In today’s round-up: A News Corporation site claims the company is considering buying Formula 1.
Links
Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:
News Corp Explores F1 Racing Takeover Bid (Sky)
“News Corp is in the early stages of exploring a potential takeover bid for Formula One motor racing, Sky News has learned.”
Formula One subject of takeover talks by Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim (The Guardian)
“Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is in talks with Carlos Slim, said to be the world’s richest man, about making a joint bid for the control of Formula One motor racing – one of the few major commercial sports in which it has yet to gain a foothold.”
“Lot been said about new F1 rules – I agree they’re great success, races are unpredictable and more overtaking happening so they working.”
Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app
German lawyers confirm questioning Bernie Ecclestone (BBC)
“A senior source at the State Prosecution Office in Munich told the BBC that Ecclestone had been interviewed by Public Prosecutor Hildegard Baumler-Hosl earlier this month.”
A great race in Shanghai (Joe Saward)
“We are used to seeing half-empty grandstands in Shanghai but a change in ticket pricing policy, which reduced the costs involved, resulted in a crowd on Sunday of 91,000 people. The full weekend figure was 163,000. This is a significant breakthrough for the Chinese GP.”
Teams poised for winter plans rethink (Autosport)
Ross Brawn: “Perhaps we will reflect back on our approach over the winter of turning up quite late with what was a definitive car, because perhaps we just did not understand, with so little time, the best ways of getting it to work.”
“I see the newspapers who whinged about a “confusing” race in Malaysia have shut up. A British driver winning makes everything alright…”
Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app
Senators cool to film, F1 incentive funds (Austin American Statesman)
“The $25 million in the major events trust fund, which will be used for the F1 project, was already in the 2010-11 budget and will be rolled ahead into the next two-year budget. Ogden had initially proposed eliminating the funding but later learned that Combs wouldn’t allow it to be credited for use elsewhere. The vote to restore the money to the fund failed in a 10-4 vote.”
Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.
Comment of the day
We’ve got a close two-way contest in the “Driver of the Weekend” poll. Here’s a sample of the arguments in favour of the two drivers leading the voting:
I’m going to say Webber, and that is factoring in the entire weekend. His qualifying result was ruined by mechanical gremlins, but he wasn’t far off Vettel’s pace (who had a working KERS system in Q1). So I don’t view Quali as a negative mark against him like so many seem to. As for the race, he edges out Hamilton in my book.
Snobeck
Webber had a great race but Hamilton ‘was the best driver of the Chinese GP weekend’. By a country mile.
– 1 run in Q3 put him a few hundredths from the front row with a spare set of softs.
– Was seconds away from starting at the back due to team error yet still managed to have great start and pass Vettel.
– Compromised during race by his teammate.
– Proceeded to overtake his teammate in the same car and (almost) the exact same strategy.
– Proceeded to overtake Vettel for the victory.
Webber did fantastic to recover to third but the key word here is ‘recover’, he should have been up at the front to begin with.
Bernard
The poll is still open so cast your vote here:
From the forum
Who would be on your ideal F1 grid?
Site updates
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If you experienced the problem before, please get in touch by email to let us know if the latest changes have improved the problem for you. Remember to mention what browser you’re using and where you’re trying to access the site from.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Jacob!
On this day in F1
Michael Schumacher won the San Marino Grand Prix on this day in 2003.
But the podium celebrations were muted as his mother had died earlier that weekend. Kimi Raikkonen finished second ahead of Rubens Barrichello.
Image © Team Lotus
LucaBadoerFan (@lucabadoerfan)
20th April 2011, 0:07
oh god no – almost anyone but news corp …
narboza22 (@narboza22)
20th April 2011, 2:08
Seriously. Murdoch and News Corp are bad news. Nothing good will come from them getting involved with F1.
unnnococooc
20th April 2011, 3:22
BEEEERRRRRNNNNNIEEEEEEE do something!!!!
Bernie mna, I know we haven’t been best of friends and I have been quick to criticize much of your ideas. But we have to look past that, past the medal ideas and your shortcuts and fake rain.
We need to see you for who you are, a money grabbing *******. But you’re our money money grabbing guy, and thats what we have come ot like about it. So pplease can you fix this whole schmozzle up and lets just get back to Fromula 1, huh, what d’you say mate, is it all worth another chance?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 3:34
Why does everyone stop reading after “Murdoch”? Carlos Slim is said to be a part of the deal, and since he’s heavily invested in motorsports, he could well be a balancing entity.
Of course, all of this depends on whether Bernie wants to sell …
US_Peter (@us_peter)
20th April 2011, 5:16
…and who’s to say if the sale did happen, that they wouldn’t keep Bernie on to manage FOM still?
Scalextric (@scalextric)
20th April 2011, 6:04
Father Time.
Hamish
20th April 2011, 8:33
Well lets be realistic here. In the next 5-10 years Bernie is either going to be:
a) Dead, or
b) Deteriorating in health.
Regardless of who he is or what he has done at some point sooner as opposed to later someone will decide it isn’t the best idea for a person of that age to be running a multi million dollar business.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 6:38
I didn’t stop reading there, but to me the quotes at the end say it all.
