At Imola we did get to see Gianmaria Bruni, an Italian driving for an Italian team. We saw him pull into the pits and clap his hands to befuddled mechanics. Maybe Minardi has an alarm clock in their pits that's activated by The Clapper. (Clap on, ** **, Clap off ** **, The Clapper). We also did see Giorgio Pantano, another Italian. His was the quick replay of a yellow car spinning off track with no graphic to denote which driver it was. A few laps later we did see another quick splash of yellow being lapped, and were told that was Nick Heidfeld. Mark Webber's race was so woeful that he was nowhere to be found on screen. The Sauber team could also have mailed in the result for all the exposure they got from Italian TV. Zsolt Baumgartner? Yeah, right.
However, the director wasn't afraid to cut away from the lead, even when Schumacher the elder was on his inevitable hunt of Jenson Button in the opening laps of the race. He was also content to let Schumacher (M) run away off camera to concentrate on the Lap 12 three-way battle between Schumacher (R), Barrichello, and Fernando Alonso.
The producer had a good handle on what was going on around the track. The best example was during the pit stop position battle between Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher. Knowing they would be pitting together, he had the director cut to them as they entered pit lane. He cut from a mid-angle as they entered pit lane to a high angle as they entered their pit stalls to the Rubens in-car to the hand held in Ralf's pit. As they exited simultaneously, he cut to the crane shot at pit out. This showed Takuma Sato entering pit road almost blocking Rubens in his pit. As soon as the drama played out live, he rolled a replay from the helicopter. That sequence of cuts and replays showed motorsports coverage the way it's supposed to be.
One positive development from FOM is the elimination of the left hand running order graphic showing only 3 letters to denote the drivers. Not only was the placement of that particular graphic bad, but the abbreviations were annoying and confusing. They didn't give any info whatsoever. Back is the traditional 4 by 4 lower third graphic, giving the name of the driver. It's what we've come to expect, it works, and most importantly it doesn't need changing. This is one area where I probably should have praised FOM earlier. Their graphics package is very simple. Granted, every rights holder is going to add his own graphics package for commercial bumps, but FOM keeps it simple.
So, hats off to Italian TV for their coverage of the San Marino Grand Prix and also a good comeback for Formula One Management for their handling of Bahrain.
For the U.S. F1 audience, there was rejoicing in the months leading up to the Australian GP when it was revealed that commentator Bob Varsha would be returning to the F1 booth. Varsha had spent the last few years covering CART for SPEED. He was the long time voice of Formula 1 for ESPN back in the early days when the network had Formula 1 live on Sunday mornings and followed it up with NASCAR, before the series turned into an exercise in marketing and a license to print money (NASCAR, not Formula1, that is.)
Varsha has a true passion for the sport, the type of passion that's needed to be an F1 fan in the U.S. Up until the advent of the internet, F1 news was difficult to come by. You'd have to hunt high and low, and would usually only come up with the final order buried somewhere in the results section of the sports page. Now, with live timing and 180 websites parroting every team's press releases, anyone can pretend to be a broadcaster. Varsha, however is extremely intelligent, very knowledgeable, and understands the uniqueness of Formula 1.
Varsha had several gems during the San Marino GP. My favorite was during the replay of Ralf beating Rubens out of the pits. When the in-car from Rubens showed Ralf in front, Varsha quipped, "The winking taillight is almost like an insult as you pull out with the (other) guy ahead." He also made reference to the houses and villas directly abutting the track, speculating as to the cost for the weekend. Shortly after he talked about a particular villa inside of Rivazza, the world feed took a helicopter shot showing the entire turn including the villa.
The return of Varsha to the SPEED booth gives them their strongest broadcast team yet. Varsha gets along well with color analyst David Hobbs, and more importantly understands his off beat comments and plays off them, something that was lacking with former SPEED race caller Rick Debruhl. Hobbs can be a little offbeat (he is, after all, an ex driver), and some of his comments go over most heads. He can be very funny such as a couple years ago when Fernando Alonso was gaining prominence. He mused that Alonso needed a nickname and came up with "Fred" which has stuck somewhat with U.S. fans.
Steve Matchett, the former Benetton mechanic who rose to fame as much due to his near immolation at Hockenheim in 1994 as his authoring of several books, rounds out the booth triumvirate. Matchett is still very well connected with current F1 team personnel, and hasn't lost any of his technical knowledge. He watches and times how much fuel is being put in the cars, knows the flow rates of the delivery system and quickly calculates how many laps until the next stop. Usually he is right on the money, taking into consideration the unknown starting fuel loads of the cars, and what strategy the team is on.
SPEED also uses the services of Peter Windsor during the weekend. Windsor tapes some pit interviews and gives his analysis for the pre race show. It's a bonus for SPEED to be able to say, "And now let's go to the winner's press conference with our own Peter Windsor." It's too bad SPEED isn't allowed to cut in Windsor live during race broadcasts.
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