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RichB
24,246 posts
153 months
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JonRB said: MGJohn said: Thankfully that appears to be less the case with TV coverage this and recent seasons. Have others noticed that with F1 coverage recently ?
There was a time when F1 TV directors consistently didn't have a clue and missing some splendid action or worse still, cutting away for commercials just when you and I could see some real action shaping up. Hope that is a thing of the past now.... permanently. That's because Bernie took it in-house and uses his own director(s) who are skilled at covering F1 and are less partisan. Or more consistent at least. It's been years since a local director was allowed anywhere near a F1 race. Yes I've noticed this too and if this is the reason the well done Ecclestone.
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ArnageWRC
591 posts
28 months
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IainW said: McClure said: Audi have obviously come to some arrangement with ACO. They will be contributing financially towards the coverage I imagine. If the WRC does get worse, then a Citroen/Peugeot hybrid with S.Loeb at the wheel would be ideal. The guy can drive a prototype as he's shown in the past. Can you really see PSA doing that though? No, not really. Quesnel was interviewed at Le Mans, and didn't sound hopeful of Peugeot returning in the near future. I know when they pulled the plug, a lot of people thought they'd pulled the wrong programme - instead of pulling Peugeot, they should have pulled the WRC effort. I think S. Loeb is going into Sportscars anyway with his own team.
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Henry-F
4,407 posts
114 months
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Just to comment on the TV coverage I think the English commentary team did a generally good job on what was no doubt a shoestring budget. From the comfort of my armchair with nothing else distracting me and having had an extremely good nights sleep there were times when I felt they had missed things or got something slightly wrong, but they didn't have the benefit of my sleep and there will have been one or two distractions! The fault lay at the feet of the person directing or producing the camera feed, (not Eurosport). They not only missed key elements particularly at the end where anyone with access to a timing screen could see there was a huge story unfolding in the GT-AM class they went away from the racing all together to show us people in the crowd! Audi were always going to steal the limelight because to many the GT cars are there simply to make up numbers. Liz touched on it and annoyed me when she said the Ferrari should have lifted off and let AD's Toyota past because it was a slower car. Slower yes, but on its personal limit and in need of a racing line. In every single drivers briefing I have ever attended slower cars are told to stay on line and it is up to the quicker car to get past. Liz of all people should know that but at Le Mans GT cars are sadly second class citizens. The reason I have never sought to race there and the reason the director ignored a stunning battle which went to the wire. Well done to all the teams and drivers. Each will have their own stories some of which will no doubt unfold in the fullness of time. Henry 
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sirtyro
1,145 posts
67 months
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I had Eurosport on TV (muted) with Radio Le Mans on my laptop. There seemed to be more insight from the RLM guys and they seemed to have more fun. Hopefully will be there next year.
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m0rris
75 posts
19 months
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sirtyro said: I had Eurosport on TV (muted) with Radio Le Mans on my laptop. There seemed to be more insight from the RLM guys and they seemed to have more fun. Hopefully will be there next year. I ran a similar setup with Eurosport and the other streams plus RLM for the commentary, which I found to be very knowledgeable and engaging... a good balance with commentators who wanted to be there and were up for the craic. The Corvette streams also used for occasional bouts of engine porn.
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SlipStream77
1,631 posts
60 months
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Henry-F said: Audi were always going to steal the limelight because to many the GT cars are there simply to make up numbers. Liz touched on it and annoyed me when she said the Ferrari should have lifted off and let AD's Toyota past because it was a slower car. Slower yes, but on its personal limit and in need of a racing line. In every single drivers briefing I have ever attended slower cars are told to stay on line and it is up to the quicker car to get past. Liz of all people should know that but at Le Mans GT cars are sadly second class citizens. The reason I have never sought to race there and the reason the director ignored a stunning battle which went to the wire. I disagree, there should always be give and take between LMP and GT but Ant was lining up that pass for a while. What did the Ferrari driver expect? Ant was on the inside and closing fast, it was obvious what he was doing. I don't see how he carries any blame at all.
