I'm guessing that ESPN doesn't have much experience covering sports. Maybe they should stick to politics.

Holy cow, that was the worst coverage of a race I have seen since the late 90's. Their opening 30 minutes spent the first 6 minutes focused on a piece of the track with nothing going on. That was followed by some dumbass in the control booth realizing they were live and switched it to ESPN the magazine for 10 minutes, before coming back to the starting grid with no audio for another 3 minutes. Martin Brundle proved to completely suck in doing a Will Buxton grid overview, and most drivers just walked past him. Nico didn't prove to be much better.

Overall the coverage was quite shabby, and it sounds as if waiting for F1 to get their live coverage in order will be the next best option.

BTW - I was watching it as recorded through Youtube TV.

I won't mention the race results, but I'll be sure to come back later and bitch about those too.

Very nice summation 280nosler. My thoughts exactly and you didn't even mention the poorly inserted commercials. No thought as to what was happening on the track and even when something happened with their side by side commercial the announcers didn't know a commercial was running so there was no mention of any of the action that just happened. I actually quit watching half way through.

I'm also disappointed that Mercedes still seems to have a huge advantage in the race (regardless of the results) and they still have a "party" mode for qualifying.

Yeah, that was a mess. Once the producers and announce team realize the whole US of A is watching, they'll probably choke and get even clumsier.

A minor point but I miss timing the pit stops.

I found it especially infuriating that they missed going green after the safety car period. They had the annoying split screen thing going, but you really couldn't see what was going on.

I always thought (never having seen it) the Brit's coverage must be much better than ours since they are such passionate fans. How wrong I was. These clowns make ABC look good.

The coordination between SKY and ESPN was terrible. Practice 3 and the pre races show; ESPN didn't realize they were on and the first half of the show was some other news show or event, not racing. They started the P3 coverage at the 55 minute mark and the pre-race at around 15 minutes in.

What a Clusterfuck!

To add to all the problems mentioned, I had trouble understanding the announcers' Upper-Midlands or Liverpudlian or London west side or whatever accent. I thought I was watching that amateurish coverage they do of the Isle of Man TT.

I assume the drivers adapt pretty quickly, but the center post of the mandatory “halo cockpit protection system” has to be a distraction sitting directly in front them.

ETA: I think the cars are better looking without the big “shark fin” engine covers. Cleaner look

the coverage and commentary is abysmal - and it would appear that ESPN is not up to the task

It felt like I was listening to a bug in someone's living room where the people tslking didn't know others were listening.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
the coverage and commentary is abysmal - and it would appear that ESPN is not up to the task

They are using SKY TV, for the actual video and audio/commentary part and ESPN is the network.
Hard to believe they cant even get the basic technical parts right like what time to turn it on.

The internet is overrun with pitchforks and torches for ESPN.
What a cluster.

^^^^
They certainly earned it, didn't they?

why does everything feel an overwhelming need to fuck up something that was working so well?

what is the mental defect that causes these people to not leave well enough alone?

with coverage like that, I'm just going to wait for the results to get posted and save a few hours of my life for something more meaningful

I liked the muted 5 minute pre-race coverage, with the smooth transition into the rerun of some top 30 sportspeople or some such show. It was horrible and I am going to try to find some other coverage on the net.

I also think the governing body should have spent more time figuring out how to make passing possible instead of forcing that ungodly halo on the cars. I noticed there were no meaningful passes pretty much the whole race. I fast forwarded my recording from where I had quit watching to the end once I saw the results as I found it odd there had been no place changes. Just another reason to probably not waste my time on Sundays anymore.

So a day later, I guess I am not letting the cat out of the bag by saying there were only five on track passes following the fist lap.

Anybody else wonder how a 11.8 second lead, with a 21 second pit Delta, and you can pit and stay in the lead?

quote:

Anybody else wonder how a 11.8 second lead, with a 21 second pit Delta, and you can pit and stay in the lead?

I believe that's due to the pit times being expressed as total e.t. from pit in to pit exit, not the actual delta. However that's still tough, hard to believe the front straight is more than 10 seconds at speed.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Anybody else wonder how a 11.8 second lead, with a 21 second pit Delta, and you can pit and stay in the lead?

I believe that's due to the pit times being expressed as total e.t. from pit in to pit exit, not the actual delta. However that's still tough, hard to believe the front straight is more than 10 seconds at speed.

But, under VSC, are you 'at speed'? Wonder what that 11 sec lead is under VSC conditions, with a pit stop?

OK, it stunk but silver lining? No Leigh Diffey.