Carlos Sainz Jnr, Renault, Circuit de Catalunya, 2018

Sainz pleased with “very big step forward”

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr is encouraged by Renault’s progress after the team logged 190 laps on Wednesday.

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Comment of the day

Formula One’s over-the-top streaming service F1 TV may be a bit, well, over the top for some:

I just want to watch the race. Being able to flick between cameras is great and some will find that to be a superb feature. But I just want to have a race, well commentated and with the professional commentators pointing out the info in the replays from the main feed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think opening up options to view from different perspectives is excellent, but for me personally – I like to sit on the sofa with my wife and cheer/shout/swear at the screen without having to press any more buttons. The death of free-to-air has been a real disappointment to me. I’ve found alternatives ways to watch but those are dwindling.

I’d be happy to pay directly to F1, but I just want a well covered and commentated race. I feel that both Channel 4 and Sky do that really well – but I can’t justify £500 a year for Sky just to watch F1.
@Geekzilla9000

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Sainz pleased with “very big step forward””

  1. So guys, week two, Honda still better then McLaren. Just like I told you was gonna happen. ”But no your sources are crap because you don’t name them’ @robbie ”this guy is all gut” @Esploratore, Honda hasn’t got actual reliability @todfod( this sport didn’t even watch the second half of ’17), @jerejj called it completely delusional, @socksolid took the bet of deleting accounts, @addvariety this guy still hasn’t send me a status update to ask for the source , and ~24 others. (I’m left them out not too annoy the censors too much)
    When is everybody gonna apologize or least say ‘ah well, he was right…”?
    PS: the ”anonymous white spooky accounts don’t have to bother, I not commenting on you guys. Love. J”
    PS2: Censors, for the sake of helping new users, leave it up.

    In other news; COTD is right, if you watch western Europe, and you don’t want commercials (RTL), ”Ferrari, Ferrari.. Ferrari…!” (Sky Sports IT), or just don’t know their stuff (75% of the rest), and I’m not gonna even talk about the Dutch guys: An active dentist who was hired because he was cheap back in 90s and even did the Dakar-rally with no experience for the next guy, a) guy with bad eyesight, bad hearing, who is too much egomaniac to take a co-commentator, but you can’t criticism the guy because he won’t admit that he lost it after his wife died of cancer, even though he tells 150 lies a year, just to get people hooked on Max Verstappen.
    You’re kind of hooked on not-so-perfect Sky Sports UK/Channel4)

    1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      8th March 2018, 1:46

      I have no idea what I just read, but good luck to you, sir.

      1. Same. Sometimes this site can be deemed as ‘therapy’.
        Get it off ya chest son!

        1. Hahahaha!!! :O)

          1. Good one 👌🏻

      2. I have no idea what I just read, but good luck to you, sir.

        Probably the funniest thing I’ve read on this site, ever.

    2. Great commitment @xiasitlo . I’m not as determined as you are to bring forward everyone that’s bullied and ganged up on me on the comment section. It’s not like what you said was that inflammatory

      COTD Agree. It’s the directors job to select cameras for me and it’s the commentators for following what’s not on screen and to in all honesty make a little bit of noise and actually comment stuff every once in a while. C4 is fine, the only caveat is that when you re watch a race on sky you realise that C4 hasn’t got the same resource or effort in getting information on air. Sky is all Lewis this and Ferrari is evil, and “we’re not bias, and you should be ashamed of thinking that.”

      1. Almost forgot: cheers @peartree. At this point I’m 90% sure certain people that are allowing the white-accounts/accounts that continue to go off-topic, and gang up in organized fashion with all kinds of personal attacks – that is problem here – are doing it for ”some kind of revenue”. It won’t work, no matter what.

    3. @xiasitlo What exactly did I call ‘completely delusional,’ LOL? I don’t recall stating anything like that about either Honda or Mclaren.

      1. @jerejj
        7th February 2018, 15:51 (in the round-up)
        After I predicted this would exactly happen as every leak from inside McLaren shows the atmosphere to be poisoned after Dennis left;
        ”It’s better to be sensible and measured than unreasonable and or delusional about things, though, LOL.”

        @esploratore
        This wasn’t a ”sudden fix”, second part of ’17. Go watch it. They were beating Renault with reliability.

