The F1 thread

[Drarok]

No word of a lie, I went to that site's about page immediately to check if it was satire.

[Maturin]

Bernie's often been strangely disparaging towards Lewis (hmm, I wonder why?) so this is no great surprise.

[Wrathbone]

Wasn't there a year when Bernie said the championship should be decided by the number of wins rather than points? I think it may have been right after Hamilton won on points in 2008, but would have lost to Massa if it had been on wins.

There are few people I'd label a through-and-through, top-to-bottom bastard with no redeeming qualities, but Bernie is one of them. A corrupt, irrelevant soapbox of bile.

EDIT - How about this well-considered assessment of women in motorsport from 2005? :

"You know I've got one of those wonderful ideas ... women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances."

https://www.espn.co.uk/racing/news/stor ... id=2089257

[Raid]

Rich, ancient, white man is a possibly racist misogynist. Who'd have thought.

[Rossell]

Tbh, Michael would be actively encouraging Lewis to break his record.

[Raid]

So Channel 4 are seemingly going to be showing the final race live.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chan ... -6rlkbvbv0
It's behind a paywall, but someone on Reddit posted the entire text:

Channel 4 will broadcast the Formula One season finale live on Sunday after reaching a deal with Sky to share the television rights.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will be winner-takes-all for Lewis Hamilton, 36, and Max Verstappen, 24, with the pair level on points in the drivers’ standings. It will be a record eighth title for the Englishman if he wins.

Sky has the rights to show all the races live, while Channel 4 is normally limited to a highlights package, though does broadcast the British Grand Prix live. The Times understands that a deal has been reached in which the satellite broadcaster will share the rights to Sunday’s race.

Channel 4 will do a 30-minute pre-race show and will then switch to Sky’s commentary for the race, which will be followed by another 30-minute show with the Channel 4 team. The terrestrial channel will still air its highlights programme. A deal is expected to be announced on Thursday.

There has been growing interest in F1 as the intensity of the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen has ramped up. The chaotic race on Sunday in Saudi Arabia attracted a record audience on Sky Sports F1, peaking at 2.66 million — the highest figure since Sky bought the rights ten years ago.

It will not be the first time that Sky has shared the finale of a significant sporting event with Channel 4: it did so for England’s triumph in the men’s Cricket World Cup in 2019.

More recently, Prime Video agreed to let Channel 4 screen the women’s final of the US Open tennis tournament, won by Emma Raducanu in September.

Not since 1974 have the title protagonists arrived at the F1 season finale on equal points. If neither driver finishes the race then Verstappen will win his maiden title by virtue of countback, with nine grand prix wins to Hamilton’s eight. Should Hamilton win his eighth world title he will move clear of Michael Schumacher, though the Briton is already the most successful racing driver in F1 history, with the most race wins and pole positions. By Rebecca Clancy.

It's not currently showing in the listings on 4's own website though.

[Wrathbone]

How's that going to work with a paywall? Is it only showing live on All4, rather than on the actual C4 channel?

[Raid]

How's that going to work with a paywall? Is it only showing live on All4, rather than on the actual C4 channel?

Err, the news article is behind a paywall.

[Wrathbone]

Oh.

[Raid]

In fairness I could probably have worded that better.

It'll be nice to hear the Sky commentary for a change. I don't think Crofty has a particularly good reputation (though I don't dislike him), but I always liked Martin's punditry more than Coulthard's.

[Drarok]

I don't mind Crofty at all, he's good at his job. He's the chatterbox to Brundle's more hands-on knowledge. A good team, I think.

[Snowy]

Crofty is a whole lot better than James Allen was, count those blessings Chris

[Raid]

Oh I know, I caught the end of the James Allen era, or the Lewis Hamilton Cheer Squad as I tend to think of the ITV presentation. I still preferred James Allen to Jonathan Bloody Legard though.

[Wrathbone]

I hated how Legard always described the order, e.g. "It's Hamilton from Alonso from Button". To me, "from" in an ordering context implies behind rather than ahead. Probably shouldn't annoy me as much as it does, and it's a turn of phrase used by other commentators on rare occasions, but it became a dog-whistle grimace with Legard because that was his default vernacular.

[Raid]

Legard was a football commentator, right? I suppose it made sense for him to fall back on "x from y" as that's his verbal pattern for someone passing a ball, but it didn't make sense in a racing context. What I hated about him though was that he didn't describe anything well, he used language that a six year old would use. I remember when Mark Webber hit the back of Kovalainen's Lotus and his car did a summersault, an incredible dramatic accident where we all had our hearts in our throats, Legard yelled "Mark Webber has gone right up there." And I also know the name of a bridge in Singapore because he just wouldn't shut up about it.