Little wonder it has been known to induce sickness. Drivers are advised that they may want to close eyes if they spin in order to avoid reacquainting themselves with their lunch. Apparently drivers have been known to be sick all over the place while driving the simulator. Come to think of it, I’m slightly suspicious because I remember that the cleaner was leaving the room just as we were entering it. We were told, though, that Kazuki Nakajima is amazing in the simulator and can spend all day in it with no ill effects.

The circuit models are said to be very accurate indeed, albeit some more accurate than others. For instance, someone else has exclusive rights to the best map of the Nürburgring. The maps are constructed using lasers. A van drives slowly around the circuit emitting laser beams at multiple angles, creating a map of millions of dots. This means that every bump on the circuit is accounted for.

An aerial image of the circuit is then overlaid on top of these dots to create the environment. But if you look at the circuit, some of the landmarks are not very accurately reproduced. In fact, some of it looks like bad virtual reality graphics. The idea is to reduce any confusion that might be caused by too many cues. If they don’t think something will give a driver an accurate cue, they won’t implement it.

Some teams have more sophisticated simulators. In some simulators the car will be on a moving platform to give the impression of movement — something clearly lacking from the still Williams cockpit. It is said that some simulators even have belts that tighten up to give you some impression of g-forces. Williams shun such devices, which they regard as off-putting.

I have to confess that I have been slightly sceptical about the Williams simulator in the past. McLaren’s is said to be amazing, but it is jealously kept under wraps from outsiders. Williams have no such qualms however. It is the only simulator that I have seen on television. See, for instance, this ITV video with Mark Blundell and this BBC video.

We were lucky enough to be in the room when occasional Williams tester Daniel Clos was driving it. He was there to acquaint himself with the Hungaroring in preparation for the GP2 races which were being held just a few days later. I have to say he didn’t look very good while we were there, and he even spun at one point. But those must have been his very first laps round the circuit and of course I am in no position to pass comment. In the real thing, he finished 11th in both races.

It is presumably a service that Williams are happy to offer young drivers in the hope of developing them into a Formula 1 star of the future. Whether Daniel Clos is one remains to be seen. But surely on his way to F1 stardom is another Williams tester, Nico Hülkenberg. Simulator Engineer Jeff Calam is adamant that the simulator is a worthwhile piece of equipment to invest in, pointing at Hülkenberg’s highly impressive GP2 results at circuits he hasn’t driven at before. This fact puts to bed my doubts about the quality of the Williams simulator.

Once the factory tour was over, we had a Q&A with Sam Michael. He was largely very open in his responses, and came across very well to me. I was impressed that he took the time out of his schedule to talk to a bunch of bloggers. You can hear audio of the Q&A session over at Brits on Pole once again.

After that, we went for a tour of the fabulous Williams museum. Here, we were expertly guided by Scott Garrett from Synergy, the company that arranged our visit on behalf of Philips. Although he now works for Synergy, he was previously Head of Marketing at Williams and now has links with a number of F1 teams. This makes him a highly knowledgeable speaker on Formula 1, and Williams in particular. It was a real pleasure to have this sort of insight.

For obvious reasons, photography was strictly forbidden in the factory, but we were free to take as many photographs as we wanted in the museum. And boy did we take the opportunity!

The museum is impressive, with a range of cars from the full history of the Williams team’s existence. The first car you see is Alan Jones’s FW06 with its Ford Cosworth engine peering out the back. Cars are displayed, more or less a car for every year, right up to 2007′s FW29 — the very car that the competition winner will be driving.

All-in-all, the museum contains over forty cars. We are told that Frank Williams is a hoarder. The team still owns 106 chassis, while it only makes around six per year. Most of these cars are well looked after and can theoretically still be driven. The main exception is the Honda-powered cars, because they asked for the engines back!

For the most part, the cars are laid out in chronological order, and as you make your way through the museum videos are played telling us about Williams during the period of the cars in the vicinity. The relevant cars are lit up while the video is playing.

Unfortunately, this means that they are plunged into darkness once the video is finished, and you are supposed to move along to the next section. It is a pretty clever device to get us to keep moving and get rid of us quickly, but quite annoying for those of us who would have liked to have done it at our own pace. One person sarcastically remarked under his breath, “you have a lot of great cars, then put them in the dark.” It is for this reason that the lighting is not very good in some of the photographs.

Despite the chronological layout of the museum, there is still a fairly clear centrepiece. Two cars in particular are displayed on a higher plinth — the FW18 and the FW19, the team’s latest two championship-winning cars from 1996 and 1997 driven by Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve.

A great moment of F1 geekery occurred when Mr Garrett pointed out that the FW19 on display is the actual car which Michael Schumacher famously crashed into at Jerez in 1997. Everyone went “oooh” and inquisitively gathered to look at this particularly historic Williams F1 car. The damage is still evident. I had heard that Patrick Head liked the car to be displayed with the tyre mark still there, but it has since been restored and now just looks like a couple of holes have been punched in the corner of the sidepod.

“We never got on very well with Michael Schumacher,” Scott Garrett noted, just in case we didn’t get the clue. This prompted a cheeky question from someone else, “How did you get on with Ralf?”

There is a notable omission. The most distinctive F1 car in the team’s history, the FW26 with the “walrus nose” is nowhere to be seen. It is perhaps not the team’s proudest design.

One unusual design does proudly feature though. Williams were never able to race with their FW08B six-wheeler. It was banned by the FIA before the season started over fears that it would be too dominant.

Go up the stairs, and you will see two cars that are clearly very special to the team. One is Ayrton Senna’s test car from 1994. The other is the record-breaking FW10, in which Keke Rosberg was the first person ever to set a lap at a speed of 160mph in 1985. The record was set at Silverstone and remarkably stayed in place until 2002!

All-in-all, it was an absolutely fantastic day. Although Williams are not among my favourite teams, they have got to be admired for being so accommodating to us. If you ever get the chance to attend such an event, I would highly recommend it. A massive thank you to those who organised it and invited me.

Below is the full slideshow of photographs from my visit to Williams.

When ITV got the rights, it was widely accepted that they raised the bar of F1 coverage. The challenge for the BBC was to raise the bar further. And I think we can all agree that they haven’t disappointed. The team have had half a year to bed in, so it is a good opportunity to assess just how well the BBC is doing.

However, I have ended up gabbing on about it for far too long — so I have split it up into four articles, of which this is the first.

The pre-race build-up

The quality of the pre-race show was probably ITV’s greatest accomplishment. In this respect, the BBC had a lot to live up to. But unquestionably the BBC has succeeded in vastly improving the show.

On ITV, almost an hour’s worth of build-up felt too long, and frequently they reverted to a steady template of Lewisteria. Frankly, a lot of it was missable.

Now, the BBC has ensured that the build-up hour is almost as unmissable as the race itself. They do a great job of bringing the fans to the heart of the action. You can tell that a lot of effort is put into the features, although one problem is that "the formula" features have been repeated from time to time.

The biggest difference between ITV’s and the BBC’s pre-race show is that the BBC’s is clearly more dynamic. ITV just stood outside the McLaren garage and yapped on for an hour, only ever interviewing the usual suspects. The BBC will actively explore the pitlane, and they will interview a much wider variety of people than ITV ever did. I can think of interesting live chats with the likes of Adrian Newey, Stefano Domenicali, Pat Symonds — the sort of people who would seldom be seen on ITV. The fact that the BBC will regularly talk to people even more obscure than the likes of Pat Symonds says it all.

Perhaps my favourite moment was in the build-up to the qualifying session for the Turkish Grand Prix. They were interviewing Giancarlo Fisichella live, and absolutely ripped into him about his record at the race, complete with action replays of all his first-corner failures. It was a hugely entertaining piece of television that you would have never seen on ITV. It was a risk, but it paid off because luckily Fisi took it in good humour.

