Spanish F1 / ITV

[sleepyhead]

So the Spanish GP wasn't too bad to view. Interesting start and overall a good race to watch. Big off by Heiki too. Good to see he seems to be OK.

Unless the other teams pull something out of the bag, it looks like Ferarri are going to dominate this season Fast cars with fast drivers and it looked like both Ferarri drivers had Lewis pegged.

But...what are ITV playing at?

Either I slept or they didn't cover the Press Conference with Kimi nor Massa but only for Lewis? That ticked me off, along with the constant over bias for Lewis...

[gman1981]

ITV being a British channel, you would have to assume they would bias towards British drivers, as most of the audience will be following the British drivers.

Although it was a shame for them to not cover Kimi or Felipe's press conference.

[staffsMike]

Well we need someone to cheer for since the footballers have let us down

I thought the race was boring, nice to see hamilton get a good start but that was pretty much the end of the highlights for me.

[digit]

I enjoyed the race, plently of action going on. Seemed a lot of drivers were plagued by accidents though! Collisions, alonso's engine catching on fire, suspension failure, tires getting shredded. The safety car coming out halfway through ruined part of the race though as everyone just got close together again. Relying on not making up seconds differences between themselves and drivers higher up the field but hundreths of seconds instead.

[matty-hodgson]

can't wait for the 'highlights' tonight..
what will they actually show?!

nothing happened apart from a couple of crashes..

[kalniel]

An unusually exciting Spanish GP.. wow

Quite a lot of overtaking attempts considering, more than a couple resulting in collisions rather than clean moves!

[sleepyhead]

There is showing support for the British drivers and then there is being blatantly over biased. F1 is an international sport and I'd actually like to see/hear other things than the constant "Hamilton's Driver's championship could be in trouble if he doesn't finish in x position" all the time...it's four races in or the incident where "Alonso MUST have lifted". Jeesh, we know there is bad blood between the two but I doubt Alonso is stupid enough to pull that stunt.

[this_is_gav]

He isn't, McLaren never suggester he did, and Renault proved otherwise afterwards anyway. It was only Hamilton fanboys who suggested he had from what I read, and I'm not blaming ITV, as they only saw 1 replay. Brundle jumped to a conclusion a bit quick, but he covered himself by saying he needed to see it again.

To be fair to ITV, they've stepped back a little from the Hamilton-loving since they released the rights for next year. There's still too much of it, but it's bearable now. Judging by how the BBC are going on about James Toseland in their MotoGP coverage, and the Sport's Directors comments after securing the F1 rights, it's going to be even worse with Hamilton next year.

I actually laughed out loud at the weekend when James Allen said "I hear that F1 on Spanish TV treats it like you're watching Alonso and 21 other idiots". They're blinded by their own hypocrisy.

[TiG]

I actually thought that the race was pretty dull. Again failure rate this year seems very high tho, which again is something that is more enjoyable.

Positives are definitely having 3 manufacturer cars of similar pace, yes ferrari are top but bmw and mclaren are close.

I don't like the pro british driver stuff either, I want balanced factual content, however I would add that if you think this is pro bias you really should watch south african tv. All 4 presenters all have south african team tops on whatever they were commentating on, and its nothing other than crazy biased comments on rugby, cricket etc etc.

They need to take a view that Eurosport does, (i watch that compared to the bbc motogp commentary as its much better imo) and its much better based in fact rather than overwhelming bias.

TiG

[Vimeous]

Hmm ..... didn't they say something like 8 consecutive Spanish GP's with pole-to-win results? Clearly a challenging track but hopefully next years aero mods will give us more to watch.

ITV's coverage is significantly less Lewis-centric than last year (HOORAY!), I actually appreciate their improved focus on all the British drivers, but it's still a little one sided. I'm glad they pay plenty of attention to British-based drivers (Kovy etc) even if my synical side suggests it's a production costs issue.
Funny really, one of the standout things of the last 20 years is us Brits becoming more complacent and less overtly patriotic to the point we find ITV's coverage annoying. And yet our coverage would be considered mild compared to others, France, Spain, Italy and the US to name a few. Such is the life of a mild-mannered Brit

Frankly it's James Allen that annoys me. I know there's time to fill but he labours his points massively. Maybe I should go back and listen to Walker and Hunt to really understand what it is that's missing.

With the Beeb back on the horizon I hope they know what they're doing. Despite my ITV reservations (Adverts, some presenters) many of the featurettes are worthwhile, interesting and well put together. I hope the best bits can be retained.

[this_is_gav]

Their coverage is all samey.

1) Presentation, outside of the McLaren garage, naturally, with 5mins talking to Mark "you can call me grammar" Blundell asking him questions while supplying the answers at the same time ("didn't Lewis do well in yesterday's qualifying?") - he's dim but surely he can think a little... followed by

2) A run down by James Allen of the qualifying session

3) Brundle's guide to the track, onboard the pole-sitter

4) Louise interviewing Nick Fry, with that banana-shaped hole in his face

5) An interview with Stefano Domenichelli by Ted

**adverts**

6) The usual post-qualifying interview with Lewis by Steve

7) Ted asking Pat Symonds about Lewis (why the hell would he care?!)

8) The inevitable competition, the entry cost of which is more than that of actually going to the event in your own Concorde anyway

9) Brundle's Grid-walk (thank God this was actually different and not just asking c-listers why they came!)

10) More pre-answered, dumb questions for Mark to agree with

** adverts**

11) "Thank you Steve, hello everybody".