        1. @xiasitlo I remember those comments, lol. Keep it up Mr Sakura.

    4. Apologize? What has honda shown so far, reliability? On what basis, after a terrible 2015 in reliability and performance, an improved 2016, and a 2017 back to 2015 levels could we predict honda to suddenly become reliable?

      Mclaren is having a lot of issues and honda isn’t currently, in this testing, but we haven’t seen how they perform on track, we haven’t seen their speed and even if you turn out to be right, not everyone has a crystal ball, after 3 disastrous years suddenly everything fixed, don’t know how you could predict that.

    5. Are you related to Donald Trump by any chance?

    6. Comment Round-up on RaceFans Round-up.
      Roundupception.

    7. Honda hasn’t got actual reliability – in the second half of 2017? That’s quite true.

    8. There’s more to a fan discussion than just being right about things and desperately trying to prove it to everyone, you know. Keeping a list of people who dared to disagree, publicly pointing fingers at them, and picking a condescending tone towards the mod team won’t help with that either.

      The predictions championship starts soon though, the crystal ball will surely be handy.

    9. @xiasitlo *than

      Honda still better *than McLaren

    10. I took a bet? Oh no…

    11. Very reminiscent of a commenter we used to see a lot on the site years ago…

  2. I agree with COTD to a degree. As part of the Sky coverage we have a few extra video options on the red button & I switch to the OnBoards a lot during practice but for the race I tend to just want to stick to the world-feed.

    During practice sessions I think having access to every OnBoard will be a cool feature, However come the race I’d rather just stick to the World-Feed on my TV with the Onboard-Mix (Which I hope there still producing this year) on a 2nd screen so I can 100% focus on the racing action.

    Other categories like Formula E, DTM, WEC & IMSA give you access to a dozen Onboards but I find I rarely use them because I don’t want to have to switch around manually, Taking my attention away from the race & potentially getting things out of sync. Initially I did play around with them but after a race or 2 I soon stopped bothering.

    By all means give access to every camera for those who want them, But I really hope they continue produce an Onboard-Mix like they have been for many years now. It’s something you can just put up on a 2nd screen which is directed by FOM so you don’t have to worry about trying to find the best action & stuff yourself. Giving you access to 20 OnBoard cameras & ditching the mix would be like giving everyone access to every trackside camera & doing away with the world-feed.

    1. Agree quite a bit with your take @stefmeister
      There really is something to be said about a director who knows how to provide an excellent feed that presents most of the best action possible. Having a few options is desirable, but most of the time I want to watch the race as it happens, not chase 20 different options. The options make sense for those times when the action may be rather static, but you might want to see what a particular driver is doing. It will be interesting to see what exactly is offered and how it works best for different individual tastes.

    2. I agree as well that a well directed stream is most important, but there’s some nice value in having the 20 other streams, like for replaying events from different perspectives.

      Eventually, as a fan, I would love to be able to configure my personal preferences (preferred team / driver) and have a (still directed) stream that will show me more from that perspective. That could be a big selling point, IMO, and technologically, it should be possible, I think.

  3. Onboard cameras will be very enterteining if we have open radio of the respective car. I remember watching an reality show of a driver in Brazilian Stock Car champioship and it was a whole new watching experiencie for me, much more exciting to see the engineer talking with the driver to solve issues and making suggestions.

  4. I agree with @Geekzilla9000, I personally find it baffling why people seem to be happy and prepared to pay to effectively become their own TV director of their favourite sport. This isn’t progress when it comes to viewing Grand Prix racing in my mind.

    1. Agree with you and the others who have said the same completely. I don’t care about fancy features, I just want to watch a well-directed race without commercials. That’s what I’m willing to pay for.

      (and for classic races, but that’s a different line of discussion)

  5. I know we can’t read much into testing but the same 5 teams (Ferrari, Mercedes, RBR, McLaren and Renault) are regularly topping the time sheet. I just hope they are closely match once the season begin. As the season progress, it will probably get difficult for the other teams to score a lot (once the 5 have solved whatever issue they might have)

    Great initiative for the girls on track, that’s should trigger more interest among girls creating a bigger pool of female driver and then statistics should do the rest to bring some capable female driver in F1. And as Sauber is showing, teams will probably be keen to sign this particular driver (sponsorship interest and some fans support).