Post-race and analysis

Despite his role as talking head of choice on the news channels, Eddie Jordan did not seem very comfortable in front of the camera at the start of the season. He didn’t exactly come across as nervous, but he did seem uneasy and generally looked out of place.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that he is not particularly articulate. While he may sometimes have interesting points to make, he seems to start his sentences without having first thought about what his point is going to be. So he just meanders on and on going down several alleys until he stumbles upon a conclusion.

Ironically for someone who has such trouble reaching a conclusion, EJ is a total motormouth. The points he does make are often contradictory, and you get the sense that he says most of what he says just to make a big splash and get a reaction.

The good news is that this was almost certainly all the BBC wanted him for anyway. David Coulthard is a tad wooden, but his debates with EJ have already gone down in legend. Even though they supposedly have a lot of respect for each other, they are constantly tweaking each others’ tails. It might not always make for great analysis, but it does make for great entertaining television.

Now, halfway through the season, I think I would probably miss the EJ–DC partnership. The thing about the BBC’s coverage is that it immediately felt like a breath of fresh air compared to ITV’s stale coverage. It is not difficult to see that one of the biggest differences is in the post-race chats. Mark Blundell was as bland as they come, seldom had any interesting points to make, and perhaps worst of all he had no other pundit to bounce off. The BBC’s pundits completely reverse all of these bad points of ITV’s post-race segment.

Whether the second pundit needs to be someone quite as obnoxious and inarticulate — but entertaining — as Eddie Jordan is not clear. He was absent for the Chinese Grand Prix so instead we got Mike Gascoyne, who in my view was a revelation. He came across as surprisingly comfortable on camera, and I very much valued his contribution on technical matters, particularly his explanation of diffusers. Maybe he could be the BBC’s Steve Matchett — let’s hope so.

James Allen suggested on his blog recently that Gasscoyne is interested in pursuing media work if F1 work dries up for him. Even after just that one race as a pundit, I do hope he finds a role. A bit like Anthony Davidson, I would love to see him get a regular role on television if he is unable to participate in F1 itself.

As for the anchor, Jake Humphrey, what a guy. A lot of people questioned whether he would be up to the role, but I always found him very personable whenever I saw him on television before. What surprised me was just how comfortable he was at talking about F1 straight out of the box. Either he is a very passionate F1 fan like the rest of us, or he spent his winter doing serious amounts of research.

Jake Humphrey is a lot less stale than Steve Rider and Jim Rosenthal. Although (perhaps unusually) I quite liked both of ITV’s anchors, there is no question in my mind that Humphrey is even better. He asks all the right questions to the pundits, and his interviews with other F1 figures are equally good.

A recent blog post of his highlighted just how difficult his job is when he posted a video of a post-race show including his talkback. Of course, it was the same on ITV. But the BBC’s programme is noticeably more complex than ITV’s, so I would assume that Humphrey’s job is more stressful than that of the ITV anchors. Plus, Humphrey’s job isn’t over when the BBC One programme finishes…

Although ITV undoubtedly raised the bar, F1 fans were always frustrated by the need to interrupt the race to show adverts. So in this sense alone, the BBC’s coverage is superior. But apart from that given, how did the BBC do in their first race back? Very well in my view. They are not quite as slick as ITV were. But you would expect that in their first broadcast.

First things first. The title sequence. There was much rejoicing when it was confirmed that ‘The Chain’ would indeed be the theme tune. But on first viewing I thought the title sequence was a bit naff. However, it has grown on me a lot after repeat viewings. And as neiltc13 pointed out to me on Twitter, it’s not half as naff as ITV’s title sequence from the past few years.

It is no accident that the two people who seemed most at ease during the broadcast were Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz. Both now have several years of broadcasting F1 on ITV under their belt, and it is very much business as usual. The only difference for them is the logo on their shirts.

I have seen a lot of complaints about the new main commentator, Jonathan Legard, which I think are completely unwarranted. The most ridiculous criticism comes from Planet Hamilton, which spat: “what do you expect from the BBC’s 2008 Football Correspondent.” Amusing of them to talk about someone being ill-informed, while spelling their name incorrectly throughout.

Jonathan Legard may have been the “BBC’s 2008 Football Correspondent” (actually, he was Radio 5 Live’s football correspondent from 2004 until getting the F1 gig). But before that he was Radio 5 Live’s motorsport correspondent and main Formula 1 commentator, a role he held for eight seasons. He has also written about F1 for newspapers. So those people assuming Legard does not know enough about F1 are saying more about their own ignorance.

The real problem with Legard’s commentary at the moment is that he is used to commentating on the radio, which requires quite a different style. Some rustiness was also to be expected since he hasn’t commentated on a Formula 1 race since 2004. But the fact is that he is one of Britain’s most experienced Formula 1 broadcasters. He was always going to be near the top of the list of candidates.

Legard was clearly nervous during qualifying, but this is perfectly understandable. This is a big gig, and the spotlight was on him. After the shaky qualifying performance though, Legard seemed much more at ease during the race.

It is true that there is a lack of chemistry between Legard and Martin Brundle, but this is something that will develop over time. The pairing will need a few races to get used to each other’s rhythm, then they will begin to gel much better.

At points Legard seemed strangely lost for words. Two such moments stood out for me. One was when it became clear that Heikki Kovalainen’s car was damaged, at which point Legard simply started repeating the driver’s name a number of times. The other was when Fisichella missed his pit box, when Legard just said, “Oh dear. Dear, dear.” That didn’t add much to our understanding of the situation.

But I felt that Legard read the race very well, especially when you consider he has not had to do it since 2004. He was very quick to spot that the soft tyres were simply not working. When Brundle said he thought that Kubica was managing the soft tyres well, Legard was instantly able to point out that Kubica’s lap times had actually become very slow, at which point the Pole peeled into the pits. Legard read this unfolding situation much better than Brundle did, which is no mean feat.

Lee McKenzie also seemed very good for her first live F1 television broadcast. She has plenty of experience in other categories of motorsport though. Jake Humphrey is a seriously good television presenter, and despite worries about his knowledge of the sport he actually seems pretty clued up. As an anchor, I find it difficult to see how he could be bettered.

David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan do not yet have the chemistry to cope with each other, though they both have plenty of opinions. Unfortunately, Eddie Jordan simply does not know when to stop gassing on. He was constantly interrupting his colleagues and, frankly, he hogged the airtime.

David Coulthard seemed almost intimidated by it, and seemed to give up even chiming in towards the end of the broadcast. Sometimes I thought Jordan made good points, but he does shoot from the hip a bit too much. Overall, he was an obnoxious presence, and I hope the BBC manage to rein him in.

DC needs to be encouraged to speak more. He is a good speaker, with interesting opinions and an ability to relay that to the viewers. But he’s not as natural as Martin Brundle and does seem slightly wooden for the time being. As the only person on the BBC television team with recent driving experience, he needs to be used more.

Whatever, it is good to have a couple of pundits with forthright opinions. This is a world away from ITV, where the post-race analysis was utterly bland in comparison. Steve Rider is a competent enough presenter, but he now seems staid in comparison to Jake Humphrey. Meanwhile, Mark Blundell’s punditry was seldom insightful, and he was often little more than Steve Rider’s yes-man. What a change, then, to see some energetic debate on the BBC!

As for the production of the programme, I think this is also promising. While ITV’s programme was nauseatingly biased in favour of Lewis Hamilton, the BBC seem to have struck a much better balance. In fairness, given McLaren’s woes, the BBC doesn’t have much space to hype up Hamilton, but the coverage of Button’s win didn’t seem overly patriotic either.

Some of the features were a lot more interesting than what ITV came up with. The piece about Mark Webber’s recovery certainly towers above “Cooking with Heikki”. I think fans will be much more comfortable with the BBC programme.