I would certainly not want any TV channel owner deciding on what stations our beloved sport will be shown, guess where they will end up.
On the other hand, I do not seriously believe they will be buying it. Bernie tried Kirsch last time round, did not really work out, did it? Would he go that route again?
I guess Todt would not be just going along with that one, as the FIA has strong views on F1 staying on free to air stations.
Murdoch looking at F1 will have a lot to do with renewing interest for US rights to show all races – ie. “getting involved” etc.
Adrian J (@adrian-j)
20th April 2011, 8:35
Not just the FiA, I would bet the teams would have some pretty strong opinions about potentially losing sponsor revenue due to reduced viewing figures due to people not being able to afford to pay to watch the sport.
Schumacher’s fairly well off, maybe he should buy the sport…
Peter
20th April 2011, 9:37
Why does everyone stop reading after “Murdoch”? Carlos Slim is said to be a part of the deal, and since he’s heavily invested in motorsports, he could well be a balancing entity.
Because, then Mexico gets excellent free terrestrial coverage and UK gets it on pay per view for sky subscribers only, with advert cuts during every overtake, and rolling Fox news headlines in the bottom right corner.
ed24f1 (@ed24f1)
20th April 2011, 10:11
I think most people thought they would never say this, but Bernie – please stay on!
Leon
20th April 2011, 11:26
Oh boy! do you misunderstand Ecclestones attitude ! Ecclestone is a major shareholder/partner in CVC Capital Partners. Their only interest in F1 is as a milch cow to fund their staggering debt burden ( something like $400 billion at the last reading i saw ) F1 is a highly saleable commodity to Ecclestone. He’s getting on a bit and looking towards a quieter life. So the him F1 is a stack of gold chips on the poker table. Nothing more.
And the dead hand of Murdoch and partners taking over the running of our fantastic sport is a chilling, terrifying possibility.
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
20th April 2011, 12:19
Can I ask where you get your figure of $400bn from?
tomc (@tomc)
20th April 2011, 16:01
he’s either made it up or is a factor of 1000 out.
There’s no way more than the GDP of Austria.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 11:00
Adding to my earlier post here.
As I wrote, rather than feeling horror at the tought of News Corp going at F1 even more (a daunting prospect for the viewers), I think this getting out is just a sign of ongoing negotiations in the background.
It might be about payments for F1 rights with the USGP coming up. It might be a signal CVC would like te sell and prompt some interested parties to raise the bids. It might be a bit of a warning that if the teams want a bigger share, they might end up at pay per view to earn the money.
All of that and even more. Definitely a sign, that the Concorde Agreement and the further developments in F1 are seriously being negotiated right now.
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
20th April 2011, 12:03
The Times have run a story with Bernie this morning, stating that F1 is not for sale. Especially to a media corporation as that would affect FOM’s ability to deal with other broadcasters.
Whether he would be against selling broadcast rights to them though, that’s another matter.
CNSZU
20th April 2011, 7:01
Murdoch and Slim? This is too ridiculous to be true. It’s just a rumor set out by Ferrari as a negotiating tactic ahead of the Concorde negotiations. Yawn.
Bernard (@bernard)
20th April 2011, 13:08
Ecclestone says Formula 1 not for sale
Let’s hope so.
Bigbadderboom
21st April 2011, 9:14
Sounds like hot air to me, the sale of F1 and all it’s parts would be an hugely complicated process. It would also alienate too many of it’s partners/investors all with various agendas. The question is why would News Corporatiaon make such a statement? The reach of their media empire is vast, and the tie in with slim indicates that this is more about exploiting new markets not aquiring existing ones. Perhaps a deal with FOM will be done allowing News Corporation to invest in exchange for TV rights and media coverage in these emerging markets. The ownership of F1 would become even more complicated!!!
PS IMO If F1 wants to lose it’s soul and spirit there is no better man than Rupert Murdoch to suck the life out of it.
JPQuesado (@joao-pedro-cq)
20th April 2011, 0:18
Why does it seems to me that a media company buying F1 isn’t a good idea?
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 6:16
Remember the last time it happened with Kirch buying SLEC. After his bancruptcy that was why the ownership went to a consortium of banks he owed.
He was constantly working on getting most of the interesting coverage on pay TV.
Todfod (@todfod)
20th April 2011, 8:04
I guess as viewers, the only thing that could bother us would be if F1 a pay per view sport. I really do not think Murdoch and Slim would go down this path as we know that F1 as a sport that is still struggling to attract more viewers. Additionally, team sponsors, advertisers and team owners would definitely object to invest in a sport that now has caters to a smaller audience due to pay tv. I seriously doubt Murdoch and Slim will try and increase revenues from the viewers.
The only thing that bothers me are Bernie’s veto rights. I could definitely see problems when they are making significant changes to Bernie’s management practices. Good ol senile Bernie is always ready to butt heads to support his ridiculous beliefs.
I’m actually think it would be a good thing for the sport to be managed by a media group. I hope the sport finds a new successor soon.
BBT (@bbt)
20th April 2011, 9:18
Pay per view is exactly what is likely to happen.
