Jack Doohan, friend of the show...
To use a favorite Howard Stern line*.
And what a television show Formula One has been in 2024! I’m typing this having just watched F1 TV’s Formula One Qatar Airways Qatar Grand Prix pre-race show – including a brilliant grid walk by the best in the business, Will Buxton – but before pushing play for the race replay, which is just one of many reasons that I hereby declare the FIA Formula One World Championship my favorite racing series: the ability to “time-shift” and watch whenever I please. In this case, 3:26 pm on Sunday, December 8th.
Having lost interest twice in Formula One since my days at Watkins Glen from 1970 through 1976 – first during Michael Schumacher’s domination for so many years and later splitting my attention with IndyCar during the reigns of Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen – my enthusiasm for the sport is once again on fire!
The 2024 season is my GOAT, if I may be so bold.
I’ll continue this line of thought after I watch the race.
Random notes, three days later (Wednesday, December 11th, 2024) while I try to establish a regular writing schedule.
First of all, Yaz Marina Circuit at night is a visual feast. As a graphic designer who was drawing like an adult at age five I perhaps place undue importance on the way things look but so be it. This picturesque desert circuit, particularly during the Golden Hour, evolves from daylight to a telegenic night race. Las Vegas is visually stunning as well but this setting is a tad more “authentic” than Vegas.
As to the TV production itself, the effective visual subtlety of pan shots that always keep the target race car in-frame, the remotes with a member of the announce team standing trackside as these otherworldly machines scream by inches away, even the helicopter sounds from the overhead views as we watch cars threading the S curve pit-out underpass… all these and more add up to SEVEN hours of commercial-free enjoyment as I watch at my leisure on my 4K iMac with stereo sound through Bose QuietComfort headphones, cranked! Over a twenty-four race season – including practice, qualifying, additional F1 Sprint and ladder series support races, endless pre- and post-race shows, driver and team interviews, technical features and more – this superb coverage is yours for the bargain price of $3.54 per race weekend! Or, if you have cable you can get equally good Sky Sports coverage via ESPN/ABC, with a completely different broadcasts crew! Having the choice of two different broadcasts of the same event has emphasized the second-rate nature of NBC’s IndyCar coverage for the past few seasons and I predict a further nosedive with 2025’s Fox Sports coverage. I’ll withhold judgement but I probably won’t get to see much of the season because the Fox “effort”will be over-the-air broadcast and cable only: no streaming, no reruns… and likely still commercial ridden!
ADDENDUM: While my preference is F1 TV, ESPN/ABC’s carriage of the Sky Sports product garnered outstanding OAT and cable numbers. From racer.com just today:
The season included multiple viewership records, led by the Miami Grand Prix in early May, airing on ABC, setting the all-time U.S. television F1 record for a live telecast with 3.1 million average viewers.
Listicle
First lap Leclerc passes: find a replay and watch.
Longest F1 season in history, 24 races. First Constructors’ World Championship for McLaren since 1998.
Alpine, the team formerly know as Renault, runs their last race with Renault engines!
James Hinchcliffe: seven-time IndyCar race winner, Indy 500 pole sitter and runner up on Dancing With The Stars, is excellent with a mic in his hand, as I’ve said before. A great addition to the on-air team given F1’s growing popularity in the US. Not too much of an annoying Canadian accent today; I only caught one “proh-cess.” Check out the Tuesday/Thursday Off Track with Hinch and Rossi podcast for behind-the-scenes glimpses into the lives of these guys. Good humor and great analysis, always.
Drama till the end!
Piastri: overtake of the race?
Everything changed for McLaren at Miami.
Excellent wrap-up on Norris by James.
Down to the wire with HAM/RUS. Amazing!
Zak celebrates American style!
Spotted JPM and Bianca Bustamante (McLaren development driver) in the McLaren pits.
Flaws? Voices out of synch on post-race wrap-up replay. That’s it!
How were the “lights in the sky” graphics done, post race?
Piastri sounds British. Why doesn’t Lando? Oscar is very well spoken, cheerful!
I was never into Drive to Survive. I like the real thing, live, but maybe I’ll take another look.
Lando and Oscar were not yet born for McLaren’s ‘98 championship! My friends and I were already in various stages of divorce and other chaos the three years in a row we attended the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal from 1996 through 1998, in Grand Prix Tours International high style.
*Doohan rejoins the broadcast team as a “friend of the show” after competing in his first F1 race. Fascinating comments!
CFD correlation, factory to track: missteps by McLaren, good upgrades for Alpine.
How the fuck do you not love Lewis? Because he’s a fashionista? What else annoys you?
Never knew who would win a given race, latter half of the 2024 F1 season.
Top four teams each have a one-two finish.
“Synchronized swimming” comment as Valtteri spun one of the newly invigorated Haas cars was perfect.
Whew! That’s it for now!
'How the fuck do you not love Lewis? Because he’s a fashionista? What else annoys you?'
Let me preface this by saying that I've been told, by someone who was on the grid with Lewis in his youth, that he was the subject of frequent and severe physical abuse from his father, often in front of other drivers. So I'm sympathetic to him. That being said:
* Lewis is the most privileged and pampered F1 driver in history. McLaren brought him in to run with Alonso, then undermined Alonso for Lewis to the point that Ron Dennis admitted ON TAPE that "we (meaning he and the rest of McLaren) were just racing against Fernando." Alonso should be a 3x or 4x world champion. Lewis took that away -- not by being better, but by getting a better deal.
* Lewis abandoned his father and took his management business elsewhere for all of his biggest paydays. Why, when his father made it possible for him to be where he was?
* Lewis was beaten in the prime of his career and abilities by Button, Rosberg, and Russell. When did that happen to Schumacher or Max?
* Lewis got an astounding amount of leeway from the FIA for most of his career. He was amazingly aggressive.
* Half of the grid could have won his McLaren championship. Everyone on the grid, possibly including Logan Sergeant, could have won his Mercedes championships. Those cars were dominant to an extent we can't imagine today, often running a full second a lap ahead of the competition. So I don't see any evidence that Lewis is the "GOAT". He's basically Jacques Villeneuve, who ALSO managed to make an easy WDC look hard.
* I don't mind his clothing, all of which makes sense if you consider the fact that he has rarely dated women. Why not have fun with what you wear in the paddock?
* He presents and carries himself like an African-American, which he is not. The rapper culture and so on is no more "his" than it is Heinz-Harald Frentzen's.
That's all I have... for now!
Lewis H was a big supporter of P Diddy. What did he know and when? That’s how I can not love him.