I was initially disappointed that the BBC decided to send Jake Humphrey, DC and EJ to the race, where they were left trying to scream above the loud cars and, at the worst moments, aeroplanes. This does not make for good viewing, and was one of the worst aspects of ITV’s coverage. I was surprised that the BBC did not try to avert this, particularly in light of ITV’s experiences. Rumour has it that the BBC has farmed off GP2 coverage in order to fund this, so I was not happy.

However, the programme absolutely came into its own during the ‘Interactive Forum’ on the red button. This gives enthusiasts the chance to indulge in an hour-long post-race discussion. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this element of the coverage. It is a very welcome innovation. It makes sending the pundits to the races worth it, as they were able to conduct interviews, and Martin Brundle was able to join in the conversation.

Unfortunately, the analysis appears to have been totally ghettoised to the red button. Lee McKenzie was hardly used at all during the race, and I felt we should have heard a lot more from her. Meanwhile, neither the race re-run nor the BBC Three highlights programme had anything in the way of post-race analysis whatsoever, and very very little in terms of interviews. This is one thing that ITV was much better at, and I hope the BBC will reconsider this approach for future races.

Another thing that was better about ITV’s coverage was the fact that their online stream switched away from the ITV1 feed to show the FOM World Feed. This option was nowhere to be seen on the BBC’s website, which meant that viewers didn’t see the full press conference or the FOM-produced highlights package.

The other interactive elements of the F1 coverage are what really brings the BBC into its own. All practice sessions are being shown on television (via the red button) for the first time, which is excellent.

During the race there is, for the first time in the UK (with the exception of F1 Digital+), the option to watch a dedicated on-board channel. This is the sort of coverage that a couple of countries in Europe get on pay per view. We are very lucky to get this stuff for free in the UK.

Unfortunately, the option seemed to be suffering from some technical problems. The caption telling you which driver we were on board with failed very early on, and never returned. The rolling leaderboard and news updates also did not display for a while. Meanwhile, the insert that shows the world feed was almost too small to be of any real use. Personally, I would prefer the on board channel to be full screen, but that is because I had two screens. It is true that I didn’t often watch the on board channel, but I may make more use of it in more processional races (so it’ll come in useful for Valencia).

The other interactive channel is taken up with rolling highlights. This seems to be a staple of BBC Sport coverage, but I personally don’t see the point of it. I won’t stop watching the race to watch highlights, knowing that I might miss something happening live. Presumably people use it though, since the BBC often offer it for many sports.

Another novel feature is the option to choose your audio. Those worried about the lack of chemistry between Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle can opt to listen instead to Radio 5 Live’s David Croft and Anthony Davidson, who get on like a house on fire.

There is also a CBBC commentary, but I don’t see this lasting. There was one slightly amusing moment when the CBBC commentators pretended they had a microphone inside the Safety Car and decided to listen into the conversation:

(Via the people on the Digital Spy F1 coverage thread.)

It’s obviously designed to be used during a boring moment while the Safety Car is out, so it’s just a shame Fisichella’s pit lane mess-up happened while it was being played! A nice humorous touch though. I can’t help but think the CBBC commentary is a waste of money and bandwidth though.

All-in-all, the BBC’s coverage had a few teething problems, but this was absolutely to be expected. Most of the problems so far are quite minor and I envisage that they will be sorted soon enough. We really are very lucky to be getting such great coverage in the UK now.

When the Michelin runners pulled in at the end of the formation lap, ITV could easily have chosen to dump the coverage. Apparently, some channels around the world did. But ITV, to their credit, stuck with the race which was in a prime-time slot, knowing that what was happening was a huge story for Formula 1. The coverage itself was superb, striking just the right balance and bringing across to the viewer just what a farce it had become.

As James Allen says:

Commentating on the ‘race’ was completely different from any other race, as the story was as much about how the situation had arisen, how the crowd was taking it and where the sport would go next as it was about race action.

And Ted Kravitz points out:

Open hostility amongst the teams, the drivers literally powerless, and us on ITV broadcasting a meaningless race with six cars and ripping into the product we were meant to be promoting: a business that had forgotten it should be a sport.

That edition was nominated for a Bafta, but it didn’t win. Instead, ITV won Baftas for its coverage of the first race wins for Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. In both instances, the coverage was not particularly good for a host of reasons which I have outlined before.

ITV pulled off a master-stroke by selecting Martin Brundle has Murray Walker’s co-commentator. By all accounts, Brundle was a revelation as a television presenter, apparently leaving producers agog at his seemingly natural talent in front of the camera. It is all the more impressive when you consider the fact that Martin Brundle didn’t even want to be with ITV — he was still after a race seat!

Martin Brundle’s gridwalks have been one of the few must-see aspects of ITV’s pre-race coverage. However, over time it has become more and more farcical, as Brundle was increasingly asked by producers to interview irrelevant celebrities, and drivers continually give him the cold shoulder.

Mind you, the gridwalk has provided one of ITV’s finest comedy moments.

It wasn’t the only time a potty-mouthed driver let rip on live television. One of the most memorable was Mark Webber being interviewed after Sebastian Vettel crashed into him at Fuji last year. Live on British breakfast television, he explained, “It’s just kids. They do a good job, then they fuck it all up!”

And in Australia 2008, David Coulthard actually threatened to kick “three colours of shit out of the little bastard” Felipe Massa.

Meanwhile, Louise Goodman has said that this classic DC moment was her most memorable interview at ITV. Check out the professionalism of Jim Rosenthal!

In the background of that clip you can hear pundit Tony Jardine trying his hardest to stifle his laughter. The analyst was the only person other than Murray Walker to make the leap from the BBC to ITV in 1997, albeit in a different role (he was pitlane reporter at the Beeb). Tony Jardine remained with ITV until a few years ago. The decision to dispose of him in favour of Mark Blundell is one of the many questionable decisions that ITV have taken in recent years.

Simon Taylor used to work alongside Tony Jardine as pundit. He provided another comedy moment in 1997 when ITV inadvisedly presented the coverage for the Monaco Grand Prix from a yacht in the harbour. The boat bobbed up and down so much that Simon Taylor was unable to broadcast because he became seasick! I think a few viewers probably felt a bit seasick as well. ITV opted to present its Monaco coverage from a balcony in later years.

Simon Taylor was less engaging as a pundit and did not feature in ITV’s coverage for long. In fact, looking at the retrospective on ITV’s own website, it is as though Tony Jardine and Simon Taylor never existed.

All-in-all, I think the story of ITV’s coverage since 1997 is one that started off earnestly but dropped off over the years. The decision to hire experienced and respected analysts like Tony Jardine and Simon Taylor along with Murray Walker was the right move. It kept the F1 purists happy.

It certainly made up for the decision to employ Jim Rosenthal, someone who had no interest in F1 at the start, as the show’s anchor. I thought Jim Rosenthal did a very good job considering his inexperience of F1, and I think his understanding of the sport was very good by the time he left ITV-F1 a few years ago.

It was clear that ITV was proud that it had F1 coverage in 1997. I recall that in the run-up to their first race in Australia, ITV broadcast an entire evening of F1-based programming including a one-off chat show presented by Clive James and featuring several drivers, and a showing of the classic film Grand Prix.

And check out the original title sequence. It is dark, mysterious, and classy — a complete world away from the cheese-fest that ITV-F1 has become.

Looking at some of ITV’s programmes from the early years, which can be easily found on YouTube, the tone of the programme is surprisingly different. The pace is slower, as though the coverage is being given room to breathe — very different from the frenetic Hamilton worshipping of later years.

Over the years, the best aspects of ITV’s coverage were stripped away one-by-one. Murray Walker’s retirement was a big blow which I don’t think ITV ever quite recovered from. While in the early years ITV hauled a dedicated studio around the world to present its track-side coverage from, more recently the poor presenters have been left shouting above the noise of engines in the pitlane — completely pointless.