Wow, over half a Billion viewers in 2010 is struggling to attract viewers, I suppose it depends on your perspective… I didn’t think it really *needs* more does it. £2 a viewer is a Billion pounds.
BBT (@bbt)
20th April 2011, 9:19
*dont* not didn’t
BBT (@bbt)
20th April 2011, 9:27
Viewing figures increase…..
http://www.formula1onlive.com/2011/01/f1-television-viewing-figures-rise-once.html
Todfod (@todfod)
20th April 2011, 15:31
2 pounds a viewer? Maybe in the UK, I can guarantee you that we were are not worth more than a fraction of pound in other parts of the world. Indian we are worth close to 0.14 pounds. The population of the UK is close to 60 milion, so only a fraction of them are worth 2 pounds a viewer.
Viewers are never enough. The larger the market exposure, the larger finances coming from advertisers will put in Formula 1 teams and races / events. I doubt formula 1 will be pay per view anytime son.
Fallon
20th April 2011, 0:22
FFS, and I promised myself I’d never support Murdoch in any way. This is not good news :/
Hamish
20th April 2011, 8:34
Thats what we said about Jean Todt though…..
DVC
20th April 2011, 0:30
The second last story seems a bit self referential.
Maciek
20th April 2011, 0:36
If Carlos Slim takes over F1 I’ll be very happy. I saw him on Larry King a couple of months ago and, sceptical as I was of ‘the richest man in the world’, he very quickly endeared himself to me. Admittedly, I know nothing about his actual business practices, but he seemed like a humble and honest man – the Obi Wan to Bernie’s Emperor Palpatine.
joac21 (@joac21)
20th April 2011, 5:29
clearly you are not in mexico
Mac_v2
20th April 2011, 6:13
Carlos Slim is as ruthless in the business world as MSC in the track. So we get the sort of guy he is. Really brilliant but certainly “not an angel” the kind Bernie would like.
You don’t get the richest person in the world in Mexico without cutting a few corners and breaking a few necks along the way.
I like the man, by the way, in that sort of mystical respect the Soviets had for Stalin.
Maciek
20th April 2011, 8:43
I automatically assume that anyone who can lay claim to the title of richest man in the world got to be that way at least in part by being ruthless. It’s just a question of degree, or the lesser available evils, if you will. F1 is a giant business, not an egalitarian council (soviet?), so I don’t expect the people who run it to be angels.
@joac21 – wish you’d tell me why you say that, rather than just leave it hanging there.
bobo
20th April 2011, 9:21
Maybe in Maxico he’s not known for being a
.
Maciek
20th April 2011, 9:57
Ah – well, now that you’ve told me the obvious, I understand everything O_o
joac21 (@joac21)
20th April 2011, 22:25
the thing is he has the phone industry completely monopolized, (mobile and local) (this achieved by being friend of a previous president). so he charges whatever he wants to every single person who has a phone line in Mexico.
theres a story that says that everytime he wants to buy a property a car or something he just orders that one more phone call be charged to every line in mexico.
as much i dislike him (and every single person in mexico does). im pretty gratefull with his son (Carlos Slim Dommit) hes the one that created Escuderia Telmex and gave Checo the sponsorship.
Maciek
21st April 2011, 8:16
Thanks for some extra info joac21, though that story about charging everyone an extra phonecall when he wants to buy something sounds a bit iffy – but then again anything’s possible. I guess if he does end up taking over F1 in some form we’ll see far more information on his practices come to light.
Dipak T
20th April 2011, 0:51
No. For the love of God no! Bernie – mad, senile and power crazed lunatic that he is – I trust with F1 more than Murdoch, and the teams know how to deal with him well.
If Murdoch takes over, t=there wil undoubtly be a ridiculous idea propsed a la Bernie, which the temas will oppose, Mordoch wont budge and before we know, two tier F1. However close we have come to it in the past, the mutual respect between Bernie and the teams has always allowed a compromise, however hard he drives the bargain. I doubt Murdoch would be so forgiving.
Oh and also the fact he will probably veto PSB coverage in Britian, transfer onto pay per view on Sky, and charge us £20 per race for the privalage. Also, I just dont like him, at lease insane Bernie is likable.
Dipak T
20th April 2011, 1:06
Murdoch: (Stupid idea)
FOTA: “No, thats ridiclous, and to the detriment of the sport”
Murdoch: “Well all TV coverage wordwide is owned by me, do it or youll lose all you sponsor coverage”
FOTA: “Bye then. You can keep Valencia, well take Monaco, Spa, Silvertone…”
CART/IRL esque split ensues…
Scribe
20th April 2011, 10:58
Dunno about that, Murdoch might do what he did with football. Pay the “premeir league/FOTA” loads of money to run it themselves, then charge for veiwing.
Pedal to the Vettel (@pedal-to-the-vettel)
20th April 2011, 0:52
I would say a lot of things about sky which sadly Keith won’t allow me to say so i’ll just say the first word begins with F, second word is “off” and the last word is “sky”.
Keep F1 on BBC or i’m Boycotting it because Sky already has too much power when sport is concerned.
God give me a “crown jewel” for F1….
snowman
20th April 2011, 8:49
Sky, the scourge of modern day sports. No one can ruin a great sporting event like sky.
