Tag: MotoGP

All posts relating to MotoGP coverage.

New graphics set for MotoGP unveiled

The dawn of a new season means changes not just on the personnel side, but also on the graphical end of things. Last year it was Formula One Management changing its Formula 1 graphics. This year, Dorna have overhauled their graphics set for MotoGP.

The previous graphics set was in itself intuitive and slick. This time around, Dorna have ‘flattened’ the display, with similarities to the Formula 1 graphics that viewers saw last year.

The new graphics set on display during practice one at the 2016 Qatar MotoGP.
The new graphics set on display during practice one at the 2016 Qatar MotoGP.

When I reviewed the Formula 1 graphics set this time last year, I said the new graphics set looked “cleaner, slicker and more importantly, they [FOM] take a minimalist approach.”

My initial impression with Dorna’s new graphics is not positive, something does not sit right to me. The timing wall and any written text for that matter, looks far too thin. If your eye sight is not great (like mine), I fear you would be squinting to see who is where in the pecking order. Watching practice, I’ve had difficulty reading the timing wall on both laptop and television.

Comparing the timing 'wall width' for Formula 1 and MotoGP.
Comparing the timing ‘wall width’ for Formula 1 and MotoGP.

Like the previous graphics set, it looks like four riders’ laps can be tracked at the same time at the foot of the screen, which is a positive in a qualifying session. There’s certainly an emphasis on displaying the numbers to 1.d.p. (the next two digits are notably darker on both the timing wall and the individual display).

Minimalist graphics are good, but it feels like Dorna may have gone too far in that direction, to the detriment of the look and feel of the graphics set.

This post will be updated with more thoughts as the weekend progresses.

Thomas and Griffiths no longer part of BT’s MotoGP team

Iwan Thomas and Abi Griffiths will not be part of BT Sport’s MotoGP team for the 2016 season, it has been confirmed.

Both Thomas and Griffiths took to Twitter to announce the news:

The confirmation follows the announcement last week that Suzi Perry is joining BT’s team, presenting alongside Craig Doyle throughout the season, although she will not be on-site until Jerez.

Given the Perry news, it is not too surprising that Thomas and Griffiths are leaving the team, although somewhat disappointing in the case of the latter as I thought Griffiths grew as MotoGP presenter throughout 2015. Inevitably, there was always going to be someone being dropped somewhere down the train as a result of Formula 1 moving to Channel 4, and this appears to be where the buck has stopped.

In other MotoGP news, BT Sport’s coverage this season will be sponsored by Suzuki.

Scheduling: The 2016 Qatar MotoGP

After a titanic battle between Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo last year, with Marc Marquez getting involved at the end, the 2016 MotoGP championship has a lot to live up to. Unusually, the action gets underway on the same day as the start of the Formula One season in Australia, the first time that has happened since 1995 – back then it was Formula One in Brazil and MotoGP in Eastern Creek, Australia.

The main news over the Winter is that Suzi Perry will be part of BT Sport’s MotoGP team for the 2016 season, presenting alongside Craig Doyle. Perry last presented MotoGP in 2009 with the BBC. Presenting duties have since travelled past Jennie Gow, Matt Roberts, Melanie Sykes and more recently the aforementioned Doyle. Perry and Doyle will be joined by Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder, now in their third season as commentators on BT Sport.

BT Sport’s 2016 coverage kicks off with a preview show live on Thursday afternoon from Qatar. Doyle presents the programme, with regular MotoGP faces Gavin Emmett and Neil Hodgson alongside him. BT’s post-race show, The Chequered Flag returns for a second year. Notably, in the past few days, Iwan Thomas has been removed from the description for that show. I don’t know his or Abi Griffiths’ status with regards to BT’s MotoGP coverage this year, but I will update this site if we get any updates on that front.