The decision along the line to ditch its respected analysts in favour of the more populist Mark Blundell was questionable. And the general focus on light features and Hamilton-hype in the later years left a sour taste.

Having said that, F1 coverage has undoubtedly come on leaps and bounds. Occasional technical features fronted by Martin Brundle were excellent. And it has to be said that the hour-long build up that ITV typically offered was a tremendous commitment, even if all too often the post-race analysis was hurriedly wrapped up if the race was longer than expected (i.e. any time it rained, or any grand prix shown in prime time).

And you have to feel sorry in a way for ITV. When they picked up the F1 rights in 1996, they will have been expecting F1 to be on the cusp of a Damon Hill era, thereby guaranteeing British bums on seats. Unfortunately, the Damon Hill era fizzled out even more quickly than it began, as Hill drove for the hopelessly uncompetitive Arrows team in 1997. Then ITV had to suffer the ignominy of covering the dull years of Schumacher dominance and Ferrari dirty scheming.

So it’s worth saying thank you to ITV and North One for the work they have put into bringing F1 to our homes for the past twelve seasons. We complained about the adverts and James Allen, but they also brought F1 coverage in the UK to a new level and the BBC have been given a tough act to follow.

But we still know remarkably little about the BBC’s plans. We know that the races will probably be broadcast on HD and that ‘red button’ coverage is almost a certainty, with the BBCi channels carrying coverage of practice sessions.

But who will front the coverage? This is one of the most important aspects of the move to the BBC, as so many people have been begging ITV to get rid of the terrible James Allen. So in the quiet period before the German Grand Prix I thought I’d have a go at constructing my own BBC ‘dream team’.

Lead commentator

The candidates

James Allen currently does this job for ITV. And while he is near-universally disliked, there is always an outside possibility that the BBC will hire him. Against Allen is the fact that he is not a BBC man, and the Beeb are thought to be eager to stamp their authority on F1′s coverage next year and take a very BBC approach to the coverage with BBC people.

In that case, current BBC Radio 5 Live commentator David Croft could well be in for a shout. It seems as though ITV were lining him up for a job on their F1 coverage as he has been fulfilling the main commentator role on the channel’s GP2 coverage this season. I have a soft spot for David Croft, but he has only been commentating for a few years and I don’t think he’s ready for the big gig just yet. He has been known to put his foot in his mouth on the odd occasion and does sometimes have the same cringeworthy James Allen style approach. Croft will probably stay on the radio.

The other obvious choice from within the BBC is Jonathan Legard. For a number of years he was main commentator on Radio 5 Live but left at the height of Schumacher’s dominance in 2004. Since then he has been the BBC station’s chief football reporter. That is a pretty big job. But the job of lead commentator on BBC television may be enough to lure him back to F1. His style is typically BBC: authoritative, but not too excitable. He is probably most likely to get the job.

My choice: Ben Edwards

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, Ben Edwards is a quality commentator who can often be heard describing a variety of motorsport events. But the main F1 job seems to elude him. He provided commentary for Eurosport and F1 Digital+ in past years, and he has done the narration on the official F1 review video for several years now. But Edwards has never been part of terrestrial F1 coverage.

I don’t see why because he is a perfectly good commentator. He knows his motor racing inside out and conveys excitement better than any of the above names ever could. That style may not suit the BBC too well though. He may also be hindered by the fact that he is not a BBC person, so if the bigwigs at the Beeb want next season’s coverage to have a very BBC flavour, he may well be ignored yet again. Shame.

Colour commentator

The candidates

Martin Brundle is one of the few popular elements of ITV’s F1 coverage, and rightly so. His ability to come up with a witty, pithy comment on the spot leaves you in awe at how this person is not a trained broadcaster but a retired F1 driver. However, his gridwalks of late have descended into farce and does not seem to be quite on top of his game at the moment. He also may be seen as too much of an ITV brand by the BBC.

David Coulthard is currently looking for a job, and he is strongly rumoured to have put pen to paper on a BBC contract. However, DC is an unknown quantity as co-commentator and may be better suited to a punditry role.

Maurice Hamilton currently does this job on Radio 5 Live. He is very knowledgeable about F1 but I feel he doesn’t quite have the razor-sharp mind required for commentating. He is fine on Radio 5 Live, but the TV gig may be better suited to a more polished broadcaster.

My choice: Anthony Davidson

Anthony Davidson would probably be reluctant to take the role. He is, of course, fully focussed on getting a drive in F1. However, pragmatically the chances of that are slim.

He is ideally suited for the role of colour commentator. His performances on Radio 5 Live (and a one-off appearance in the role on ITV) over the years have been nothing short of outstanding, and his colleagues have commented on their awe at his ability to read a situation. Unlike Martin Brundle, he is fresh out of the cockpit as well so knows contemporary F1 better than almost anyone else.

Pitlane reporter

The candidates

This is much more difficult to read. I have not seen many rumours as to who might get this job on the BBC. Nonetheless, there is a gap here that I need to fill so I’ll have to go for it.

Ted Kravitz currently does this job on ITV. As with many of the people above, the BBC may not touch him for this reason. However, he is quite impressive as a broadcaster. You never see him with his feathers ruffled and he often does a good job of digging out stories in the pitlane. However, he has been known to be the king of statement of the obvious: “And they’re putting some fuel in… and some new tyres are going on.” Puh-lease.

My choice: Holly Samos

Holly Samos does an adequate job on Radio 5 Live at the moment. However, rather oddly she seems to be responsible for listing all of the retired drivers from time to time which is very odd. Whether she moves to TV or stays on radio, this unsettling feature of the BBC’s coverage should be dropped.

Anchor

Steve Rider is currently in contract with ITV so will almost certainly not front the BBC’s coverage. That is a bit ironic as Rider orignially moved from the BBC to ITV specifically so that he could present F1 (having previous described his regret that coverage was no longer on the BBC).

Martin Brundle is strongly rumoured to be the anchor of the BBC’s coverage. However, I fear that Brundle will simply be too knowledgeable to be the anchor. The anchor’s role is to ask questions, not answer them, and I think Brundle’s ability is obviously in answering questions. If he is the anchor, he may step on the toes of the pundit beside him. He already does a lot of James Allen’s job currently.

Adrian Chiles has also been rumoured to front the BBC’s coverage. He is genial enough and has a history of presenting sports programmes — though I’m not sure what his knowledge of F1 is like. However, he already has plenty on the go at the moment and his already heavy workload has taken its toll on his private life recently.

I hope the rumour that the Top Gear presenters will be involved is wide of the mark. I haven’t heard anything about this for a long time, so presumably this idea is no longer on the go. Having said that, the Top Gear website has recently launched an F1 blog — another sign that the BBC intends to heavily “cross-fertilise” the two brands.

My choice: anyone from the BBC

The BBC could well choose to give this job to an established BBC sport presenter. It could be someone we don’t really know yet. After all, who was Ted Kravitz before he was ITV’s pitlane reporter?

Paddock pundit

The candidates

David Coulthard would be the ideal paddock pundit. He is fresh out of the cockpit and has a way with words.

Martin Brundle would also be good in this role if he is not the co-commentator.

Mark Blundell does an okay job on ITV, but has joked that he will be buying a new sofa to watch next season’s coverage.

Maurice Hamilton is also a good analyst.

My choice: all of the above (and more?)

The BBC may opt for a revolving door approach to this role, with one person (or maybe two people) doing it one race, and someone else doing it the next. I wouldn’t argue with that.