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DanB7290
5,117 posts
59 months
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It didn't take too long, but the Daily Mail, that bastion of morality ("there's so many people growing up to be paedophiles, let's ban everyone from watching porn!"), have cottoned on to this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160542/Br...I swear that some Daily Mail Online comment folks are even more stupid than people who argue about politics on a Muppets video on YouTube. A few gems from the reader comments section: Enough is enough. This isn't sport. Pointless lap after lap of wasting fuel and adding pollution and for what? Speed kills. Why do we need to glamourise it with these races. We should ban all motorised racing. and my personal favourite: The driver of the red car drove dangerously, and should be tried for attempted manslaughter!!!!!! It appeared to be a deliberate attempt to knock him off the road. Are people really this stupid? Thankfully, there are people pointing out that we shouldn't ban motor racing because it's a testbed for future road car technology. And the DM people have actually allowed a comment which is the truth and sensible, whatever next; Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson found making man love in the back of a Hyundai?
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Scuffers
10,417 posts
143 months
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SlipStream77 said: Henry-F said: Audi were always going to steal the limelight because to many the GT cars are there simply to make up numbers. Liz touched on it and annoyed me when she said the Ferrari should have lifted off and let AD's Toyota past because it was a slower car. Slower yes, but on its personal limit and in need of a racing line. In every single drivers briefing I have ever attended slower cars are told to stay on line and it is up to the quicker car to get past. Liz of all people should know that but at Le Mans GT cars are sadly second class citizens. The reason I have never sought to race there and the reason the director ignored a stunning battle which went to the wire. I disagree, there should always be give and take between LMP and GT but Ant was lining up that pass for a while. What did the Ferrari driver expect? Ant was on the inside and closing fast, it was obvious what he was doing. I don't see how he carries any blame at all. I agree, whilst Henry is right in general terms, in this case, he was already committed to making the pass, it was pretty clear how/where he was going to be, the guy in the Ferrari just did not bother to look (or hugely miss-judged the distance). it's not hard in that situation just to leave a car sized gap between you and the apex, costs you next to sod all, and avoids this kind of accident.
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Henry-F
4,407 posts
114 months
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SlipStream77 said: I disagree, there should always be give and take between LMP and GT but Ant was lining up that pass for a while. What did the Ferrari driver expect? Ant was on the inside and closing fast, it was obvious what he was doing. I don't see how he carries any blame at all. I'm. Not sure if you race or not so please forgive if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs. The closing speed between GT and P1 is huge, the braking points are different and without aero the GT brick is a very different beast around high speed corners. The Ferrari was already taking his line for one of the fastest corners / approaches in Motorsport. If anything it is the sports car which has the ability to change line or go round on the outside. In that instance. Once committed had he backed off or taken a shallower entry so as to leave room his fear was running out of road on the exit or spinning mid corner, so because he was on his personal limit he assumed AD would wait behind, remember it's the job of the overtaking car to get past safely. He didn't weave or take an unusual line, just did what would be expected were no other cars there. I can see exactly what happened from both sides and ultimately it will be put down to a racing incident. AD is not alone pretty much all sports car drivers are guilty. Slower car = less important and because they are not on the limit they assume the GT car isn't. I think it is only by the grace of god more people don't die in GT to Sports Car contact. Have a look at the accidents in that race and see how many were GT versus Sports. I hate being on track with sports cars in my GT3, especially knowing in an incident they will usually fare worse than me. The problem is in a race I can't drive constantly looking in the mirror and backing off early if I am chasing hard in my own battles. Henry Edited to say: I was typing as you posted Scuffers. How are you keeping? I can just put myself in that Ferrari seat and I know exactly the point where the driver will have committed to the corner. At that point the Toyota was behind. The problem is the closing speed. Normally the Sports car slips through, the GT driver thinks feck me and has a bit of an adrenaline moment and the commentators switch to their well rehearsed, "oh that was a close one, Sprout car driver is on a charge here" and they have a quick look at the timing screen to validate their comments. You and I both know how it works, especially in 24 hour races! All the best Henry
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Vocal Minority
2,103 posts
21 months
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DanB7290 said: I swear that some Daily Mail Online comment folks are even more stupid than people who argue about politics on a Muppets video on YouTube. A few gems from the reader comments section:
Enough is enough. This isn't sport. Pointless lap after lap of wasting fuel and adding pollution and for what?
