I intensely dislike Alonso, so I'm glad with Vettel winning the championship, although the ending to the race was lame.
Yep. Vettel gets his way as usual. Also, if Alonso wasn't in the running for the championship and got through on team orders, Massa could've got several podiums in the last few races, imo. Either the car has suddenly become a lot more suited to his style, or he's really getting back on form.
It might not be over yet, Sky had footage that appeared to show Vettel overtaking under yellow flags. Which if true could mean a post race penalty of 20 seconds.
It could've been a striped yellow and red, though, which means slippery track or debris. Need to have another look at it.
Did I imagine it, were they in error, or did Jake have it right when he just said all the F1 races in 2013 would be live on BBC1?
Well Sky have re-run the the footage and there was a Yellow Flag and a Yellow and Red Flag, there was then a green light. And then another yellow light. If it was an overtake under yellow the problem is the Sauber pitted after being overtaken. If it was an overtake under yellow, Vettel couldn't give the place back. Which means the only penalty available would be a drive through or a time penalty for breaking the rules.
Regardless of that, what about Vettel's idiocy at the start of the race? That accident was clearly his fault, and it's a shame that he didn't have to retire the car, because he deserved to.
Would that be the drive through penalty for causing an avoidable accident. We saw Hulkenberg get one for taking out Hamilton.
Live on BBC, not BBC1 i.e. half the races will be live on radio only as in this year. Like you, I did a double-take after he said that at the end of the race, but no such luck. I will miss Jake though. His rapport with DC & EJ is great, and it seems he's been able to get on well with lots of the drivers too esp. Lewis & Jenson. Big loss. I wonder who'll replace him. Hopefully not the rather dull Lee McKenzie. Anyway, I thought the last race was lots of fun. Action throughout. A slight shame to finish under SC conditions, but the outcome was clear by then anyway. 2013 will be a bit of a transitional year I think as I understand that some big formula changes are coming for 2014 which will throw things a bit more up in the air. So 2013 will probably have the same main 3 competitors as 2012 of McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull. It will be interesting to see how Lewis does at Mercedes, but I understand he's already focusing more for 2014 onwards.
Well you never now, nobody really expected Brawn to rise from the Ashes of Honda and take the Championships. So we can't count out Mercedes yet. (I'm not expecting anything, but I won't be suprsied either)
She's been there, interviewing folks on the pit lane for years, so she has kind of earned the place - though finding somebody who can match Jake's tone and attitude will be pretty impossible
She just doesn't have the charisma for the role though. You need a Murray or a Jake to humanise the drama somehow. DC and Ben Edwards are good commentators, EJ/DC play off each other well and bring great colour to proceedings, but you need someone human at the centre of it all to give all the razzmatazz meaning while simulataneously able to keep all the various egos in check. It's kind of like being a ringmaster I think. I'm sure there must be some up-and-coming presenters able to do it, but they've got big shoes to fill. I just hope they don't draft in someone from MOTD2 or the Football League show like Colin Murray or Manish Bhasin. Colin Murray is just annoying and Bhasin is much more of a personality black hole than Lee McKenzie. Mind you, I wasn't particularly expecting great things from Jake at the start and he grew into the role to some extent over the first half a season.
Apparently the on-board cameras are finally going HD next year! Hopefully the cameras will be of decent quality aside from the resolution though, and not like the ones they use for Le Mans/WEC, which suck at capturing light changes/motion realistically, and put out images that resemble those of a mobile phone camera. To be honest, the HD probably won't make much of a difference on BBC HD, as the bitrate is relatively low and they appear to use some aggressive noise-reduction (presumably to improve the compression), which destroys much of the extra detail of the HD feed. The difference will be massive on Sky, though. I don't have any way of measuring the bitrate myself, but a few people have tested it (presumably with a tuner, a smart card reader and some kind of illegal VideoGuard emulator on their computer) and have found that Sky typically puts out significantly higher average bitrate (earlier in the year, at least). You can see the difference for yourself by taking a screenshot of each channel at roughly the same time and zooming in on bits of the FOM graphics (especially the F1/LG logos). Even on a TV at normal viewing distance, it's still quite obvious when you try to distinguish all of the lines on the '1' in the F1 logo. Apparently BBC turned up the bandwidth around the time of either Wimbledon or the Olympics; I've got no idea if it's remained that way, but regardless, I'm pretty sure they're still abusing the noise-reduction, as the FOM graphics still look clearer on Sky.
Ferrari are considering an appeal for an earlier Vettel overtake on Lap 4. Now of course the video isn't totally and there is the possibility of another flag but it does appear that there is the possibility that Vettel overtook a Torro Rosso under Yellows. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20531638 Unfortunuatly if he did there is only once option to the FIA if they strictly adhere to the rules a 20 second time penalty, which would mean Alonso is the Champion by 1 point.
Wouldn't be a bad thing for Vettel to get his title taken away, he should have (and was extremely lucky not to have) been out of the race after the tangle with Senna at the beginning, anyway.
And as we approach the end of the year, the few remaining places are filling up Britain's Max Hilton signs for Marussia http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/20766042 And it looks like Kumi won't be linning up http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20764423
Suzy Perry to replace Jake Humphries as host of BBC coverage - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20812990 So here's the list of who shows what, for BBC & Sky - http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/12/21/bbc-f1-races-live-2012/ Oh, Sky have announced their F1 2013 lineup with no Coulthard - "Commentary next season will again come from Martin Brundle and David Croft, with expert analysis by Damon Hill, Anthony Davidson and Johnny Herbert. Fronting the coverage are presenters Simon Lazenby and Georgie Thompson alongside reporters Natalie Pinkham and Ted Kravitz." - so I guess that rumour didn't come to pass, thankfully. They do have the (probable) Stig on their team though.