1- take it away from the majority people
2- then start charging there own subscribers more to watch it.
3- they can even for you’re enjoyment scatter it through out with advertisements.
Zadak (@thezadak)
20th April 2011, 0:55
This would be a disaster for F1 to leave the BBC
Sky coverage would not be anywhere near as good and it would cost something.
snowman
20th April 2011, 8:52
Just when it was getting really exciting again and coverage BBC was doing was really top notch them greedy ***** have to raise their heads.
mags (@mags)
20th April 2011, 1:00
No no no. I love my F1 coverage just the way it is now. We may moan about the commentary but practice is always worth “pressing the red button” and, let’s be honest, Brundle and Coulthard are going to be 100000 times better than anyone else they would get. And I’m not even going to mention adver….
mags (@mags)
20th April 2011, 1:04
But now I’m worried that just getting worked up about and posting is going to make F1 appear even MORE attractive and I’m shooting myself in the foot and helping encourage the sale…
US_Peter (@us_peter)
20th April 2011, 1:04
Keith, whatever you did in terms of site update seems to have been magical. I’ve had absolutely no problems loading the site at all today on any and all iOS browsers.
As for the Newscorp rumors, I wouldn’t personally be too opposed to it since they own SPEED, and if F1 were their own product, I think it’s just about guaranteed they would devote more time and budget to its programming in the US.
Cacarella
20th April 2011, 2:57
The changes seem to be working well for me as well (I’m in Oklahoma this week – not Canada)
It looks like the site is loading before the ads now, but the ads still seem to fail to load unless you refresh or click on a few different articles.
IDR (@idr)
20th April 2011, 7:14
Working well for me using Safari on a MAC with OS X 10.6.7
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th April 2011, 7:36
It’s been magic since the initial problem was fixed. But I gave up on the forum and now have a permanent IE window open for it.
verstappen
20th April 2011, 14:29
Chrome is now good here, thanks for sorting this out.
I haven’t tested the full version on Safari Mobile for a while, but I will later. So far it’s a massive improvement!
Stubie (@stubie)
20th April 2011, 18:16
Ha! I haven’t tried my Chrome browser since the problem started, but now it is smooth like ‘buddah’! sweeeet!
Marauder
20th April 2011, 1:08
And back to the incessant advert breaks at regular intervals … Cue JB holding-up a bottle of ‘Head & Shoulders’ as he crosses the finish line, product placement obligations of course!! Doh!!!!
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 7:42
They wear watches on the podium all the time and the Pirelli hats are hardly there to keep the sun out of their eyes! Oh and don’t forget the Mumm champagne…
Tango
20th April 2011, 8:56
In France, on TF1, we have 4 breaks minimum per race. I missed Hamilton vs Button overtake for c… sake!
BBC is heaven, and COulthard is miles better than Laffite! (in the commentary box at least)
Tango
20th April 2011, 8:57
Plus TF1 has put Qualifying in its pay per view sport channel. And obviously, viewer figures are falling!
SparkyJ23 (@sparkyj23)
20th April 2011, 12:04
Ive been wondering about that fella handing them the watches and hats before the podium. Is that his full time job? Who is he? are the watches prizes or the drivers own?
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 22:04
Me and MattHT were wondering the EXACT same thing the other day! He must take so much pride in his job :D
Todfod (@todfod)
20th April 2011, 8:08
You guys dont have advert breaks??? The coverage on star sports in Asia is terrible. They pick the worst possible moment to switch to a commercial break that last a good 3-4 minutes. Definitely miss a good 20 mins of the race due to adverts.
Burnout
20th April 2011, 11:03
That’s why we kept telling the Brits they don’t know how good the coverage there really is. Jonathan Legard isn’t a patch on how bad Steve Slater is.
Todfod
20th April 2011, 21:55
I like Steve Slater’s energy in his commentary, but there are atleast 4 to 5 times a race where he names the wrong driver or sometimes even the wrong team in a particular situation. And hes not particularly insightful either.
Burnout
20th April 2011, 23:31
Getting names wrong 4 to 5 times is a good day for Steve. And really, you have 24 screaming engines pushing out 750-odd horsepower there. How much more energy do you need :D
Chris Goodwin was quite good before he left to drive for McLaren. Gary Anderson is also very good. But in spite of all the experience and insider info he has, you get the feeling that he’s being forced to dumb things down just to keep pace with Steve.
Marauder
20th April 2011, 1:18
@ US_Peter: soooo .. you think it fair & dandy for Murdock to steal F1 coverage from the BBC (an enterprise we pay for in our TV Licence every year), after us Brits begged it off another UK commercial channel, so you guys over onthe US can get better coverage?? Nice.
US_Peter
20th April 2011, 1:58
Hey, you guys already get far more coverage than we do in the US. You’ve got it better than anyone for F1 coverage. Even if the deal did go through it wouldn’t automatically mean the BBC would lose it. It would definitely have an impact on how F1 was promoted in the US though, which would only be a good thing for the sport in the long term as it would grow the fan base stateside. I’m not wishing UK viewers worse coverage, I just want better coverage here. We should all have coverage as extensive as you’re lucky enough to enjoy in the UK. Share the F1 love.
moondoggy
20th April 2011, 8:05
What? If Murdoch gets F1 it doesn’t mean an end to the BBC coverage? Do you have any idea who Murdock is?
