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.?

I am quite reluctant to write about the week’s off-track events in the world of Formula 1. Originally I wanted things to settle down before I wrote anything. But ever since then, things have steadfastly refused to settle down. A few people come along to kick some dust into the air and the whole issue is flipped on its head again. Hopefully things have at last settled down now.

First things first. The evidence against McLaren was fairly damning. In the original hearing, McLaren’s defence was that Mike Coughlan was a rogue employee and that no other employee had access to any confidential Ferrari information. Furthermore, most of the evidence pointed to Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan intending to use the documents at Honda, where they jointly applied for a job, rather than McLaren.

The new evidence demonstrates that there was, to an extent, an intention to use Ferrari information to guide development at McLaren. Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso also knew about the documents and discussed information from them. And, as the WMSC pointed out (points 3.10, 3.11), it is highly likely that other employees must have known about this.

Otherwise, the implication is that Pedro de la Rosa has the sole say on which weight distributions get tested on the simulator and whether to try out a special type of gas on the tyres. Common sense says that somebody else other than the test driver is involved in these decisions.

However, this also conclusively proves that Ferrari information was not flowing among McLaren employees freely. My guess is that Mike Coughlan probably knew that he would end up in big trouble if enough people found out that he had special access to Ferrari information.

It is notable that Pedro de la Rosa — somebody who Coughlan will have known since his days at Arrows — is at the centre of all the email conversations. He was clearly being used as a kind of middleman between Coughlan and whichever other employees de la Rosa was working with.

Perhaps it was Coughlan’s intention to keep the Ferrari documents to himself all along. It is possible that he accidentally let it slip to his friend Pedro that he was in regular contact with Nigel Stepney. From then on, de la Rosa’s curiosity forced Coughlan to look up the documents and the rest we see in the emails. de la Rosa let his compatriot Alonso in on the secret. This explains why Lewis Hamilton had no incriminating emails.

And it is still possible that no other employees were aware of the Ferrari documents, although de la Rosa was providing helpful suggestions to his colleagues. In this sense, the McLaren team is no more guilty now than it was in July. It was just the actions of one (or two or three) rogue employees in a company which must have several hundred employees.

What the new evidence also reveals is that the Ferrari data was probably not much use to McLaren anyway. The revelations about weight distribution suggest that the Ferrari data was so different to what McLaren was used to that it was deemed useless for their car to the extent that Fernando Alonso doubted the accuracy of the data. It backs up what I said in my previous post on this subject — that it would be like putting together pieces from two different jigsaws.

There remains precious little evidence that McLaren actually did use any of the Ferrari data in the end. It’s a shame that, because of the way this story has been presented by the media, most people seem to think that McLaren were found guilty of “spying” on Ferrari and copying Ferrari parts and therefore having an illegal car.

McLaren were actually found guilty of the catch-all “bringing the sport into disrepute”. This (along with the fact that all of McLaren’s drivers provided the FIA with the relevant emails) explains why the drivers have kept their points while McLaren have lost all of theirs. It is close to the prediction I made in my previous post — that McLaren would be punished heavily while Hamilton (the story of the season, remember) would get away scot-free.

It is cynical of the FIA to do this. But there was not much else they could do. They had got themselves into a situation where they had to punish McLaren, but at the same time they did not want to jeopardise the story of entire season (the emergence of Lewis Hamilton and an exciting 3- or 4-way title battle). It is fair, though, for the drivers to keep their points as they have not been driving an illegal car.

A lot of the problem came down to the fact that the WMSC had to be seen to be punishing McLaren harshly. The media latched onto this story in an unprecedented way, and in many respects it was sensationalised and blown out of proportion. As such, the punishment is suitably sensationalised and overblown.

The $100 million fine was clearly designed to attract headlines, not least because this is nothing like what McLaren will have to pay. Some of the money will come out of the earnings they will lose as a result of being thrown out of this year’s Constructors’ Championship. McLaren won’t even have to pay half of the $100 million.

Another aspect of the coverage that has annoyed me is the way that it has become known as “spygate”. You will notice that I continue to call it by its original name, “Stepneygate”. Why? Because there was no spying going on! Mike Coughlan did not break into Maranello and hide in Jean Todt’s cupboard. He was approached by a Ferrari employee, Nigel Stepney, and from there a relationship was formed.