The first two races certainly appear to have vindicated that view. Certainly Massa’s spin in Australia was unequivocally down to his inability to feather the throttle while exiting turn 1. This led to much pointing and laughing, as can be seen below:

So when Massa had an off in Malaysia, predictably enough many people — again, myself included — lay the blame on Massa’s inability to drive sans traction control. Massa’s excuse seemed weak: “It had a strange behaviour on the rear.” Then moments later Ferrari landed him in it when they said they could see nothing on the telemetry indicating that there was a problem. Keith at F1Fanatic asked: “Has Felipe Massa been found out?”

But. There is a difference between amateur onlookers like me and seasoned F1 analysts like Martin Brundle.

I have a huge amount of respect for Martin Brundle and I trust what he says. Like everyone else, when he saw Massa in the gravel he suspected driver error. But when he saw the replay his reaction was immediate and unequivocal: what a strange place to go off — that was probably a mechanical failure. (If you need a reminder of how surprised Brundle was, ITV have a video of it.)

After Ferrari said there was no problem on the telemetry, Martin Brundle changed his tack a bit, saying that it looked like “ambition got ahead of adhesion”. But after the race, Mark Blundell was more sceptical, saying he’d be surprised if that was purely a driver error. But he shrugged his shoulders and said, “But we just have to take Ferrari’s word for it if they say there’s no mechanical problem.”

The thing is, we don’t have to take Ferrari’s word for it. They have form in this area, as has been pointed out at the excellent F1 Insight blog. Clive is another person whose word I have to trust. He has obviously been watching motor racing for decades now and is very wise when it comes to these things.

I do not usually find myself defending Felipe but, on this occasion, I think he may be getting a raw deal. His Ferrari flicked so suddenly and inexplicably to the left that it made me think immediately that something had broken at the rear. It was well before the apex of the corner, too, and if Massa caused the rear end to lose grip by accelerating too soon (as most are saying), he must have completely altered his technique for some reason – he had made it through the corner plenty of times before without a hint of trouble, after all.

But why would Ferrari land Massa in the brown stuff like they did?

Ferrari are saying that they can find no mechanical reason for the accident; but then they would, wouldn’t they? Part of the fun of watching F1 is in seeing the lengths Ferrari will go to in denying that anything ever goes wrong with their cars. Remember Raikkonen’s terrifying accident in Monza practice last year? Not mechanical failure, oh no…

Makes sense to me.

2007 F1 season review

A series of posts

1. F1 season review: the backmarkers
2. F1 season review: the frontrunners
3. F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)
4. F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)
5. F1 season review: broadcasts
6. F1 season review: podcasts
7. F1 season review: websites

I am making this the last in my series of posts looking back on the 2007 Formula 1 season. Truth be told, I’ve become a bit sick of writing them every Sunday. I skipped last week. Anyway, next Sunday is in a different year, and it’s a bit off to be looking back when everyone else is looking forward.

Anyway, I promised I would review Formula 1 websites, so here goes. Again, this is all in alphabetical order.

Autosport.com

A reliable source of Formula 1 — and other motorsport — news. It is also the most frequently updated of the F1 RSS feeds I subscribe to. So chances are that if something has happened, Autosport will have the story.

There is also a neat ‘Autosport TV’ feature, containing highlights of certain motorsport events. Bernie take note — this is how things will be done in the future, so don’t leave F1 lagging behind every other series!

Unfortunately, not all of the content on Autosport.com is free. But you can’t have it all. The website also performed badly on the day of McLaren’s WMSC hearing, when the website was down for huge parts of the afternoon, and then when it came back up it got the story wrong. Oh dear.

BBC Sport | Motorsport | Formula One

The BBC’s F1 news website is as you would expect — solid, but not really in-depth enough for obsessives like me. Only the very biggest F1 stories appear on BBC Sport Online, and they seldom contain anything revelatory.

Having said that, there are some neat features from time to time. Heikki Kovalainen wrote a regular column. I also particularly enjoyed reading an article about Kimi Räikkönen’s playboy image! There is also some good video and audio content collected from the BBC’s output.

However, the stories and features also concentrate too much on Lewis Hamilton. I guess this is to be expected from the BBC, but it’s all a bit fawning and not very balanced.

As for the other features, again they are pretty good, although they haven’t changed much for several years. I would imagine that features such as the pitstop guide are excellent resources if you are just getting into the sport.

BlogF1

Ollie White’s BlogF1 was the first Formula 1 blog I started reading regularly. The posts strike a neat balance between news and opinion, although I personally prefer more opinion-heavy pieces.

I have to confess that nowadays my favourite feature of BlogF1 is the weekly caption contest. However, there are some other neat features hidden away from the main blog area.

There is a particularly comprehensive section on racetracks from around the world, complete with images from Google Maps. There is also a stunning complete list of championship statistics going all the way back to 1950, the inception of the Drivers World Championship.

F1 Insight

This excellent blog is, as its title suggests, very insightful. What I love about it is the fact that Clive doesn’t just churn out banal posts about the issues of the day. Instead, he finds an interesting angle and then writes about it, bringing to the reader’s attention an aspect that he may not previously have thought about.

To take some recent examples, there is a post questioning Sebastian Vettel’s reputation as a promising driver. And here is an interesting take on Fernando Alonso — is he going to be the greatest reputation-maker of all time?

In sum, F1 Insight is guaranteed to challenge the conventional wisdom, making it an essential read.

F1Fanatic

Without a doubt, the best Formula 1 blog around! What astonishes me is that you can visit the website every single day and there will be something new — even in the depths of the off-season. There was even a new post on Christmas Day, but you are just as likely to find three or four new posts per day even at this time of year.

The breadth of features is also breathtaking. Book and DVD reviews often appear. The Lapped Legends series takes a look at some of the less talented drivers and teams in F1′s history. And the ‘F1 in the Blogs’ feature is a must-read roundup of the best F1 blogging. The blog has also been known to hold competitions which I have been lucky enough to win!

Main writer Keith Collantine is clearly very dedicated to the website and infinitely knowledgeable about the sport. It could so easily fall into the trap of being a haven for stattos, but it actually strikes a perfect balance between geek heaven and accessibility.

Ah, and I have also had a guest post published on F1Fanatic. So obviously it’s a must-read!

Formula 1 Blog

This is the Formula 1 Blog as in Negative Camber and Grace, whose podcast I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The blog is rather different to their podcast. You would never guess that it was the same thing. The long, in-depth podcasts are accompanied by very concise, brief, pithy blog posts.

Despite the difference in style, the blog is great for all the same reasons as the podcast. Priding itself on being a “journal of opinion”, forceful opinion is certainly what you get.

One problem is that you have to be registered to comment. This is okay, and understandable in an age where upwards of 95% of blog comments are spam. But I tried to register and never got my confirmation email, so I am locked out (well, not really, but I can’t be bothered going through the rigmarole of registering again). Okay, so it’s not the end of the world, but it is a bit off-putting.

As well as the blog, there is a forum which I hear is buzzing. But forums are not quite my thing.

Formula1.com

This is the big daddy — Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula 1 website. It has come on leaps and bounds in the past year.

The best bit is still the Live Timing facility. If you have access to a computer during a grand prix, having Live Timing open will keep you up to date, with access to pretty much all of the information you would want, updated in real time.

The news section is so-so, but this is more than made up for by the site’s other features. A particular joy is the technical section, which looks in detail at the developments each team makes throughout the season. There is also great information on each circuit, a fine image gallery, profiles on all the teams and drivers and — for the bravest among us — a good section on F1′s Byzantine rules.

Perhaps the strongest part of the website, though, is the database of past races results, stretching right back to 1950. An excellent, in-depth resource if you want to look up old race and Championship results.

However, this section suffers from a frustrating navigational quirk. Say I want to look up the past results of a driver. I can select the driver, say Kimi Räikkönen. Now I want to look at his results from 2002, so naturally I select 2002 from the drop-down menu. But this takes me straight to the Championship Table of 2002, not the results of Kimi Räikkönen. What a pain!