SparkyJ23 (@sparkyj23)
20th April 2011, 12:07
He’s from the US where Fox is seen as a legitimate news service and the 4 main sports are free to air.
Imagine if you will US_Peter the NFL & MLB & NBA going onto a pay channel owned by 1 company.
Oliver
20th April 2011, 1:31
I second that. But to the real God. We don’t need an organization that only glorifies the macabre to be running F1.
Hope it fails. Money isn’t every thing. Dignity and a sense of honesty does matter in real life.
Mike
20th April 2011, 1:36
As of now the Australian coverage of F1 is getting better and better. Channel 10 really do deserve a pat on the back.
But if it goes on sky, the amount of people watching will tumble as from my experience, most people don’t get it, the popularity will bottom out, with that the last threads holding the Melbourne GP in place will break. And Australia will say good bye to F1.
Maybe that’s a worst case scenario, but I don’t trust News Corp. As easy as it is to criticise Bernie, He is our Bernie, and I trust him with my F1.
Andrew G
20th April 2011, 2:29
Murdochs son, Lachlan, now owns half of channel 10, so I wouldn’t see it leaving 10.
Mark
20th April 2011, 4:07
You’ve got to be kidding. Chinese Qualifying was an hour late, making way for some crappy AFL game. Practice is never televised.
I think I’ll stick with my UK VPN. You can have your 10 coverage with the three stooges.
Pinball
20th April 2011, 4:45
I’m hearing you Mark. My sentiments exactly. BTW what VPN service do you use? I’m using AceVPN, and their connections are painfully slow.
Worse thing with OneHD is they claim to now have “live streaming” of Qualifying and the Race on the internet. I guess by live they mean “just 1 hour late”. Why they need to show the same AFL game on Ten and OneHD at the same time, when there is other stuff going on is beyond me. Furthermore isn’t the purpose of having the live streaming to be able to show the F1 when other “more important” stuff like AFL is on. Not much point showing a delayed “live stream”. Anyone who has the bandwidth to stream a delayed “live” stream over the internet has probably already worked out setup a VPN and see live that way, or have access to a digital TV to watch the delayed telecast. Also now they have the tech to stream F1 why won’t they stream practice over the internet.
frankus28 (@frankus28)
20th April 2011, 5:05
Back in the mid-90s the the Oz coverage was with Channel 9, it was a delayed race telecast or nothing. Qualifying was just a 3 minute wrap-up prior to the race.
Fast forward 15 years, I’m extremely happy just to have OneHD’s ‘live’ coverage of quali and race.
If Webber or Daniel Ricciardo wins a championship or two in the next few years then AFL will surely have to yield to my beloved F1.
MattW
20th April 2011, 10:06
They are clowns (most of my hate directed at Baird) but at least its better than what channel 9 dished up.
But yeh, when you can manage to show 123 games of netball a week and other crap like Nascar, and with AFL on channel 10, surely you start the F1 on time on OneHD.
I missed the race and my recording screwed up so I downloaded the BBC coverage and watched it last night – much better than OneHD. Then coincidentally OneHD had a replay on a few hours later… they manage to butcher the BBC feed alright.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 10:26
For what? Sure, they got rid of Cameron McConville and his resentment of Formula 1 drivers (because he isn’t onw when he feels he should be), but they still have the habit of talking up Mark Webber at every opportunity. Webber set the fastest time in FP1 at Sepang, and they didn’t hesitate to mention this as often as possible, as if it meant something for the race – but by the end of FP2, half a dozen drivers had already set faster lap times.
xbx-117 (@xbx-117)
20th April 2011, 1:38
So they reduced ticket prices, and more people decided to attend the event? Who could have predicted that?
US_Peter
20th April 2011, 2:01
From what Will Buxton was tweeting during the weekend, it still didn’t sound like they reduced prices enough. They should drop the prices enough to fill the place up (including the massive advertisement at turn 13). That would grow the fan base and ensure a brighter future for the sport in China.
xbx-117 (@xbx-117)
20th April 2011, 3:14
Agreed, I’m pretty new to F1 and when I saw ticket prices for most GPs I was astounded. I’m going to due everything I can to attend the US GP, but it is my opinion that a lot of these events need to have ticket prices reduced (especially places like China where the GDP per capita is somewhat lower than most places, though it is rising).
US_Peter (@us_peter)
20th April 2011, 5:20
Yeah, the fact that China has some of the highest prices of the year, where workers make some of the lowest wages (of countries that host F1 that is), is pretty gross.
Dafffid (@dafffid)
20th April 2011, 2:02
“Sky news has learned” – surely they mean , “Sky news has been told” – they didn’t go and dig it up. Either way, if it’s off to news corp and eventually off to Sky, that’s the end for me. But I’ll worry about it at the time, this constant anticipation of news that may or may not happen is tedious.