No bugs. No wiretaps. No covert break-ins. Just one Ferrari employee exchanging information with one McLaren employee. As far as I am concerned, this all began with the wrongdoing of a Ferrari employee, not the McLaren team. It begs the question once again — why were Ferrari not also charged with bringing the sport into disrepute? It was their employee who started this whole sorry episode. A rogue employee, yes — just like Mike Coughlan.

In fact, if anyone has been the victim of spying, it is Nigel Stepney. Earlier this year he claimed that he feared for his life after finding that he had been bugged. He says he was also involved in “Mafia-like” high-speed car chases and subsequently fled Italy.

This is where the whole tale becomes darker. Clive at Formula 1 Insight says that certain articles on some websites have mysteriously disappeared. I am certain of this as well, because I can not find any reference to Stepney’s car chase claims on the reputable F1 websites that I read, although I am certain that I must have read of them there.

This leads us nicely onto conspiracy theories. The FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias is well known and barely contested by anyone except the most blindly ardent Ferrari fans. For instance, the World Motor Sport Council — the body that found against McLaren on Thursday — has more representatives from Ferrari than any other team. The governing body’s constant attempts to rig the championship in Ferrari’s favour has done far more to place the sport into disrepute than anything Ron Dennis or McLaren have done.

A lot of people are asking why McLaren have been so harshly punished. One of the things that I am reading time and time again is that this sort of thing is apparently fairly commonplace in Formula 1 (although perhaps not to the same extent). I mentioned Peter Windsor’s comments on this blog before (near the bottom of the post).

Many are also drawing parallels with the incident that involved Toyota a few years ago. The FIA stayed well away from that — the whole matter was kept to the Italian courts.

So, why have McLaren been singled out in this way? The FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias can’t explain it all. The Toyota case also involved Ferrari blueprints. Obviously, the way the media latched onto the story explains part of it. But the media latched onto it for a reason. Ferrari pushed this for all it was worth and asked the FIA to get involved (unlike the Toyota case). But was there something else at play?

Many claim that FIA president Max Mosley has a personal vendetta against Ron Dennis. Mosley didn’t do much to change this perception with his comments at Spa yesterday morning (awkward photo opportunity or not).

It seems to me that Max Mosley’s comment that the large fine was designed partly to “bring… his [Ron Dennis's] budget down to the level of some of the other top teams in the paddock” backs up this notion that Mosley is anti-Dennis and pro-Ferrari. It sounds like a calculated plan to damage McLaren and help its rival teams.

Paul Stoddart certainly put in more than his two cents in a must-read interview with Pitpass. Stoddart was an old nemesis of Max Mosley, but he was hardly best pals with Ron Dennis either. It is notable therefore that Paul Stoddart should come out so strongly in Ron Dennis’s favour.

As an aside, note Stoddart’s claim that Max Mosley was the person who prevented there being a proper race at Indianapolis in 2005. He and Jean Todt were the only people who were not willing to compromise for the sake of the sport. Even Bernie Ecclestone was so incensed at Mosley’s stubbornness that he threw his phone at him. This is a real (albeit thoroughly unsurprising) insight into Max Mosley’s character.

Speaking of Max Mosley, Ron Dennis and character, another thing I have read about time and time again is the integrity of Ron Dennis. It is difficult to imagine Ron Dennis cheating or knowingly allowing cheating to go on in his team. He is clearly a proud individual — not just proud of himself, but proud of McLaren as well.

His company has a strict policy whereby the drivers are treated equally. This had already got the team into trouble at least twice this year (at Monaco and Hungary). Still, Ron Dennis refused to deviate from the policy.

Well, seemingly it is the equality stance that has landed McLaren in the deep doo-doo that it has found itself in. Apparently Fernando Alonso confronted Ron Dennis on the morning of the Hungarian Grand Prix. He told Ron Dennis about the incriminating emails and threatened to hand them over to the FIA unless he was made number one driver.

It is interesting that Ron Dennis preferred to hand over the information himself rather than capitulating to the powerful Alonso’s demands. He risked the reputation of his team to preserve the integrity of his team. Very, very admirable. Allegedly, Alonso and Dennis have not spoken since the incident.