Little annoyances aside though, Formula1.com is better than you might expect. It is finally catching up with other motorsport series. Now FOM needs to move into offering video on the website urgently. An insipid, 30 second long ‘highlights’ clip (which inevitably focuses on the crashes rather than the racing) will not do. Bernie needs to offer more video content online in future. If he is going to take all the interesting videos off YouTube, he had better offer them on Formula1.com.

Fun F1

A fair attempt at an F1 humour website, although not the best.

GrandPrix.com

One of the best F1 news sites going. This website might not have the budget or the big-name status of, say, Autosport, but it undoubtedly has the contacts.

Often the stories are as much about rumours as they are about hard facts. But this is often to its advantage. I seem to remember that GrandPrix.com was the first website to announce that Kimi Räikkönen had signed for Ferrari. Some other websites laughed at the suggestion at the time, but GrandPrix.com was proved right.

It was also consistently ahead of the curve in the reporting of the Stepneygate scandal. You simply had to read GrandPrix.com to keep on top of the facts surrounding the issue. Remarkable reporting.

ING Renault F1 Team – Weblog

A fine companion to the Renault podcast. Once again it demonstrates that Renault are serious about reaching fans in ways that other teams don’t consider. The blog is properly done as well, not half-hearted and with a buzzing comments section.

The design is rather busy for my liking, but to be fair I am not the biggest fan of the content either (unlike the podcast, which is excellent). Nevertheless, this is a lesson to the other teams: this is how it should be done.

ITV Sport – F1

This season saw the ITV-F1 website turn from a reasonable, accessible guide to Formula 1 into a central cog of the Lewis Hamilton hype machine. No doubt it is good for raking in the advertising money, but it is awful for genuine F1 fans.

Nevertheless, there are some top features on the ITV-F1 website. For instance, there are regular columns from Peter Windsor and David Coulthard. And Ted Kravitz’s notebook is often worth a read.

Next year I expect nothing less than a Lewis stalking feature which will plot on a Google Map where Lewis Hamilton is at this precise moment in time.

Linksheaven

A reasonably good Formula 1 group blog.

Pitpass

A fine independent Formula 1 website. Like GrandPrix.com — a reliable news resource, although Pitpass has a much slicker design! I have to say though, it is rather annoying that you can’t copy any of the text if you want to quote it. I can’t think of any other websites that persist on using this user-unfriendly technique that treats normal users — even people like me who want to approvingly link back — as criminals.

I would also rather that the news feed did not contain stories about that awful tripe known as A1 Grand Prix. Yeah, that toytown motor racing series where drivers don’t win, nor do teams — but countries do. What a load of nationalistic gash!

Apart from that, the news reports are good. The opinion pieces are fine, but often come across as a bit curmudgeonly. And the endless predictions of the imminent death of Formula 1 do get tiresome after a while.

Sidepodcast

A great blog to accompany a great podcast! They have recently had a new lick of paint. That’s all I can say. A cracking read, just as much as the podcast is a cracking listen.

Sniff Petrol

The best attempt at a Formula 1 humour site. This site provides some much-needed light relief amid the turmoil and politics of an F1 season.

Highlights include Crazy Dave Coulthard (complete with entertaining descriptions of what Red Bull tastes like), D.I. Blundell’s latest report and the latest advice Michael Schumacher has given to his brother.

Times Online Formula One blog

Ed Gorman’s Formula 1 blog is easily the best of the MSM F1 blogs. I do hope it returns for the 2008 season. I imagine it will because apparently it has been very popular indeed.

I can vouch for that. I think I can thank the comments section of Ed Gorman’s blog for a few of this blog’s readers nowadays. It is still to this day one of my top referrers. Infact, it is the top referrer to this blog all year apart from Google Images UK. And this is all from the comments sections of two posts from October. Blimey.

One problem was that it came to be defined in terms of its (oddly) mostly Spanish readership clashing with Ed Gorman’s British perspective on events. Thankfully in the end the relationship appears to have become the more respectful, ‘agree to disagree’ type, rather than the antagonistic relationship it could have been.

I think that’s about it, mostly because I am losing the will to live. As are you, most likely. Er, any other suggestions, blah blah, etc.?

2007 F1 season review

A series of posts

1. F1 season review: the backmarkers
2. F1 season review: the frontrunners
3. F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)
4. F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)
5. F1 season review: broadcasts
6. F1 season review: podcasts
7. F1 season review: websites

Today’s post in my series reviewing the 2007 Formula 1 season was going to be about F1′s bigwigs — Max Mosley and the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and FOM. However, events in this area are continuing and show no sign of stopping yet, so I’ll leave it for later.

Instead, I’ll move on to what I was going to write about next week — the television and radio coverage. Because I live in the UK, this means ITV and BBC Radio 5 Live. But I’ll also have a look at the most important aspect of the television coverage, the FOM-controlled “world feed”.

ITV

It was a bit of a depressing year to watch ITV coverage. In previous years they hopelessly talked up the prospects of Jenson Button’s success but they realised they were flogging a dead horse so let other drivers get a word in edgeways.

Now that a Brit who can actually win regularly has come on the scene, the coverage has become completely myopic. “Britain’s Lewis Hamilton” (© Steve Rider 2007) was impossible to avoid and you would be forgiven for somtimes thinking that he was the only driver competing.

Even interviews with other drivers were littered with questions about Lewis Hamilton. I remember one particularly uncomfortable moment early on in the season during an interview with Robert Kubica. The question — if I recall it correctly — was something along the lines of, “What do you think of Lewis Hamilton? He hasn’t made any rookie mistakes yet.” Tough luck if you wanted to learn anything about Kubica.

I never thought I’d say this, but I think I would rather have Jim Rosenthal back in place of Steve Rider. The way he goes all gooey at the thought of precious Lewy-Lew-Lew is embarrassing to watch.

Next to him stands Mark “‘Ello guv” Blundell. He would make an excellent pet parrot. “Absolutely Steve” is all he ever seems to say. He would agree if Steve Rider said the world is run by lizards.

Ted Kravitz has his fans, but I don’t see it. He is supposed to be a pitlane reporter, but he seems more like the Correspondent for the Statement of the Obvious. “They’re putting some new tyres on… And, is it? Yes! They’re putting some fuel in as well!” Yes, I can see that Ted.

What’s really worrying is the fact that once or twice this year he has got confused between hard and soft tyres. This is despite the fact that James Allen goes over the tyre rules roughly every five minutes. It beggars belief.

As for James Allen himself, I still don’t like him as a commentator and it appears to be the majority opinion wherever you turn. He has had the job since 2001 now though, so I’m not holding my breath for a change.

He has improved a lot though. Compare two videos — one from 2006, one from 2007. The first is Jenson Button’s first win in Hungary. You can see a glimpse of the desperation of ITV’s bias:

Will the floodgates now open for Jenson Button as they did for Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill before him?

Well I think we all know the answer to that now. But the really scary bit comes after that. He sounds like he physically shits himself as Button crosses the line. Does a Button win make him turn into The Incredible Hulk?

I guess he must have been embarrassed when he watched it back, so he knew to moderate his excitement a bit for the next Button, er, I mean Hamilton win. But he got his timing all wrong and it came out as:

Lewis Hamiltoooon………

…

…

……

…

WIIIIIIINS!

The video isn’t the real coverage — it’s a loving recreation made by somebody on Grand Prix 4. You need to fast forward to around 3:35.

There are also the usual grumbles about adverts. I see them as a necessary evil, but it is just as well grands prix are broadcast on the radio as well because otherwise we would miss a lot of important events. I hate it when football fans complain about ITV’s adverts, because at least in football the actual action is never missed!

When Lewis Hamilton’s car ground to a halt in Brazil, ITV was showing adverts. A similar pivotal moment was missed under exactly the same circumstances last year, when Michael Schumacher’s engine blew in Japan.