As has been the case since this deal came into effect, ITV4 will again be screening highlights every Monday after a race weekend which is good news for those of you that do not have access to BT Sport. BT Sport reaped the rewards of a fantastic MotoGP season last year, and they will be hoping that viewing figures continue to increase as year three of their coverage gets underway. In the next few days,

MotoGP – Qatar (BT Sport 2)
17/03 – 14:00 to 15:00 – Preview
17/03 – 15:00 to 19:45 – Practice
18/03 – 14:45 to 19:00 – Practice
19/03 – 14:30 to 18:30 – Qualifying
20/03 – 14:45 to 19:00 – Races
=> 14:45 – Moto3
=> 16:15 – Moto2
=> 17:45 – MotoGP
20/03 – 19:00 to 20:00 – Chequered Flag

MotoGP – Qatar (BT Sport Xtra)
20/03 – 12:45 to 14:45 – Warm Up

MotoGP – Qatar (ITV4)
21/03 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights

As always, if anything changes, I will update the schedule.

Update on March 16th – Perry has confirmed that she will not be in Qatar. Her first appearance with the BT team will be in Jerez. Furthermore, both Thomas and Griffiths are no longer part of BT’s team.

Suzi Perry joins BT Sport, including MotoGP

Suzi Perry is to join BT Sport’s line-up, it has been officially confirmed.

Perry, who presented BBC’s MotoGP coverage from 2003 to 2009, and then their Formula 1 coverage from 2013 through to the end of 2015, confirmed last month that she would not be part of Channel 4’s F1 team. The BT news was first reported by Charles Sale last week. Perry will be part of their MotoGP presenting line-up alongside Craig Doyle.

The press release states that Perry will “showcase her knowledge across BT Sport’s coverage, including the FIM MotoGP™ World Championship, FIM Speedway and the World Rally Championship.” Perry will present other strands on the channel, which will be announced in the forthcoming weeks.

Commenting on the news, Perry said: “I’m really excited to be joining BT Sport and working with their tremendous team. Motorsport continues to be massive in the UK and I can’t wait to bring BT Sport viewers all of the action from in front of the camera.”

Simon Green, Head of BT Sport, added: “Suzi is an extremely popular and well respected TV presenter and I’m delighted she is joining our team. Our viewers will really benefit from her vast motorsport knowledge and experience across our growing portfolio of motorsport.”

It is a great move by BT to bolster their MotoGP line-up, and a logical move given that Perry became a free agent with no Formula 1 to occupy her time. Perry and motor cycling are a natural fit as we have seen in the past. Notably, BT Sport’s press release omits Iwan Thomas and Abi Griffiths from their MotoGP presenting team.

It appears Thomas is remaining part of BT’s output, as he is listed as presenter for The Chequered Flag (also staying) following the first race of 2016 in Qatar. It looks like Griffiths has had her role reduced, or she has been dropped altogether from the MotoGP presenting team. I hope it is not the latter, as it was Griffiths improved significantly across the year and a half that she was part of the team.

Update on March 12th – I note that Thomas is no longer listed as presenter of The Chequered Flag on the TV guides, so it seems his status is unclear.

Update on March 16th – Both Thomas and Griffiths are no longer part of BT’s team for 2016.

The merry-go-round: what we know

With just 19 days until the Australian Grand Prix and the Qatar MotoGP, we are none the wiser to the identity of Channel 4’s Formula 1 team or BT Sport’s MotoGP team. But, there are some things that we do know. And, as always, it looks like we could have some shocks on the cards…

BBC part company with James Allen
The F1 Broadcasting Blog can confirm that BBC Radio 5 Live have parted company with James Allen. Allen has been part of BBC’s 5 Live F1 team since the beginning of 2012, working as lead commentator for the majority of races. In the races that Allen did not cover, either Jonathan Legard or Jack Nicholls substituted for Allen. It is understood that the decision to drop Allen for 2016 was made prior to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Allen has since updated his LinkedIn to confirm his BBC exit.

Jack Nicholls will again be commentating on some of the races with 5 Live. We do not yet know which races, but Nicholls is unlikely to be commentating on any race which clashes with the Formula E Championship. Alongside Nicholls will be Jennie Gow, who is staying with 5 Live. As that link shows though, what exactly the ‘team’ consists of appears to be shrouded in some mystery. The problem we have is that: the BBC took a decision to exit its Formula 1 TV contract. Anyone under a BBC F1 TV contract for 2015 is therefore still under contract with BBC, unless they are able to escape from said contract. Even though Gow is radio, inevitably no TV coverage means that the radio operation is being downsized.