It has to be said, this casts Alonso in a very bad light. Not only did he sit on incriminating information, but he also effectively blackmailed his boss in an attempt to get preferential treatment. I bemoaned Lewis Hamilton’s arrogance a few weeks ago, but Fernando Alonso is obviously not squeaky clean either.

I am just glad that there is a race tomorrow so that hopefully this whole sorry affair can be put to rest at last. For some light relief, check out this amusing animated version of the Stepneygate saga (via Ed Gorman). The captions are all in Spanish (or something), but I can still understand it all perfectly!

You know, I didn’t think the FIA or the World Motor Sport Council had it in them, but they’ve managed it — they have actually made the right decision. Moreover, they have made a decision that has angered Ferrari! Blow me down!

While the media has been tempted to spin this as motorsport’s governing body letting McLaren off the hook, this misses an important point. There isn’t much evidence that McLaren have done anything wrong. The saga remains an issue concerning two rogue employees — Mike Coughlan of McLaren and Nigel Stepney of Ferrari.

There is no evidence that McLaren have benefited at all from the Ferrari documents. Indeed, there is not even evidence that the documents were ever in the possession of any McLaren employee except for Mike Coughlan. And while, as chief designer of McLaren, he was a pretty important figure, he can not have had the time to do much with the documents anyway.

Somebody yesterday said to me that it was a bit fishy that McLaren have come up with a fast car this year. But Mike Coughlan came into possession of the documents in late March — long after this year’s McLaren was designed; even after it first raced. And it is not as if it is unusual for McLaren to design a fast car. Indeed, it has been overdue, as they have experienced an unprecedented drought of success in recent years.

You only need to take a glance at the Ferrari and the McLaren to appreciate that they are not similar cars. The joke normally goes that if you gave all of the F1 cars the same paint job you would be unable to tell them apart. But the chassis of the Ferrari and the McLaren are very noticeably different to each other. Seemingly, nothing on the inside of the cars has rung alarm bells either.

There is the possibility that some Ferrari information was used in the development of the car as the season has gone on. But McLaren’s incredibly open offer to hand its car over to the FIA for inspection shows just how confident Ron Dennis was that his team had not broken the rules. The fact that the FIA have seemingly found no evidence of copied Ferrari parts vindicates this. Ron Dennis is a meticulous and honest man, and McLaren’s record is about as unblemished as they come.

Furthermore, a careful reading of the saga as it has drawn out has revealed that McLaren was never going to be the team where the Ferrari documents would have come in handy anyway. The most likely scenario is that Stepney approached Coughlan with a view to creating a “dream team” of engineers who would approach Honda.

Stepney in particular, and presumably Coughlan as well, were disillusioned with their employers for whatever reason. In Honda they would have seen the perfect opportunity: a team with a big budget and in desperate need to extra engineering and technical expertise.

They were looking for a boost in pay and status, and saw Honda as their best option. The Ferrari documents merely formed part of their arsenal. Honda are in the clear though, as they did not hire Stepney or Coughlan.

And Stepney’s involvement is important. GrandPrix.com has suggested that McLaren may have argued in court that if McLaren are to receive a penalty because of Mike Coughlan’s actions, then Ferrari ought to receive a similar penalty for Nigel Stepney’s actions. Given the lack of evidence of McLaren actually benefiting from the documents, this seems like a sound argument to me.

Given all of this information, it would have been pretty difficult for the WMSC to justify any draconian punishment for McLaren. Yes, Ferrari are livid. But this is typical of Ferrari. It is tough to think of a year in the past decade or so where Ferrari have not resorted to the rulebooks and the courts in an attempt to win the championship.

I will pluck just a few examples from the top of my head. The illegal bargeboards at Sepang in 1999: cleared by FIArrari. The sudden appeal against Michelin tyres towards the end of 2003, despite the fact that they had been used for almost two years: upheld by FIArrari. Last year’s claim at Monza that during qualifying Massa was being “impeded” by a Renault that was half a kilometre further up the track: supported by FIArrari.

Usually Ferrari’s whining succeeds because the FIA are Ferrari lackeys. This is why Jean Todt’s claim that Ferrari would have been punished if they were in the same situation is so laughable.