Of course, ITV and the people who make the decision to go to a break cannot be expected to predict the future. But the presence of adverts will always count as a major black mark against ITV’s coverage of Formula 1.

Credit where it’s due though: Martin Brundle. What an excellent commentator he is. Some see him as biased in favour of certain drivers, but I don’t see it myself. He knows, for instance, when his client David Coulthard is in the wrong and says so (for instance, the incident in Australia springs to mind).

Brundle also knows how to praise Lewis Hamilton without completely crawling up his arse. And — most importantly — he never forgets that there are 21 other drivers racing as well.

In sum, though, I am seriously considering just turning the volume down on the television and listening to Radio 5 Live for commentary. I would miss Martin Brundle though. Mind you, at the rate things are going, Martin Brundle might have his accreditation snatched away by the increasingly totalitarian Max Mosley anyway!

BBC Radio 5 Live

I mentioned above that I am considering listening to Radio 5 Live’s commentary with ITV’s pictures next year. So what has BBC Radio got that ITV hasn’t?

Well, the BBC is free of adverts. However, Formula 1 isn’t the only sport covered by Radio 5 Live, so coverage usually isn’t interrupted. So it doesn’t trump ITV in that respect.

But the commentary is pretty good. David Croft is obviously very passionate about the sport and there is usually some sensible analysis from whoever his co-commentator is (usually Maurice Hamilton). It is not completely immune to Hamilton hype, but it is a whole lot better than ITV.

The BBC also often provides coverage of practice sessions as well on Sports Extra. So if you are at a loose end on a Friday it is often worth switching the radio on and getting the live timing on your computer.

In addition, there are excellent race previews and reviews available as podcasts. The features on these programmes are usually of a much higher standard than the drivel (cookery lessons with Kovalainen and the like) served up by ITV.

I notice that Radio 5 Live’s Formula 1 coverage gets a bit better every year. It has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years and it’s difficult to find fault with their coverage (at least in comparison with ITV).

FOM

This year saw a big improvement in FOM’s television coverage. It finally made the leap to producing the coverage in anamorphic 16:9 format and started filming (but not broadcasting) in HD.

There has also been the usual trickle of new graphics to display more information. One that particularly surprised me was a graphic that showed the temperature of the tyres on Lewis Hamilton’s car during the formation lap! It was only used once, and the needle was fluctuating all over the place which suggests it might not be quite up to scratch. Nevertheless, how does it work?! Amazing stuff from FOM yet again.

Another graphic that I liked plotted a car’s position on a circuit map while a competing driver was in the pits. A great idea, and pretty well executed (if a bit large). But as far as I know it was only used once in the entire season! More please!

I’d also like to hear a bit more team radio. It feels like this varies from race to race, which I don’t really understand. It also depends on the teams opening up their radio communications. Only Renault seems to have the right attitude in this regard, and McLaren and Ferrari are both obviously so paranoid that we only ever get fleeting snatches of conversation.

FOM also took control of the world feed for all but three of the races. This meant that we no longer had to suffer as much of the dire direction that used to be the norm in F1. It’s good to see FOM finally sorting it out, but why do Monaco, Brazil and Japan still have local directors?

The Japanese Grand Prix coverage was particularly atrocious. It normally is. It’s famous for focussing rather heavily on Japanese no-hopers. This year several important incidents were missed by the director — including Alonso’s crash and the collision between Webber and Vettel. Not even a decent replay was shown, even though the footage exists (it is included on this year’s review DVD)!

Aside from these little mishaps though, I’m finding it difficult to fault the FOM coverage this year. It seems to get better every year.

But I don’t like the implication from the biased British media that Hamilton was found “not guilty”. Remember that Sebastian Vettel’s punishment was taken away from him. There has only been one major piece of new evidence since Sunday, and we all know what that shows.

Of course, the British media is absolutely unbearable when it comes to this sort of thing. Mark Blundell was on ITV this morning criticising the fact that the stewards have never driven a Grand Prix car before, so they’re bound not to know what it’s like. That’s funny, I don’t remember him making such a criticism before, but there you go.

It’s also quite amusing because Blundell would know a lot about not being qualified for your job. He is, after all, a broadcaster who has a shockingly poor grasp of the English language.

Funny also how all of the other Grand Prix drivers seem to have been criticising Hamilton as well. Mark Blundell conveniently ignored this point. After being grilled by his colleagues, Hamilton said:

It was a bit disappointing because I knew a few of the drivers there and I didn’t expect them to say certain things.

Perhaps it’s time to admit when you are in the wrong.

In a way, the FIA couldn’t really have risked giving Hamilton a larger penalty because they would have been accused of manipulating the championship. It’s a sign of the sorry state of affairs that the FIA has found itself in. It is constantly being accused of bias one way or another and of manipulating this and that.

There are a few measures that I would like to see the FIA bring in to help prevent this.

1. When the race result is announced, it should not be changed

   I think there should be a time limit on when the race result can be changed. This is not to say that teams should not be able to appeal or that stewards should be unable to punish bad driving. But there should be a time limit for when a team can appeal a result. Something like six hours for instance. This does not even necessarily mean that the result has to be set in stone — just that we know what is going on. For a race result to come under question several days after the event is simply unacceptable.
   (This would be the case for drivers breaking the rules, but should be different in case a car is found to be illegal. But illegal parts on a car ought to be caught during scrutineering anyway.)

2. Stewards in one race should not rule on something that happened in another race

   For the second time this year, the stewards have found themselves ruling on something that happened in another race. This week the Chinese GP stewards had to discuss something which had already been discussed by the Japanese stewards. This is not on really. It is like a referee at a football match giving someone a yellow card for something a footballer did in his previous match.

3. Make penalties more sensible and predictable

   Whenever somebody is in trouble, you simply do not know what kind of punishment they are going to get. I once saw somebody referring to ‘The FIA Random Penalty Generator’ and it really is true. Disqualification? 10 place grid penalty? Drive through penalty? Start the race from the pits? Points docked? Seconds added to your time? We just don’t know which of these punishments will be used at a particular time. The stewards appear to award penalties in a completely arbitrary manner. It is no wonder people wonder about possible FIA bias. This must be sorted out, as a matter of priority.

What happened during the Japanese Grand Prix is actually a good case in point. Robert Kubica was given a drive-through penalty for being involved in an accident with Lewis Hamilton. Now, Kubica’s move was quite ambitious and he was unlikely to be able to pull it off, but did it really merit a drive-through? After all, other drivers crash into each other all the time and never get so much as a slap on the wrists. It’s kind of seen as part of the territory of motor racing.

You have to wonder when Fernando Alonso got whacked pretty hard by Sebastian Vettel. Unlike Hamilton, Alonso sustained quite bad damage to his car. Did Vettel get punished? Of course not — the FIA is biased against Alonso and in favour of Hamilton.

I know some people don’t believe me when I say that the FIA is biased in favour of Hamilton and that he is the successor to Michael Schumacher in this regard. To me, it is clear in the FIA’s eyes that the departure of Schumacher has left a void, and they have decided that Wonder Boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton shall fill that void. (I believe it is actually illegal to say ‘Lewis Hamilton’ without prefixing it with ‘Britain’s’.)

There is a resentment about the fact that Alonso was able to beat Michael Schumacher fair and square, when Schumacher had no excuses. Alonso is the only driver ever to have managed this (apart from possibly Mika Häkkinen, and he only did it once, not twice like Alonso did).

But don’t ask me if the F1 establishment favours Hamilton. Ask the F1 establishment itself.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the saviour of the sport…

“Lewis Hamilton has been a real breath of fresh air and has resurrected Formula One,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted commercial rights holder Ecclestone, who is not in Shanghai, as saying…

“We lost a big hero in Michael Schumacher but in Lewis we have another. But for him, I’m not sure where the sport would be heading.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

There is no doubt that the mess that the FIA and Formula 1 as a whole currently finds itself in is directly the fault of its power-mad President Max Mosley. A lot of people have been criticising the FIA’s bad management recently (not just the Hamilton investigation, but the bungled email to the teams about tyres at Fuji).

