And so it begins…
ESPN fails already. DVR was set up for final practice, and instead, I get 4 idiots talking about stick and ball sports. :rolleyes:
At least I managed to get qually. But GODDAMN! These announcers DO NOT EVER SHUT UP!
DVR cut off with 7 minutes left! Well, I can’t blame ESPN for that.
I’ll blame Bottas. 
I liked the different reactions from Mercedes team during the Q3 incident. Toto Wolff was fully animated with emotion, while Niki Lauda had the perfect poker face.
And while I am undecided on ESPN coverage, they are showing qualifying on ESPN 3. So it’s good as a DVR backup.
I’m somewhat lukewarm on ESPN’s coverage after the first race. I did like some of the graphics they were using, especially the one that showed how the gap between two particular cars was getting bigger or smaller. But holy crap, the commercial breaks! Cut to commercial while the announcer is in mid-sentence? Very jarring. I do appreciate that they kept the race action on-screen while the commercials were running though.
That was nice! Won’t spoil it quite yet, but I’m happy with that!
I agree with Dr. G, the new graphics are cool, but the commercial breaks were kooky. The announcing wasn’t as bad as qually, where they just seemed to chatter just to hear their voice. At least during the race they had something worth saying.
I noticed that my DVR doesn’t automatically extend recording time for sporting events (it used to, before I got a receiver upgrade), so I had to go fix that manually. I was worried I was going to miss the last couple minutes, but all worked out okay.
Good start to a (hopefully) great season.
Really?? The graphics are cool? I’ve only heard negative things about them on this side if the pond. Personally I think they are atrocious. They do “feel” very American though (the font even).
Some stuff happened and are really not supposed to spoil a race that happened more than 10 hours ago.
Biggest conclusion: you cannot overtake in Melbourne. Regardless of your car.
The big problem with the ESPN coverage is that it’s just using Sky’s feed and inserting their own commercials–so there’s no “while you were away” recap when the commercials end because Sky never was away.
So if someone pulls off to the side due to a mechanical issue near the start of a commercial break, by the time the break ends the commentators are probably done talking about it, and ESPN viewers will have no information on what happened.
That’s the big difference. NBC Sports put a bit of effort into the broadcast, ESPN is just phoning it in.
Anyway, talking about the race itself, the bad news for Haas is that they threw away 4th and 5th place. The good news is that they were legitimately in 4th and 5th place without a slew of retirements.
And I wonder if all the legal troubles from the owner are finally getting to Force India’s car development.
I don’ know about the broadcast but ESPNs stream was leaps and bounds better than NBCSports. Better quality, fewer commercials, and I like Martin Brundle a lot. There was a couple of poorly timed commercials but it doesn’t sound like it was as bad as the live version. Also I didn’t have to choose between a “live stream” at 8 am or a replay in the afternoon, i just woke up and started watching a pausable replay.
Still looking forward to the official streaming app though.
Mystifying, isn’t it? Spend all that money and make a big deal about getting the premier series, and then totally half-ass it. 
:dubious:
My thoughts:
- What a blunder by Mercedes, losing the win by forgetting that unfortunate timing of yellow flags/safety car deployment can cost you more time than the current interval times. This is a race result that can in parts be attributed to the three-engines-per-season rule. With less restrictions of engines, Hamilton would have had a bigger lead on the Ferraris before put stops.
- Dzeiger has already expressed my thought on Haas.
- Williams: I don’t believe, that their car is as bad as current results make it look. They had to replace their Number one driver from 2017 (Massa), who, in all fairness, has always only been a number two driver for most of his career. Before he beat Stroll by a mere 3 points he has beaten Villeneuve late in his career in 2005. And in 2008, arguably Massa’s strongest season ever he beat Kimi and almost won the championship. To be fair, he often teamed with the greats of the sport: Schumacher, Alonso. But he also got beaten by Bottas who cannot really compete with Hamilton atm. So Williams current lineup is Sirotkin and Stroll (who is worse than Massa, who is worse than Bottas, who is worse than Hamilton). I don’t believe that Williams current drivers are a good benchmark for the 2018 Williams car…
I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but does no-one else think it’s a bit suspicious that a Haas (junior team to Ferrari) parked in the middle of the track, forcing a safety car that allowed Vettel (driving a Ferrari) to win? Obviously it cost Haas a lot of points, but assuming this was all arranged after they found out they had a problem, it’s not the greatest stretch to imagine that some inter-team orders took place, is it? I understand that drivers can be penalised for trying to limp back to the pits with that particular issue, but it’s not like he was forced to stop right there, surely?
I’m not suggesting that F1 has gone the way of pro wrestling and is now entirely scripted from on high… yet.
Grosjean stopped in a place that didn’t require a safety car (same as KMag) but the marshalls couldn’t get his car into neutral so they had to bring out a crane, hence the VSC. If Ferrari’s plan was to cripple a points haul for both drivers from their most successful customer team for a chance at 8 points in the first race of the season, they’re idiots. Sometimes a wheel nut problem is just a wheel nut problem.
Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s just sometimes hard to distinguish a genuinely close result from fixing. Remember the time the top 3 drivers all had the same qualifying time, to 1/1000th of a second, in the last race of the season? OK, that probably wasn’t fixed either, but it looked very suspicious to the casual observer!
Maybe you should look at the Haas pit stops in slow motion and look for some yellow sticky tape. I hear that stuff causes all sorts of problems.
Did ESPN spend a lot for the races? They would pay based on the ratings and I don’t know how good the ratings are in the US.
I’ve seen reports that ESPN got the rights for free (or possibly for $1).
these days ESPN is bleeding cash so that makes sense.
I don’t think its very accurate to call Haas a “junior team” to Ferrari. They just buy engines.