Its unfortunate that politics usurps technical excellence.

Politics will always insert itself in any endeavor with big money involved.

Today's race was not much action , congrats to the winner . I caught myself nodding off a few times so not a good sign 😁

I'll say it again, ESPN sucks.

They cut the broadcast right when Lando started to answer the question in post race interview. Just had to get 30 minutes of Sports Center in before the Euros. Meanwhile on the deuce and news they were showing reruns of X Games and 30 for 30.

I was looking at F1 TV yesterday to buy. It is $79 for the year or $9 per month.

Does anyone have experience with F1 TV? Is it good? Can you sleep in and watch when you're ready?

TIA

What happened to Russell? Feel nad for the guy and his rotten luck. To drive that slug of a car to P7 or P8, and then be let down by some mechanical DNF....

And it was at least passingly interesting to see LeClerc claw his way back to a respectable finish.

Nice drive by the winner.

Otherwise, that was about it for any excitement.

Russell had some sort of hydraulic failure . Shame because he was competitive up to that point . I was really pulling for Perez to catch/pass Bottas he needed one more lap . Felt bad for Gasly .

So Max beats Lewis in 2nd place by 38 seconds. The record books will be updated. Amazing gap, but second place is second and the fastest lap point is more important.

And I will second that comment, ESPN sucks. Why show some talking heads talk about people playing a silly game, and cut away from a sport in the middle of a interview of the sports participants?

Sports is secondary to ESPN, the E is first and entertainment is what they push. Sports are not important.

I have had it the last 2 years. I got it for the very reason you ask. Can watch anytime I want. I like it, and as long I continue to watch F1, I will subscribe.

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. On his second stop, a lap after the first one, when the crewmember with the aqualung-looking thingie strapped to his back plugged into the sidepod, I knew it couldn't be good. Something fluid or pneumatic, and pressurized.

Spielberg. Gorgeous scenery, boring track.

I’m surprised about the ESPN complaints. Lights to checkered flag coverage without commercials! What else do you folks want? This is better coverage than we’ve had in my 40+ years as an f1 fan in the US!

Complete coverage would be nice. We have never gotten coverage of all of the sessions that take place during the weekend. Longer post race coverage that doesn’t get cut off prematurely for some stupid show that airs content that duplicates what is seen 30 other times on that channel in a given week.

I imagine there are countries in the rest of the world that have had this for decades.

I get P1, P2, P3, quali and uninterrupted race coverage usually with the Podium and interviews/analysis afterwards from ESPN. It's awful. :rolleyes:

They have one sponsor, that pays for the entire broadcast. It is not out of the goodness of their hearts. When ESPN started showing the Sky network show they would go to breaks at random times, right in the middle of a sentence or battle on track, and come back with zero recap of what was missed. Finally Mother's waxes stepped up and wrote some big checks for commercial free broadcast.

And I have seen the F1 coverage interviews interrupted to go to show a basketball game that was so long ago the men wore small shorts, and it was not in HD. Somehow watched a game that is 30 years old was more important than the interviews of the drivers after the race.

ESPN sees F1 as an annoyance. They would rather replay a volley ball game from the 70s than cover F1.

I do exclusively buy Mother's products since they started sponsoring F1.

And I sent them an email stating this.

Agree that the wire to wire is likely the best we have ever had in the US.

However, there is no longer a dedicated post race show that contains interviews and analysis. NBCSN always had a post race show that lasted between 30 minutes and an hour. I usually have to go online to find out WDC and Constructor's standings. I'm sure Sky shows it but it must occur after ESPN cuts the feed.

With ESPN we only get Sky's post race when the race ends before allotted 2 hours on the broadcast schedule. Ditto for quali. For some reason ESPN believes quali only last 1 hour, so they only allot an hour for it. Post quali we may not even get interviews with the top runners.

Also, ESPN never shows the interviews from the media pen. When was the last time you heard Alonso give an interview? It would have been nice to hear from Leclerc yesterday after storming back thru the field and being named driver of the day.

When ESPN took over broadcasting F1 a few years ago, it was an absolute travesty: Cutting to commercials during on track racing; ending broadcast when the winner crosses the finish line; and the worst being when in the first quali the entire broadcast was a camera showing nothing but an unused area of the track for an entire hour without any racing or commentary.

Thank goodness Mother's has helped out but ESPN has miles to go to do better. They don't seem to understand the audience nor the sport.

Here's another example of their incompetence: today on Day 1 of Wimbledon, they moved an in progress tennis match from ESPN to ESPN 2 because they were switching to the Euros. Novel idea: just show tennis on one channel and football on the other. It ain't that complicated.

ESPN never heard of Heidi I guess ;)

re: ESPN, it's nice to have flag to flag no ads, but I really wish "Crofty" would STFU most of the time. He gets very shouty at the starts in typical UK commentating style, very irritating. Also, he thinks he's funny...

