Yes, It's Boring - Here's Proof

[Liz]

20000 F1 Team TV Presence
-------------------------
Ferrari 282:55:02 30.0%
Mclaren 234:57:46 24.9%
Jordan 79:07:02 8.4%
Bar 69:27:23 7.4%
Williams 69:00:41 7.3%
Benetton 55:01:23 5.8%
Arrows 49:03:21 5.2%
Minardi 46:58:52 5.0%
Prost 44:56:07 4.8%
Jaguar 43:45:17 4.6%
Sauber 38:17:42 4.1%


Now before you start the obvious knee-jerk argument "well the top two are the most successful so of course...." blablabla, think of this: Most of the really interesting racing was taking place from P4 back to about P9. Even if you add together all the percentages from Jordan back, you don't get as much coverage over the season for the teams that are really doing what passes for racing in this talent-deprived age.

Is this tendency to spend over half the television time showing us the same two cars making F1 look even more boring than it really is?

[Jay]

I agree with you, we do see too much of the front runners, even when they are seperated by half a minute each. A lot of it depends on the TV director. I remember during the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix, the camera never left the Ferraris and McLarens. Last year's US Grand Prix had the camera leave the Frentzen-Villeneuve battle to show TGF's last and uneventful lap.

In Cart, they tend to show the exciting battles around the track (eg when Paul and Mikey approach each other). Where as in F1 we only see replays of the action behind the top two. The only live shots are of the top two.

Hopefully all of the rule changes will see a slight shakeup this year, but it looks unlikely.

[steve nielsen]

Indeed, the TV coverage should be much better, for instance:

when you look at the figures Arrows get only 5 % airtime, but when you see that Jos Verstappen an Pedro de la Rosa overtook over 100 cars this season (Jos 65, Pedro 42), this should have been more, come on!!


here's to all those directors:

WE KNOW THE SILVER AND RED CARS ARE IN FRONT, WE WANT TO SEE ALL THE OVERTAKING THAT'S HAPPENING BEHIND THAT!!!!!!!

I certainly hope they listen this time

[LYM]

I 'm surprised that Williams presence is behind Jordan and BAR. How popular is Eddie's team in Europe and America?

[KC]

But here's the rub. The FIA does not care about how many cars the Arrows team overtook, they earned only a scant few points and thus they are not worthy of any TV coverage. Isn't it much more exciting to see one of the Ferraris or Mclarens sailing off uncontested into the sunset than what 14th and 15th are doing? Just ask Max, he'll tell you.

The whole thing has become pathetic. In any form of motor racing there will always be a dominant team or driver. But everyone else must have at least a glimmer of hope that they might get a chance to at least compete. As expensive as F1 has become, how long until a major sponsor, like Benson & Hedges, decides that 12 minutes of air time is not enough to justify 200 million dollars investment? After all it is a business now, not a sport.

[RussianFriend]

Every car has this glimmer of chance to be shown on TV, but only while it's being lapped by Ferrary or Mclaren

[Liz]

And this year we don't even get to see those cars being punted off by Pedro Diniz!