Circuit of the Americas

[tobyaw]

What a fine racing track! This past weekend was the first Formula 1 race at the new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. It was good to see an American date back on the Formula 1 calendar after a gap of five years, and Austin provided a good race.

Sadly the BBC didn’t show the live race; instead they had a highlights programme late on Sunday evening. We recorded it, and, having avoided hearing the result throughout today, kateaw and I settled down to watch it this evening. The track is entertainingly three-dimensional; we’re so used to the new tracks on the calendar being very flat, so it is a treat to have some hills. Some good overtaking too, and the drivers’ championship runs on to the final race in the season next week, which will maintain the excitement.

Good hats worn on the podium, too.

I’ve never been to see a race live. I imagine it must be hard to follow the action if one is sitting in a grandstand with a view of only part of the track. Maybe people sit in the stands with their iPhones showing video feeds of the rest of the track, in the same way that the crowds at cricket matches listen to TMS on their pocket wirelesses.

Comments

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

What Stuart said about the jumbotrons! They also pipe the audio feed of the commentary, not that you can hear a darned thing most of the time.

There was some sort of hand-held wireless data thingy available for rent; and of course everyone had an iPhone, but then everyone was using their iPhone so the data availability was low at best. :P

Did the Beeb really not show the full race at all? Wow, that's worse than Fox. :(

[qidane.livejournal.com]

BBC could not afford to. BBC, Sky & F1 did a deal where Sky got all live, BBC got half live (the BBC got to pick which) and highlights of the other half.

[tobyaw]

As Andrew says, we only get half the season live on the BBC. And Sky poached some of the presenters too — we still have Coulthard on the BBC, but Martin Brundle moved to Sky.