Gusto
20th April 2011, 2:18
Oh lordy anyone but sky, have you seen what they`ve done to the cricket, well no because no-one can afford or stand the coverage, Oh well it was fun while it lasted but theres a limit to ones love for a loved one.
Andrew G
20th April 2011, 2:42
Whilst it is just a rumour, News Corp buying F1 would not be so bad. After all it’s a public company whereas CVC Capital is not. Therefore there would be far more transparency (by law) around the dealings in F1 including payments to teams, payments from circuits to host GPs etc… That’s got to be good for the sport.
Stefanauss (@stefanauss)
20th April 2011, 3:17
I was there!
It was my first and for now only grand prix. I’ll never forget. The two brothers were starting right in front of me. It was so sad to hear what was going on in their family and all the speculation about Michael and Ralf possily (although unlikely) not racing that day.
Ross Brawn was the practically the last person to leave the grid and wish Michael good luck, you could tell from his face it was quite intese. A different Sunday.
It was a “make it or break it” for Ferrari and Schumacher after a dreadful and potentially lethal start of the season. The pressure to win was overwhelming, on top of that was his mother’s death, and he was brilliant. What a driver.
It was also the last, the 15th, victory of the wonderful Ferrari F2002.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
20th April 2011, 5:24
I was watching F1 at that time, and was just reading about that race weekend the other day. Pretty impressive that the brothers qualified 1 and 2, then left straight from there to be with their mother when she died overnight, came back in the morning, and won the race. Must have been a hard day for both of them. In a way though, I wonder if the focus of racing helped them both take their mind of of their mother and have a brief reprieve from the grief for that moment. I thought it was classy as well that the FIA allowed Todt to stand in for Schumacher at the post race press conference.
F1Yankee (@f1yankee)
20th April 2011, 3:35
pretty much anything owned by news corp is utter garbage. i curse you, matt groening!
Mark
20th April 2011, 4:06
You’ve got to be kidding. Chinese Qualifying was an hour late, making way for some crappy AFL game. Practice is never televised.
I think I’ll stick with my UK VPN. You can have your 10 coverage with the three stooges.
Mark
20th April 2011, 4:07
That didn’t work as expected….
DavidS (@davids)
20th April 2011, 4:36
Coverage has been getting consistently better over the years since it’s been on Ten.
They do make an effort to show qualifying live, and they’ve shown every race live since at least the start of last year (I think many races in 09 were delayed).
Contrast that to coverage before 2009, it was by sheer coincidence that a race was shown live, and qualifying was always a delayed affair.
On Channel 9, it was worse. Sessions were never shown live (except the Australian GP – by law). The Sunday movie and late Sunday movie would take precedence, pushing F1 into the early hours of the morning, even races in close time zones.
10 deserve a lot of credit for how far they’ve come in broadcasting F1. I don’t see practice sessions being shown on TV because they occur during prime time Friday, hopefully they get streamed online by One in the future.
choltz (@choltz)
20th April 2011, 5:12
News corp is run by a person who thought it was a good investment to buy MySpace which was already on the decline, and then did nothing because he had no idea what he got himself into. Rupert, you may be rich, but F1 is for real businesses and real men, not the Sky/Fox $$ machine that feeds idiots.
Burnout
20th April 2011, 6:49
I’m not sure how different F1 coverage will be outside of Europe if Newscorp takes over. From the comments so far it looks like a lot of countries get their F1 coverage either from NewsCorp owned channels (SPEED in the US, STAR in South/SE Asia) or affiliates.
What I don’t get is why the teams won’t pool in the money to buy out CVC. I’m sure Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes/Daimler, probably Renault/Proton have the clout or the ability to arrange such a buy-out. It’ll let the teams control their own fate and they won’t have to bend to the whims of a holdings company or a media conglomerate.
Tango
20th April 2011, 9:02
That wouldn’t be a better idea, especially for the lesser teams.
james_mc
20th April 2011, 7:06
No No No No No! I want Murdoch to have NOTHING to do with F1. This is a man who uses his press outlets as a propaganda weapon for whichever political party is going to do him the most favours. Bliar, Cameron they both had his backing. If anyone has read about media coverage in the run-up to Iraq, the Murdoch press was so biased towards the pro-war lobby, it is surprising that anyone didn’t want to go to war given the propaganda being thrown around. Also it will come as no surprise that the Government in the UK is reviewing the list of “protected sports events”, ones which must be available on free-to-air. This is the only thing which has stood between Murdoch buying up all sports events and people being able to watch them without paying his fees.
For all the talk of gimmicky F1 with DRS, KERS etc; I’d rather see Mario Kart power-ups and short cuts than that man get his hands on my beloved sport.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 7:57
There’s an awful lot of negativity here. I saw lots of comments on Twitter about how people will ‘boycott F1’, with that kind of attitude I doubt anyone will miss them! Surely you can appreciate the fickle irony of such a statement? Alot of the most out-raged, most ‘passionate’ will happily forget F1, that’s much more worrying than any News Corp & Carlos Slim consortium!
While ad breaks on a premium sports broadcaster may inconvenience me I can at least take comfort in the knowledge i’m getting a better deal than many unfortunate F1 fans around the world.
