the impression that Jones was floundering around. He did what you expect a presenter to do, comfortably led the show, also having a joke along the way with Coulthard and Webber, both of whom were excellent in the build-up. Jones did not look like someone who was making their Grand Prix presenting debut. Was it perfect? No, of course not. Did it look a tad stilted in places? Yes, it did. But give Jones time and I can see him transforming into a very solid Grand Prix presenter. Bahrain can “make or break” the show, but Australia is as good preparation as you are ever going to get.

Channel 4’s first main interview was Lee McKenzie grilling Fernando Alonso. This is a prime example of why McKenzie is vital for Channel 4, as her interviewing techniques are second to none, to dig below the surface and gather more information. An insightful watch. The only person Channel 4’s viewers did not hear much from was Karun Chandhok, who was probably a victim of the new qualifying format. It is probably worth noting that viewers around the world in multiple countries hear Channel 4’s commentary: Chandhok commentated with Ben Edwards on both practice two and three. I’m hopeful we will hear Chandhok more in their race day coverage as strategic decisions unfold.

Overall, for Channel 4’s first show, it was a positive starting point going forward. Now, to the race! And hopefully Channel 4 will have something more positive to chat about.

Channel 4 have today launched their brand new Formula 1 website. The new website contains video content, news articles alongside blogs from the likes of Jolyon Palmer.

Whilst the site does not have a mass of content on there, it clearly is suited to the 21st century. Anyone expecting it to have the depth and breadth of the BBC’s offering in 2009 will be disappointed, but in the time frame, I think they have done a great job getting the site off the ground. Initial impressions are positive, and the advert that is on there is not obtrusive in the slightest.

I’m a fan of the automatically generated Twitter section at the foot of the homepage, as it encourages others to head onto their Twitter feed and look at the other picture content. The website will only feel busier as the weekend progresses. I’m certainly liking the look and feel of it, so all in all a great starting point going forward.

Something that might concern people is that there doesn’t seem to be hints yet of any interactivity, specifically surrounding the extra feeds that BBC offered online and via the Red Button service. How any live content will be integrated into the above, if at all, we don’t know.

Channel 4 have today confirmed their plans for commercial breaks within their ten live race programmes. As revealed back in December, the channel will be airing their live ten races uninterrupted.

The channel has announced today that the last advert break before the race will occur “just moments before the formation lap”. In what they are calling the Pole Position break, the break will last 30 seconds, with Mercedes-Benz Cars UK the only company that will advertise in the junction following a competitive process. The remaining Podium Packages that Channel 4 are offering to advertisers will see a further 30 second ad break “just after the winner takes the chequered flag.”

The last full length commercial break will take place before the national anthem (so from around 12:42 to 12:45, or equivalent), with the first full break after the race taking place when cars are in parc fermé. That doesn’t mean that an ad break will take place when cars are in parc ferme, but the provision is there. The deal between Channel 4 and Mercedes-Benz Cars UK was brokered between Channel 4 and Fuel@VivaKi.

Although there will be people who think that going to a 30″ advertising break moments before the formation lap will break the tension before the start of the race, it is not a surprise. Unlike Sky, Channel 4’s primary income is advertising, they are not a subscription based service. It was inevitable that they would look for innovative ways to deliver advertising around the coverage. Sky do the same with their football coverage, a bet365 or SkyBet advert airs seconds before kick-off. The good news, based on the wording in the press release, is that there will not be any advertising during Safety Car periods.

Working on the assumption that Channel 4’s build-up will be on hour long and will use up their full 12 minutes of advertising in that clock hour (and no break can have more than 3 minutes 30 seconds of adverts), we are looking at something along the lines of the following:

12:00:00 to 12:10:00 – Part 1
12:10:00 to 12:13:00 – Commercial 1
=> 5 x 30″ adverts
=> 2 x 5″ sponsor
=> 1 x 20″ promo
12:13:00 to 12:20:00 – Part 2
12:20:00 to 12:23:30 – Commercial 2
=> 6 x 30″ adverts
=> 2 x 5″ sponsor
=> 1 x 20″ promo
12:23:30 to 12:30:00 – Part 3
12:30:00 to 12:33:30 – Commercial 3
=> 6 x 30″ adverts
=> 2 x 5″ sponsor
=> 1 x 20″ promo
12:33:30 to 12:42:20 – Part 4
12:42:20 to 12:45:50 – Commercial 4
=> 6 x 30″ adverts
=> 2 x 5″ sponsor
=> 1 x 20″ promo
12:45:50 to 12:59:15 – Part 5
12:59:15 to 12:59:45 – Commercial 5
=> 1 x 30″ advert
13:00:00 – Formation Lap begins

I would be surprised if Channel 4 did not use up all of its 12 minutes that it is allowed in the build-up given that there are no adverts within the race itself. An alternative is that they have one less advertising break, but make the commercial length last four minutes (including bumpers), this would mean only 11 minutes of adverts in the clock hour as opposed to 12.  We don’t know what Sky’s strategy will be this season either. Previously, when the BBC was live, they went uninterrupted without adverts but they may not be as enticed to do so this year with Channel 4 running their own commercials.