F1 2012 Championship Thread

[MacLeod]

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)

[Lonemagpie]

Holdfast wrote:

---

[
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.

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

[Holdfast]

Lonemagpie wrote:

---

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.

[Geckothan]

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.

[MacLeod]

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.

[Lonemagpie]

Latest rumour off the track is that David Coulthard is jumping ship to Sky next season...

[Geckothan]

MacLeod wrote:

---

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.

[junxon]

man, stop whining about vettel. its getting tedious.

[MacLeod]

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

[Lonemagpie]

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/2012/12/2...ces-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.

[Holdfast]

Suzy Perry is a good choice; she's a very natural presenter and knows her motorsport too. Actually, I'm a bit surprised the BBC made such a good decision; I was expecting a more generic choice.

Sky's line-up is really very strong, especially the analysis side. But I don't have Sky, so...