Quality U.S. F1 Coverage?

February 26, 2009 10:26 AM

U.S. Formula 1 fans: How can I legally watch the British broadcasts of the upcoming Formula 1 season?

I became a Formula 1 fan by watching the comparatively excellent British ITV coverage. The only U.S. broadcast I can find is on the Speed Channel or a few races on ABC, all of which are terrible when compared to ITV. The BBC is taking over the race coverage this year, promising even better coverage. I would love to be able to watch their broadcasts here in the U.S., but how?

I realize that all the races are available on bittorrent soon after the broadcasts, but surely there must be some way to subscribe or pay to watch the British race coverage. Anybody know if BBC America will show the qualifying and races?

posted by jsonic to sports, hobbies, & recreation (10 comments total)

F1 (aka Bernie) are very protective of the regional rights it extorts sells, so I seriously doubt you'll see any "legal" access of the BBC coverage in the US. Speed/Fox owns the exclusive US rights, so I'd wager BBC America is out of the picture here.

According to BBC Sport, everything will be available simultaneously online, as well. Of course, that will be limited to UK users, only. Sooo...maybe, if you can finagle some kind of proxy voodoo, you might be able to tap-into the BBC online coverage. A long-shot, to be sure. That's all I can come up with. Sorry.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:43 AM on February 26

BBC Sport F1 coverage page that mentions the iplayer. The iplayer is supposed to be UK only (for us UK licence fee payers) but with a decent enough English/British proxy you can watch live. Plus, you get punditry from Eddie Jordan which will be entertaining.
posted by dapulli at 10:44 AM on February 26

Depending on when you started watching, you know that Murray Walker retired, right?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:39 AM on February 26

I don't think there's a better team of racing announcers in American than Varsha/Hobbs/Matchett. What didn't you like about them compared to, say, James Allen on ITV?
posted by gyc at 1:27 PM on February 26

[quote]
I don't think there's a better team of racing announcers in American than Varsha/Hobbs/Matchett
[/quote]

Gyc is right, these guys are quality. It's too bad they aren't actually allowed to *attend* the races and are stuck calling play-by-play while watching the same broadcast we are .... I wonder if they even get it in HD?
posted by skybolt at 2:09 PM on February 26

The U.S. announcers might be ok, but by not being at the track, they have little insight as to what's going on. The British pit reporters really add to the race coverage. Plus, the British broadcasts usually include about an hour of backstory leading up to each race including interviews with most of the drivers. They also usually cover the post race celebrations and interviews.

And for some incredibly weird reason, Speed feels the need to put up it's own graphics such as driver photos and positioning during the race. Combine this with the more frequent commercial breaks, and I feel like I'm watching NASCAR coverage.
posted by jsonic at 2:18 PM on February 26

I think a proxy is your best bet, if anyone has an elegant solution, I'd be interested too. I heard that Murray Walker was going to do a guest spot on the BBC if not actual commentating. Best theme tune in sport is back as well.

Also, good news for Honda F1 apparently.
posted by arcticseal at 6:08 PM on February 26

I too have to disagree with your assessment of the SpeedTV vs British F1 announcers.

David Hobbs is an ex-F1 and Le Mans pilot, and quite possibly has more racing miles than all but two or three drivers currently in F1. And, outside of Kelly Collins, is the funniest racer alive.

Steve Matchett was a mechanic on Benetton's F1 team while Schumacher was there and won two driver's titles. He knows how an F1 car works. I believe he lives in France, and is apparently in constant contact with many key members up and down pitlane.

Bob Varsha has been teamed up with Hobbs since approximately that first auto race in France, and is as smooth at play-by-play as Al Michaels. Plus, he has first-hand race experience, which very few play-by-play announcers have.

The fourth team member is Peter Windsor, who worked with (Brabham, I think it was) Bernie (before Bernie controlled F1), worked for Williams F1 and Ferrari F1, was in Frank Williams' car when it was wrecked and Frank was left paralyzed. He's also the moderator for official F1 press conferences, and is now one of the founders of the new-for-2010 US F1 team. He's in the pitlane for every race, has a fantastic segment for each race where he's live on the grid right before the start, and has frequent, very, insightful comments during the race, as well as some classic live interviews with very disgruntled drivers who've just been knocked out of a race.

I'm a sports junkie and a die-hard race fan, with first-hand experience on the race track and pitlane. For the last several years, I've watched every F1 race from the Speed, ITV/BBC, Channel10, and the raw feed broadcasts. There are few announcing teams in all of sport that are as good as the Speed F1 foursome (plus, their stats team is out of this world), and no announcing teams that have anywhere near the inside knowledge of their chosen sport.

I will agree though, that Speed has way too many commercial breaks, and their graphics packages are particularly heinous. But given the choice, I will happily watch any Speed road-racing coverage as their announcing teams are all top-notch, and blow everybody else out of the water.

I can't excuse their supercross and motocross team of Ralph Sheheen and Jeff Emig, though. I nearly have a coronary for an hour every week. Or their incessant NASCAR coverage

/soapbox
posted by BarnacleKB at 5:44 AM on February 27

If you want to *legally* watch BBC broadcasts of F1 races, you'll have to move to the UK. Or the Netherlands, which ironically re-transmits most BBC programmes perfectly legally.
posted by almostwitty at 4:36 PM on February 27

I'm with BarnacleKB. The guys at SPEED are pretty darn good.

One of the hilights of attending the USGP for me was taking my scanner and listening to them make snarky jokes about Max Mosley and the like during the commercial breaks. I was busting a gut.

[Sidenote] Man, I miss going to the races. When the USGP left, I started going to Montreal, and now that's gone. I'm still bummed. But I digress...[/sidenote]

I feel your pain on the frequency of the breaks, but their announcing is pretty darn good and a hell of a lot more entertaining than pretty much any other sports announcing you get in this country...
posted by Ashman at 9:45 PM on February 28