Max Mosley seems to do business on the basis of personal vendettas and the FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias rather than anything to do with notions of fairness or merit. This year’s witch-hunt against McLaren is a case in point — all to do with Max Mosley’s personal dislike of Ron Dennis.

Then there are the extraordinarily offensive comments he made about Jackie Stewart, somebody who had the cheek to criticise the FIA’s handling of the Stepneygate row. Doesn’t he know that people are not allowed to criticise Mosley?

Mosley said: “There’s one particular ex-driver who because he never stops talking, never has the chance to listen — so he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He said the FIA’s decision would not have worked in a civil court. He has no qualification to say that.

“Then he starts saying this is personal between me and Ron Dennis, at great length, because everything he does is at extreme length.

“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers.”

Mosley, presumably alluding to the tartan trousers and cap Stewart wears to races, added: “He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”

The comment about Jackie Stewart being a “certified halfwit” is seen as a reference to Stewart’s dyslexia. Damon Hill says all that needs to be said in his letter to Autosport magazine.

Update: Pitpass also has a good article on Max Mosley’s comments about Jackie Stewart.

With such contemptuous regard for his fellow inhabitants, one has to wonder what Mosley really feels about the diminutive former second-hand car salesman who not only facilitated his entry to Planet Paddock but has allowed him to enjoy the sort of totalitarian power trip his name prevented him enjoying in the real world.

You don’t often see professional media outlets referring to the fact that Max Mosley is the son of fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Some believe that Max Mosley really wanted a career in politics, but was advised against it due to who is father was. So rather than fucking up the country, Max Mosley decided to go into motor racing politics instead so that he could fuck up motor racing.

I feel sorry for all of those people who tuned into the Hungarian Grand Prix expecting a good race. Mind you, a lot of people might have thought it was a great race, but only because Lewis Hamilton won. But it was the most boring race of the season so far, and you would expect that because the Hungarian Grand Prix usually is.

It is a circuit that, famously, you can’t overtake on, which is a bit like having a swimming pool that you can’t swim in. But still they plough on with using the circuit year in, year out while bloody awesome circuits like Spa-Francorchamps are in-out-in-out shake it all about, and Suzuka was dropped completely.

Not only was the race itself utterly dull, but the commentary was even worse than usual — and that’s saying something. Martin Brundle, who really is the only decent person on ITV’s coverage, always takes a holiday for the Hungarian Grand Prix. This is because he is sensible and knows what he is doing. This means that the coverage is even more of a shambles than usual.

Martin Brundle’s replacement was Damon Hill, who was commentating for the first time ever. Perhaps you can forgive him for this, but it made for quite uncomfortable viewing. So many awkward pauses, ums, ers, and appeals to James Allen to help him out whenever he ran out of things to say!

For the post-race analysis we have to put up with Mark Blundell. “I have spoken to this bloke what I know what works down the garage there, and he told me that that car what he’s got underneath him will to the job no bother guv.”

In the pitlane there is Ted Kravitz, who must be admired for actually making a viable career out of stating the bloody obvious. “There is a car in the pitlane. And, YES, they are putting in some fuel! And some new tyres as well. They’re softs. No wait they’re hard tyres. Hang on, are they wets? Actually, I think they might be Michelins.”

I exaggerated a bit, but during the Hungarian Grand Prix Ted Kravitz did actually confuse a soft tyre with a hard tyre. This is despite the fact that James Allen feels the need to explain the “white stripe” rule about a dozen times per race. I mean, honestly. He must think F1 viewers are really thick. Imagine if they explained, say, the handball rule every five minutes during the football coverage. It would drive. You. Insane.

Which brings us on to James Allen, a total stain on the entire image of F1. I can only hope that the masses of fairweather F1 fans who are watching due to “the Lewis Hamilton effect” are shocked enough by the standard of his commentary that ITV will be forced to employ somebody who can actually describe a race without sounding like an over-excited twelve-year-old on an extended sugar high.

James Allen: One smug face you’d never tire of punching

After all, the internet is already near-unanimous in its criticism of James Allen, who has now shockingly commentated on over 100 races. He is so unpopular that you can actually buy t-shirts asking him to PLEASE shut the fuck up!

He was bad enough before. I will never forget the time when Kimi Räikkönen’s suspension failed at the European Grand Prix a couple of years back. Instead of describing the action, James Allen decided to beat his chest and say, “See! I told ya!”

As Robert Doornbos made his début run in F1, James Allen decided to quip, “Some people call him Doorknobs.” Yeah, but only twunts like you!

And when Jenson Button had a disastrous pitstop last year, James Allen yelped, “Oh no! It’s all gone Pete Tong!” I was so embarrassed just hearing him say that, I wanted to curl up and die.

Now I have some actual video evidence. This is what happened when Jenson Button finally won a race at Hungary last year. It sounds like James Allen got so excited that he actually jizzed in his mouth and was rendered incapable of forming a proper sentence. Mind you, that is what he normally sounds like, but with ‘twat’ levels set at 10 rather than 11.

It was bad enough when the only half-decent British driver on the grid was Jenson Button. Now there is a British driver who is able to win races by means other than sheer luck, and James Allen has now reached the stage where he has become actually unbearable.

I am sure everyone who watched the Malaysian Grand Prix still has ringing in their ears from James Allen’s wails of “WHERE’S LEWIS?! WHEEEERE’S LEWISSSS?!!??!??!!?” when Hamilton was about to cross the line to finish in second place. He sounded like a petulant child on Christmas Eve demanding that he gets to open his presents RIGHT NOW.

James Allen went on to say, “Well he finished third in Melbourne, and second here. What does that mean for Bahrain?” This implied that Hamilton would go on to win at Bahrain. Then he would finish in position 0 in Spain, then position −1 in Monaco (I believe that finishing in −1^st position is equivalent to disappearing up your own backside).

Unbelievably, James Allen actually repeated the “WHERE’S LEWIS?!” routine during qualifying for the British Grand Prix. Then, when the director cut to Lewis Hamilton, “COME ON! YES!” Not again! What has James Allen come on this time?

At least when Lewis Hamilton actually won a race James Allen managed to avoid saying something really embarrassing like “YES! GET IN THERE!” There is actually a Facebook group dedicated to James Allen’s embarrassing blurt-outs called I’m Clicking Mute When Hamilton Wins. As they point out there, while James Allen managed to avoid saying anything downright embarrassing, he still completely cocked it up by getting the timing completely wrong.

LEWIS HAMILTON…………… (tea break)…………… WINS!

He repeated the performance, word-for-word, complete with tea break, at the following race in the USA.

The Facebook group also mentions James Allen’s anecdote about his son talking about how rubbish Lewis Hamilton is (I wrote about this already here).

JA’s son thinks Lewis is rubbish. He must have got a smacked bottom for that!

I wonder which of his sons it was — Enzo or Emerson? There is a dream for school bullies if ever there was one. At least James Allen’s children will grow up to be thick-skinned. (And we all know what his next child will be called… James Allen will shit himself if it’s a girl though; what would he do then? Lewisina?)

Other Facebook groups dedicated to ITV’s awful F1 coverage

• Get rid of James Allen form ITV F1
• I want to see F1, not Lewis Hamilton’s life story

Past posts on the shambles that is ITV-F1

• ITV F1 wins Bafta; F1 fans leave country — featuring Ross Brawn’s criticism of ITV
• Welcome to the world of the thwarted F1 fan — ITV hilariously cut short the programme when Lewis Hamilton won his first race!