Besides I doubt OFCOM would allow one premium broadcaster to carry F1 exclusively. Perhaps we could see Champions League style coverage?
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th April 2011, 8:02
Many of us will be forced to boycott F1 rather than pay an extra £132 a year on top of the TV license fee.
I’m pretty sure Champions League football is split because of Government orders. It’s like the list of “protected events” like the Olympics which cannot be shown on pay TV. F1 is not on any such list.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 8:39
The people on Twitter were more kicking off about having some vague News Corp involvement, not so much the actual broadcast. Understandably people may not have access to premium sports TV but to boycott out of principal, irrespective of broadcast rights, struck me as a bit hasty. You may argue the two are in tandem but we’re running on limited information.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th April 2011, 8:07
I picked a good week to go on holiday, what with the three-week break. Hope nothing big goes down as I’ll have no internet in Cyprus :( Enjoy your weeks everyone!
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 8:22
Have fun!
Dan Newton
20th April 2011, 10:08
Second that!
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 11:30
Enjoy it and see you back in a couple of weeks!
josephrobert (@josephrobert)
20th April 2011, 8:25
sky holds sports to ransom,
i wont pay
sam3110 (@sam3110)
20th April 2011, 8:31
Murdoch is bad bad news, you only have to look at the Premiership for this, the so called ‘Sky 4/5/6’ have had a grip on the league ever since the TV rights came in, as the money is so skewed towards the top. We can draw comparisons too, Man United are Ferrari, completely dominant for a while but the squad is getting older, there isn’t much innovation and the need a bit of a rehaul, McLaren are Arsenal, lots of flash, lots of nurturing of young talent but the team itself falls at the final hurdle in claiming the ultimate prize. Red Bull are Chelsea, spent a lot of money to get where they are, have now cemented themselves near the top. Mercedes are Man City, they look flashy, they have a team of stars but they just can’t make that final push to be right up there. Williams are obviously Liverpool, once great, now a fading team…..
The point i’m trying to make is that the gap between the top teams and the midfield will be greater than ever, because Sky don’t care about have competition from one end of the grid to the other, they just want to get the most people paying to watch Formula 1, and if that means giving the best supported teams huge amounts of money to develop the cars, then that is what will happen
Coxy
20th April 2011, 8:44
Well we will just need group of people to counter the bid from news Corp, why not do what lots of football fans have done and make a massive conglomerate of fans and buy the club, surly bernie if bernie is wanting to sell he would rather see it go to the fans who love the sport than some news corporation as all said and done bernie is also a massive fan and only does what he thinks is good for the sport, we may not always agree with him but I recon his heart is in the right place
alexf1man (@alexf1man)
20th April 2011, 8:59
Easter Sunday 2003: San Marino GP, after the Schumacher brothers had qualified on the front row.
Prior to the race, their mother unfortunately passed away. Michael comfortably won (did he dedicate the win to his mother?) and probably cried in the process.
Coefficient
20th April 2011, 9:40
If Murdoch gets its hand on F1 it’ll all be over. His organisation exists to take over as many other companies as possible and pipe them into his own infrastructure to the detriment of the quality. It’ll be on pay per view on SKY with an ad break every 3 mins and the coverage will be laughably amateurish like the rest of his TV network. I hope Bernie does something about this before he snuffs it!!
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 10:29
I think people are over-reacting to this News Corporation thing, largely because it’s only in the preliminary stages. They haven’t even said that they’re going to make a bid for it, or even if the commercial rights are up for sale – all they’ve said is that they’re considering it. And yet, 95% of the reactions to the news have been “NOOOOOO! FORMULA 1 IS DOOOOOMED!” when we don’t even have a single detail on it.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2011, 13:27
That’s pretty much what I was getting at in my comment, people just need to relax!
dansanter (@)
20th April 2011, 10:30
Please keep Murdoch as far away from F1 as possible.
Kevin
20th April 2011, 11:05
Please God noooooooo, Murdoch owning F1!!! *shiver*
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 11:10
Ease your doubts: Mr. E says the sport is not for sale. So everyone calm down.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th April 2011, 11:12
The list of things Ecclestone has denied in the past which went on to happen is pretty long. I remember him saying the calendar would never have more than 16 races…
As one person put it on Twitter to me a while ago: “Bernie dismissing the takeover talk as “rubbish” is the clearest indicator yet that this might actually happen.”
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 11:29
Sorry, but that just feels like pessimism for pessimism’s sake. The article makes it pretty clear that the talks between Murdoch and Slim are at the earliest phase, and they haven’t so much as approached CVC yet. Yet people are acting like the deal has been inked and will be put in place before the next race.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 11:32
No, that is being sceptical of what Mr. E says. Only too often have his statements been just a way to achieve something in negotiations.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th April 2011, 11:34
Never steered anyone wrong following F1…
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 13:06
I beg to differ. I’ve long held the belief that Formula 1 fans are only ever happy if they have something to whinge about. The bigger that something is, the happier they will be.
It’s very poor form.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th April 2011, 11:34
I’ve given you an example, where’s yours?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 13:05
He said that if Formula 1 were to return to the United States, it would not be going to Indianapolis.