This latest saga is yet another example of Ferrari trying to win the championship through the many grey areas of the rulebook rather than the grey surface of the race track. What a breath of fresh air for the FIA to go against Ferrari’s wishes. It further demonstrates how little evidence there must have been of McLaren wrongdoing.

It is also worth remembering that McLaren have not gone completely unpunished. The FIA will be keeping an eye on them for the next two years to check for an evidence of the Ferrari information being used by McLaren. If McLaren step out of line, they face immediate exclusion from the championship. This is surely a fair verdict. As Ron Dennis said yesterday, “the punishment fits the crime.”

Keith Collantine has come to a similar conclusion to me, and makes a number of interesting points.

Ferrari claimed that the verdict creates a damaging precedent. They’re wrong. Imagine if McLaren had been docked points, even banned from the championship, simply because Coughlan was found to have Ferrari documents in his possession, without having used them.

We would then have a scenario where any disgruntled employee could hold their team to ransom by claiming they possessed similar confidential documents about another team.

In all legal systems, there has to be a dividing line between the companies’ responsibility and the individual’s.

Now for a bit of tin foil hat stuff. Where has this all come from? Many observers have noted how difficult they found it to believe that such well-regarded figures as Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan would get involved in this kind of behaviour. Whatever their motives, there is little doubt that it has not paid off, as their reputations are in tatters and they both face lengthy bans from motorsport.

There is, indeed, a real whiff of fish around this entire saga. Sidepodcast outlined a number of the aspects that just didn’t add up. A good point is made about the whistleblower who contacted Ferrari, said to be a worker at a Woking photocopying shop:

here’s a challenge. pretend you’re the copier guy, try and call the Italian team, see how many hoops you have to jump through to get in touch with them. then see if they even respond, let alone believe what you’re claiming.

i’m damn sure if it were me the first call i’d make would be to the police…or failing that, the Daily Mirror. this guy could be worth a fortune now!

final point. where is this mysterious tipster and why isn’t he talking? what a great story he would have. the tabloids would love it, especially on the weekend of the British GP. we’re not getting half the story here.

Here is something else that has got me scratching my head. It is this month’s ‘Friction Circle’ column in F1 Racing, written by Peter Windsor. He is a bit of an FIA / Ferrari lackey, but he is also a wise man whose word and experience are surely to be trusted. Here is what he said:

…espionage is alive and well in F1 and has been for the past couple of decades. I’m not talking about ‘cloned’ cars such as the Benetton–Ligier or the current Newey or Honda chassis. I’m talking deliberate industrial espionage — and I speak from the experience of having worked in F1 teams for a total of eight years during that period. I saw it with my own eyes — the evidence of senior employees sending drawings to destinations that could only be described as arch-rivals. It was blatant, obvious, but the F1 world just seemed to take it for granted.

…

A big thank you, then, to Ferrari, McLaren and Honda — and especially to the FIA — for giving this most recent matter the publicity and sincerity it deserves.

Now this is surprising to me, because almost every other experienced observer that I have read has written about how unbelievable they found the entire situation. Yes, they say, spying is normal. Taking photographs of rival cars is standard practice. But industrial espionage on this scale? “I’m shocked, just shocked!”

So is Peter Windsor right? Is industrial espionage the norm in F1? If it is, why has nobody said anything about it before? Why hasn’t Peter Windsor himself ever said anything about it?

Assuming Peter Windsor is right, this just adds on another question to the never-ending list. Why have Stepney and Coughlan been singled out, while similar behaviour has been “taken for granted” in the past?

Last week, ITV did something absolutely extraordinary. They offered an explanation for their appalling coverage of Formula 1, although it seems to stop short of an apology. No doubt this has been caused by an influx of complaints following an upsurge in viewers in the light of the success of a British driver.

A bunch of fairweather F1 fans who probably haven’t watched a Grand Prix since Murray Walker got a lump in his throat have tuned in to see the shower that long time F1 fans — the sort that do not watch merely for narrow nationalistic reasons — have to put up with on a race-by-race basis. Admittedly, ITV’s coverage of the races in the Americas is always worse because they are prime time viewing in the UK, which means that ITV would rather be showing Coronation Street than the Grand Prix.