Wish they'd put Karun Chandok as the main guy instead, he's more insightful and way quieter. I also exclusively buy from Mother's now and each time comment about F1 coverage on my order! It even gets you extras at times.

I was in France for a month and really enjoyed the coverage there also, less shouty if you believe that, and I was shocked at how many paddock people speak perfect french... From Toto Wolf to Mattia Binotto (absolutely flawless, both of them) and more, I had no idea. Ironic the French GP was great and Austria a snooze fest, can't predict these things...

We should do a poll on this ^^^

He's somewhat okay until it gets tight. But when the action gets hairy, like the end of Q3 this past Saturday, the volume, pitch, and octaves change for the worst.

Nails on chalkboard

I'm in the Crofty makes my ears bleed camp. I turn down the volume at the start for personal sanity.

Not a fan of Karun either. IMHO, it takes him too long to make a point. And frankly, some of the time I have a difficult time understanding what he is saying.

Commercial free broadcast cannot be beat, however, so I will bear the imagined pain inflicted by the presenters.

I can't stand any of the sky broadcasters....

I'd prefer 'Mericans...

This is interesting reading....

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/one-year-on-the-man-who-helped-save-f1-from-covid

I miss Varsha/Hobbs/Matchet they were a good team with no ten year old high pitched squeal's .

Varsha had this sort of annoying pronunciation fetish.

BADDA-CHELLO

or

KOO-BEET-SAH

I really only liked Hobbs because he was entertaining. Matchet was quite frankly the only reason to watch the pre-race.

Cannot stand these announcers. My wife asked me who the woman shrieking on tv was

On the west coast, I have to watch these races at 0600. I don't have Tivo/DVR/etc and I'm not paying extra for it. So to avoid waking up anyone else in the household, I watch with the volume off. I suppose I may miss what the announcers say, but reading your comments, sounds like I'm better off for it.

Does anyone think Ham can dig deep enough to bring something this weekend to catch Max?

It's not really up to the driver with these two. The better car/strategy will prevail.

Go Max GO!

The Sky announcers love the inside jokes, and laugh at each other and all talk at the same time and it is impossible to figure what they siad, and why it is funny. And then with some of the weird accents, it is really had to understand. At least Crofty speaks clearly but his high pitch screaming at the start is something I mostly ignore.

Hobbs was the best and with Machett they did a good job. I miss them.

So then it's Toto versus Horner,

I wonder if the inside jokes and things that they talk about would be more clear to the US viewing audience if we got the complete post race broadcast? Like the whole thing with wearing leiderhosen.

I've watched a lot of the practice sessions recently and I think that's another place where they talk, talk, talk and get to the inside stuff that you will miss on race day if you haven't listened to them all weekend.

As for Hobbs and Machett... loved them. Could do without Leigh Diffy (I'm pretty sure he wanted to have Hammy's baby). The driving experience of Hobbs combined with the technical expertise of Machett really made NBCSN's broadcast worth watching.

I remember one race where a car blew the engine . Later in the broadcast Hobbs stated the car retired due to " excessive crankcase ventilation " ............. It threw a rod through the block 😁 . Loved comments like that . Matchet was a great technical story teller .

Not a fan of Croft, seems to have a penchant for filling air time with uninteresting opinions or conspiracy theories. The 12-year old girl wails at the beginning or races or anytime there is an incident cause an immediate "MUTE" response.

I like Di Resta and Davidson, Chandhok is OK and Brundle does an ok play by play but his trackside reports are cringe-inducing. Cars NEVER seem to come by his station on the gas, the camera is bouncing around trying to find something to show and Martin sounds like he in into his second or third pint.

My favorite was a race ago we were gifted an "Audio-Up" moment which to me is great. Get to see one car at speed and pay attention to it. In this episode, the silence lasted about 15 seconds and three announcers started talking over each other all at once about stuff not related to the lap. Very disappointing.

I'll happily take Hobbs and Matchett any day.

Announcers I do enjoy are the MotoGP broadcast team. They are very well informed and they call the race as it happens.

Could be worse. Could have Paul Page calling the race.

....and is it just me, or do they seem to take a special pride in making sure they pronunciate the rider's names perfectly? All classes, MotoGP, Moto2, Moto1

Imagine being in Hawaii. Most of the races are at 3 am. As for leaving the volume low, you could get some headphones. Then you could hear Crofty in all his screaming glory!

As for screaming announcers, anyone remember Leigh Diffey? Crofty must have learned from him. After F1 moved to Sky, I thought I would never have to hear his voice again. Then everytime I turn on NBC Olympics coverage, there he is!

Diffey is still doing that for Indycar and IMSA. Nails on a chalkboard.