Speed kills. Why do we need to glamourise it with these races. We should ban all motorised racing.
and my personal favourite:
The driver of the red car drove dangerously, and should be tried for attempted manslaughter!!!!!! It appeared to be a deliberate attempt to knock him off the road. 10 Legal points for 'attempted manslaughter', I had a crack at breaking the law (of which the potential result was someone's death as I direct result), but never quite managed it. Well they read the Daily Mail and therefore have a natural fear of everything. Some people are predisposed to not do anything because they enjoy it, and devote all of their energy to being safe and secure and very, very bored. (Another cup of tea? No, I have had quite enough excitement for one evening thank you.) (I remember seeing something on the news where someones young daughter (11 or 12) was tragically killed in a boat accident on a course run by the army. All very sad, however, the father did say 'as far as I am concerned she was murdered'...Yes the army deliberately killed your daughter. I have never raced at any level at all so cannot really comment, but in my humble and uneducated opinion, the Ferrari maybe could have stayed left for a bit longer. HOWEVER, Davidson possibly didn't do all he could have done to let him know he was there, I don't remember seeing him use the light flasher ( whereas I am amazed Audi did not wear there headlight flasher switch out), and he was approaching at a hell of a closing speed. There is a disparoty of speed and talent in LM, AD is experienced and knows this, and maybe could have been more circumspect in the pass.
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Maldini35
696 posts
57 months
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Henry-F said: SlipStream77 said: I disagree, there should always be give and take between LMP and GT but Ant was lining up that pass for a while. What did the Ferrari driver expect? Ant was on the inside and closing fast, it was obvious what he was doing. I don't see how he carries any blame at all. I'm. Not sure if you race or not so please forgive if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs. The closing speed between GT and P1 is huge, the braking points are different and without aero the GT brick is a very different beast around high speed corners. The Ferrari was already taking his line for one of the fastest corners / approaches in Motorsport. If anything it is the sports car which has the ability to change line or go round on the outside. In that instance. Once committed had he backed off or taken a shallower entry so as to leave room his fear was running out of road on the exit or spinning mid corner, so because he was on his personal limit he assumed AD would wait behind, remember it's the job of the overtaking car to get past safely. He didn't weave or take an unusual line, just did what would be expected were no other cars there. I can see exactly what happened from both sides and ultimately it will be put down to a racing incident. AD is not alone pretty much all sports car drivers are guilty. Slower car = less important and because they are not on the limit they assume the GT car isn't. I think it is only by the grace of god more people don't die in GT to Sports Car contact. Have a look at the accidents in that race and see how many were GT versus Sports. I hate being on track with sports cars in my GT3, especially knowing in an incident they will usually fare worse than me. The problem is in a race I can't drive constantly looking in the mirror and backing off early if I am chasing hard in my own battles. Henry Edited to say: I was typing as you posted Scuffers. How are you keeping? I can just put myself in that Ferrari seat and I know exactly the point where the driver will have committed to the corner. At that point the Toyota was behind. The problem is the closing speed. Normally the Sports car slips through, the GT driver thinks feck me and has a bit of an adrenaline moment and the commentators switch to their well rehearsed, "oh that was a close one, Sprout car driver is on a charge here" and they have a quick look at the timing screen to validate their comments. You and I both know how it works, especially in 24 hour races! All the best Henry Summed up my thoughts perfectly. You can't just blame the Ferrari drive - he has just as much right to be there as the prototypes. He will have seen AD behind him on the straight before deciding to turn in and assumed AD would back off. So easily done - especially coming up to a corner where you have to keep your eyes to the front to hit your turn-in and braking points. In my eyes it was the same with McNish last year. Sportscar drivers obviously under huge pressure to keep laptimes 'in the zone' (and protect their seat) lack patience in trying to clear traffic.