You have to laugh though. Lewis Hamilton’s first race win would happen at one of these North American races where ITV are short for time. As such, the programme was rushed finished. When it finally came, there was no chance to reflect on the victory which the media has been hyping up for the past few months. We got no post-race interviews with the drivers — not even the press conference which follows immediately after the podium ceremony.

As I recall, ITV were also caught out the first time Jenson Button achieved a modicum of success. As I recall, ITV viewers did not see Jenson Button get pole position because they did not show the qualifying session live at all. Thankfully, ITV have learned from that incident and have since shown every qualifying session live, even if it is sometimes on ITV4 rather than ITV1.

I am actually on ITV’s side when it comes to qualifying. The BBC did not always show qualifying, so in that sense we are rather lucky with ITV’s coverage. But apart from that, there is little for F1 fans to be happy about the coverage.

But while they have, to an extent, sorted out their coverage of qualifying, I am not so confident that they will learn the lessons after this latest snafu. Their excuses for the rushed coverage are extremely weak.

With the Safety Car running four times, the Canadian race was well behind time, so I had to negotiate a lengthy over-run which delayed Coronation Street by several minutes.

As F1 Fanatic points out, the Canadian Grand Prix did not run behind time. In fact, if anything, the race ran over fifteen minutes ahead of time.

While most races last around 90 minutes, they may last for anything up to two hours. While the two hour time limit is very rarely reached, every F1 broadcaster must prepare for that eventuality, just the same as football broadcasters must account for the possibility of extra time and penalties.

In reality, ITV should not be scheduling important programmes at all until about 2 hours and 20 minutes after the scheduled race start. This is to take into account the parade lap, the drive to parc fermé and the podium ceremony — not to mention the possibility of a red flag and a race re-start.

They should leave longer if they want to be sure of covering the post-race press conference. Any programmes scheduled before this threshold should be easily dropped fillers, not Coronation Street! They already do this for football, so it is not rocket science.

This two hour time limit was brought in by the FIA specifically with broadcasters in mind. If ITV have not got their heads around this basic rule after over ten years of covering F1, then you have to conclude that hoping for an improvement in the situation is an absolute lost cause because ITV is clearly run by clueless dolts.

Another reason to reach this conclusion about ITV’s bigwigs is their really odd scheduling last Saturday. In late Saturday afternoon they screened a special programme about Lewis Hamilton on ITV1. This could have been used as a perfect opportunity to lift ratings of the qualifying programme (presuming that this is what ITV are worried about with their reluctance to show it on ITV1).

Yet, despite dedicating a chunk of their ITV1 schedule to a Lewis Hamilton wank-fest, they still opted to show qualifying on ITV4. What was the important programme they had to broadcast on ITV1? Grease. A film that everybody who wants to see it already has done. Pitpass has a feasible explanation here.

With ITV constantly messing around with dedicated F1 fans, I think it is high time that Bernie Ecclestone and FOM re-launched their dedicated F1 Digital + (”Bernievision”) service. Yes, it is pay-per-view. But I think I would be willing to shell out just to avoid the nationalistic bias, the commercial breaks, the idiotic scheduling, the dumb pre-race features and of course James Allen (who has, shockingly, just notched up his 100^th race commentary).

A common counter-argument against complaints about James Allen is that there is nobody to replace him. But there is an obvious choice: Ben Edwards. He already commentates on other forms of motor racing for ITV. He knows his stuff, and he doesn’t get excited like a seven-year-old boy à la James Allen.

There are even people like Peter Windsor or Steve Matchett, who currently commentate in America and used to commentate on F1 Digital +. Peter Windsor also conducts the post-race press conference. These people know their stuff and are much more level-headed than the likes of James Allen and Steve Rider.

Maybe they could bring on board the surely soon-to-retire David Coulthard to take Martin Brundle’s role, while the rather excellent (in comparison to his colleagues) Brundle takes the role of lead commentator. After all, with the hopeless James Allen taking the lead commentator role at the moment, Brundle often finds himself having to do the job of both.

There is hardly a shortage of potential alternatives to James Allen.

But maybe a more radical solution is required. Let us face it. F1 Digital + only failed because it was a bit too far ahead of its time. Nowadays, unlike in 1997, digital television is an everyday reality. I am sure many more people would be willing to pay for the service, especially since ITV’s coverage only ever seems to go downhill.