  6. Hmmm. Jean Todt make some sense?
    I’d like lighter non MGU-H cars after 2020 but I just hope there was another WCC before that.

  7. I agree with the COTD. The only time I would want access to all the angles and onboards would be after the race so I could rewatch critical sections. But as far as watching the race live goes, I just want to sit there and watch a well produced race feed with the guidance of experienced, insightful commentators with a timing screen next to me.

  8. An all female F1 championship is a bad idea, but an all girls kart challenge isn’t? Why don’t they make them race against the boys? Surely they can create interest regardless, at that age they just want to have fun, gender doesn’t matter. It feels counter-productive to me, but what do I know

    1. @johnmilk
      It is counter-productive from the feminist point of view of shoe-horning women into roles alongside men, in areas established by men, to make themselves feel better.
      The end game though for the businesses who are pandering to this nonsense, is to get more women involved to make more money. Ultimately it’s about the money. F1 is a potential Goldmine with increases in female viewership.
      In this apparant world of inequality, women massively out-gun men in household purchasing decisions and this includes spending the money earnt by men.

      All girls Karting is the only way to go. However it will be funded, ran and maintained by men like most other women’s sports.

  9. Not particularly related to any of the links, but I’m really curious as to what’s going through Vasseur’s head when he sees STR rather steadily and reliably increasing their lapcount with Honda this testing. There was probably more politics and behind-closed-doors stuff than what we know of, but I wonder if he has second thoughts about the hasty cancellation of their deal.

    1. Was probably to do with the Alfa Romeo partnership. That probably benefited Sauber more than the risk of going with Honda. And the promise of up to date Ferrari engines.

  10. I’m hoping a good atmosphere is to be had on the Friday and Saturday by putting the tiniest of effort into pressing a button on a controller, but doesnt look like there’s going to be enough channels.
    F1 really isnt very inclusive when you attend and there’s too much hype from the pundits on the TV that leads to dissapointment.

  11. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
    8th March 2018, 11:39

    To disagree with COTD (and to agree with the second part of that strange first comment), I will happily pay what it takes if I can stop listening to team LH44… Sorry, I meant Kravitz, Croft and Herbert. Brundle tends to be more moderated but all the others are so biased it would be better if I could just press a button and listen to the race without any comments.
    That and having the chance to see a legal, flowing and good resolution streaming, instead of having to try to find a decent one without infecting my PC with viruses.

  12. If Renault fights regularly for podiums at least bothering RedBull in the process, I’ll be satisfied about the WCC.
    Would really like to see Hulkenberg win a race. Or to see some action between Carlos and Max.

  13. Re COTD

    Absolutely agree.

    Although, I am less keen on Sky coverage. Some of the people involved just seem to be into F1 because it was necessary to take a step on the career ladder when the job offer came in.

    Crofty just annoys me. His commitment to F1 isn’t in any doubt but he talks some utter rubbish at times.

    Sky F1 is undeniable proof that being an ex driver doesn’t necessarily make you an authority on the subject of F1.

    I’m also convinced that the decision to go with Sky (and other subscription services in other territories) has had a direct impact on the value for money that the sponsors used to enjoy, thus making them more weary of handing over money.

    Some of the Sky F1 team are very good! Rachel Brooks, MB, TK deserve special mention, but splitting coverage has diluted the talent pool.

    The best thing FOM can do, in my opinion, is to cancel these coverage deals or let them run their course without renewal so they can handle coverage themselves. These deals were a product of Bernie’s desire to make even more money (although I am aware that Sky got involved because the BBC subbed the coverage to them).

    Make it free to watch, complimented by online subscription and watch the sponsorship come running back.

  14. Neil (@neilosjames)
    8th March 2018, 23:16

    I’ve had Sky since F1 moved onto there and I could count the number of times I’ve used the extra views/different angles/in-car stuff thing on the fingers of one hand. Precisely one finger, and that was when I pressed the wrong button by mistake.

  15. Levente (@leventebandi)
    9th March 2018, 8:32

    Re CoTD:
    I don’t see your problem with the F1TV concept. The world feed will be selectable with commentary, available in multiple languages.

Comments are closed.