Zindon (@zindon)
20th April 2011, 14:28
How many times did Bernie say F1 would never go back to Silverstone?
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2011, 14:57
That’s a standard Bernie tactic: threaten the race to make the organisers fall into line with what he wants them to do. The difference here is that Bernie isn’t on the offensive – he’s not trying to get someone to march to the beat of his drum. This is Bernie on the defensive, saying something will not happen after somebody else suggested it. Which is an entirely different ball game.
Bartholomew
20th April 2011, 11:29
My God, now I regret having critisized Bernie in the past.
Bernie and Max, please we love you. Don´t leave us alone.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 11:34
Does anyone (apart from PM, he will be defending him just because ;-) just a dig at you not being too serious) believe its coincidence that Mr. Eason is promoting such a move on twitter? Being employed by a News Corp media outlet and all?
Also notice, this is the same guy being so very public about how “F1 is too complicated” after Malaysia. Interesting.
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
20th April 2011, 12:12
Sounds more like a pre-calculated moved to me
sam3110 (@sam3110)
20th April 2011, 12:29
so if they are saying it’s too complicated and they want to take it over, what are the possible outcomes for the sport?
1) It stays the same but on a different network, probably with adverts
2) They make races shorter, but have an ‘advert free race’ (there is no adverts during the football remember)
3) They leave it the same, but all cars must stop when the pink ‘ad break’ flag is waved?
4) They annoy everyone in the sport, and the manufacturers leave, then a new championship with Mercedes, Ferrari et al begins?
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
20th April 2011, 12:50
The most likely is option 1. Adverts will of course be included so it will be like being back on ITV. The viewing figures will drop in all countries where it is on pay TV (does anyone have viewing figures for Sky Germany BTW?).
Your comparison to the football doesn’t work. Yes, they don’t have adverts during the action but they cram as many adverts as humanly possible in before the game, at halftime and then after the game. They even have an ad break in the time between when the teams are walking out of the tunnel and kick off.
McLarenFanJamm (@mclarenfanjamm)
20th April 2011, 12:50
Does anyone have any viewing figures for F1 on Sky Germany? They are the sole broadcaster there aren’t they?
TFLB
20th April 2011, 15:09
No,RTL broadcast it too I think.
maxthecat
20th April 2011, 12:53
God no! I remember the eurosport days, awful commentators, 50 ad breaks per race and a general sense they hadn’t a clue what was going on. If and i say IF F1 goes to Sky Sports here in the UK (i believe Sky have F1 rights in other countries) it will be a mess, you only have to watch their Indycar coverage to get and idea at just how bad it would be. Bernie is keen to keep F1 on terrestrial TV i believe but gone are the days of huge viewing figures, i’m not sure 100% but i believe Sky have about 3 million Sky Sports customers so every single one of them would need to watch a race in order to match the BBC figures. BBC hads more scope for bigger viewing figures hence why i believe Bernie wants to keep it on Free to air channels, however i’m not sure NewsCorp would feel the same.
Bernard (@bernard)
20th April 2011, 14:03
Seeing ones name in lights (COTD) is more than enough to offset any potential F1 sale! ;)
David
20th April 2011, 17:10
Bernie is a jew as is Rupert and they stick together
Tango
20th April 2011, 17:18
How on earth is that relevant?
Maciek
20th April 2011, 19:55
Umm, would you like side a order of Nazi with your moron today, sir?
abeehc (@abeehc)
20th April 2011, 17:14
Very happy chromium user here; site load speed has jumped to warp speed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great work thank you
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.27 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu/10.04 Chromium/12.0.720.0 Chrome/12.0.720.0 Safari/534.27
Chaz (@chaz)
20th April 2011, 18:35
If there is a god he/she/they/it etc need to intervene against murdoch getting his claws into F1…
BasCB (@bascb)
20th April 2011, 19:22
I guess Williams is looking forward to the new engine thing. It might give the team a head start if they get their KERS knowledge fully into that and build a package together with someone.
Burnout
20th April 2011, 23:41
While I wish that were true (Williams returning at least to their early 2000s form is a good thing) I don’t see it happening. The money isn’t there. And by the looks of all the problems they had implementing flywheel KERS in 2009, the engineering talent doesn’t seem to be there either.
Unless Williams’ relationship with the VW group goes beyond just the 911 GT3 hybrid racecar, I’ll take your prediction with a pinch of salt.
SiY
20th April 2011, 19:46
Disappointingly it’s changed now, but the BBC’s daily F1 “gossip and rumours” page, in which F1fanatic has regularly been featured as the originating website for a story, reported the Murdoch developments in a beautifully tongue-in-cheek way.
After the one-paragraph summary of the story, the link to the original site said Full story: The Times (subscription only).
a_flying_muffin (@a_flying_muffin)
21st April 2011, 16:13
News Corp…
HELL NO!!!!
Bernie, please say no.
David
24th April 2011, 18:08
F1 on $ky?! I will sooner stop watching F1, or watch INDYCAR via a dodgy internet stream! Sky is a load of ########. You pay £££ every month just to watch programs that are punctuated with ADVERTS :(