Allan McNish looks like he is staying with BBC F1. Recent tweets certainly give the indication that McNish is remaining with the BBC, and will be by default be 5 Live’s co-commentator one would imagine. At this stage, we don’t know about the status of Tom Clarkson in all of this. Who will be Allan McNish’s partner when Nicholls is not around? Your guess is as good as mine. However…

Is a shock on the cards at Channel 4?
This blog understands that the Channel 4 team does contain at least one major surprise. And given that Allen is not tied to the BBC any more, the chances of him turning up as part of Channel 4’s team increases significantly. Inevitably, thoughts turn to Allen potentially grabbing the lead commentator role instead of Ben Edwards, a move which would shock a lot of people reading this post.

A more likely thought I feel is that Allen could be one of Channel 4’s pit lane reporters alongside Lee McKenzie, with Edwards remaining in the commentary box. Bear in mind that Alex Kalinauckas, writing on James Allen’s website on February 9th, stated that McKenzie and Edwards would be part of Channel 4’s team. You would not write something that is knowingly inaccurate. Allen becoming pit lane reporter would not be surprising if Tom Clarkson is tied into a BBC contract. Bear in mind that the Channel 4 photo shoot occurred in the week beginning February 8th, so the team would have been finalised at the time of Kalinauckas’ post.

If Allen is Channel 4’s pit lane reporter, then it would be a role that I would be happy to see him in given that I enjoy reading his thoughts and also enjoyed his original stint as pit lane reporter with ITV. Allen is good in front of the camera too, and given that Channel 4 are having two presentation teams in one, Allen could be the face they want to help in that respect, not necessarily as presenter but in a journalist style role. Like I said though, if Allen though was announced as lead commentator, that would be major shock. And, I imagine for those reading this, not exactly a positive shock either. Assuming for a second that Allen is in as lead commentator and Edwards is not, then the latter is presumably still locked into a BBC contract.

Alternatively, Allen may not be part of Channel 4’s team at all…

Suzi Perry set to join BT’s MotoGP team
According to Charles Sale writing in the Daily Mail, Suzi Perry has been signed up by BT Sport to work on their MotoGP coverage. Sale does not elaborate much further, saying that Perry has been signed up to “work on a variety of roles” for their coverage. If true, it is a fantastic signing for BT Sport and bolsters their MotoGP coverage following a successful second season. It is difficult to read much into a small paragraph, but the implication is that there is some change to the BT Sport team.

Craig Doyle was understood to be one of the four on Channel 4’s shortlist to host their Formula 1 coverage. Whether we can expect Doyle to jump, I don’t know. My instinct is that BT want Doyle to focus on their rugby coverage as opposed to juggling between rugby and MotoGP. A tweet from Ben Constanduros on Monday 29th February went as follows: “Last week was a good one, spoke to People from BBC, C4, Sky and FOM – enlightening! broadcasting shocks coming – not involving me though!” The follow-up was that it doesn’t involve Channel 4, so we will have to wait and see on that front.

Finalised television listings go to press on Wednesday 9th March. No matter what, we will all know the answers soon. Unless we hear anything more in the next few days, this will probably be the final piece of this nature. So, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday. Or next week, whenever it may be. Let the announcements begin!

Update on March 1st at 19:55 – As I said, before Wednesday 9th March. David Coulthard has gone on public record on yesterday’s Hawksbee and Jacobs Show on talkSPORT (14:30 to 15:00 segment, 20 minutes in) that the Channel 4 press launch will be taking place on Tuesday 8th March.

Update on March 2nd at 21:25 – This blog learnt late last night that the announcement of Perry to join BT’s MotoGP team, which was scheduled for today, had been pushed back at the last minute. Perry was due to appear at the MotoGP test in Qatar, but has not showed up.