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Whoozit
1,059 posts
138 months
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I watched a few hours on Saturday, but my Sky box decided to play up on Sunday. Does anyone know whether Eurosport or any other broadcaster will have a highlights programme in the next couple of weeks? There's nothing on the Sky or Eurosport schedules for the next 7 days.
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TonyHetherington
30,896 posts
119 months
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Henry-F said: Once committed had he backed off or taken a shallower entry so as to leave room his fear was running out of road on the exit or spinning mid corner, so because he was on his personal limit he assumed AD would wait behind, remember it's the job of the overtaking car to get past safely. Didn't exactly that happen with one of the Corvettes at the same corner? He backed off because he was overtaken by a prototype, that mixed with the air turbulence I assume means he just spun instantly.
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JonRB
39,467 posts
141 months
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DanB7290 said: Typical that the Daily Mail starts off by screaming that Ant broke his back, then clarifies that he "shattered" two vertebrae before finally, later on, saying that they are merely broken.
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Nick M
3,137 posts
92 months
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Vocal Minority said: I have never raced at any level at all so cannot really comment, but in my humble and uneducated opinion, the Ferrari maybe could have stayed left for a bit longer. HOWEVER, Davidson possibly didn't do all he could have done to let him know he was there, I don't remember seeing him use the light flasher ( whereas I am amazed Audi did not wear there headlight flasher switch out), and he was approaching at a hell of a closing speed. There is a disparoty of speed and talent in LM, AD is experienced and knows this, and maybe could have been more circumspect in the pass. AD mentioned on autosport.com that he thought the Ferrari was one of the Pro class cars, and only saw relatively late that the door sticker was for an Am class car: AD: "I was almost completely past the car after the apex of the kink. I passed a Corvette and a Ferrari with the pro driver sticker on. They were fighting each other and I just assumed the Ferrari ahead was part of their group and therefore another pro. The car was all the way to the left as you would expect a pro driver to do. It was only when I got right up to the back that I realised it was one of the amateur-stickered cars."But I still wasn't alarmed, I still felt it was a completely legitimate move and thought he would stay to the left, which it looked like he was doing. I made the apex of the corner, started to brake and I was almost out of the corner when I felt contact on the left rear." There was also a comment, I think by Liz Halliday, that the GT drivers, seeing a quicker car approaching from behind, might give an extra lift a bit earlier to allow the LMP car through without causing the GT car to have to go off line as much, thus reducing the amount of time they lost through the corner.
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Vocal Minority
2,103 posts
21 months
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I have seen that quote, and with no disrespect to Mr Davidson, in the slightest, that would be the party line from him.
I am not trying to pin the blame soley on AD, I think the accident was one of those things. But, he felt he was OK, but the key is he thought the Ferrari knew he was there, he didn't KNOW.
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Henry-F
4,407 posts
114 months
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It was that comment from Liz which annoyed me. Anyway, the race is now over and we aren't going to solve the problem overnight on here! For what it's worth I think Anthony is one of the nice guys, very much seen as an underdog there are far more arrogant drivers out there. The McNish incident last year where he came from behind a car to try and undertake a GT car which had no hope at all of seeing him was far more serious and how innocent spectators were not killed I will never know. Henry
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Nick M
3,137 posts
92 months
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Vocal Minority said: I am not trying to pin the blame soley on AD, I think the accident was one of those things. But, he felt he was OK, but the key is he thought the Ferrari knew he was there, he didn't KNOW. Agreed - was merely pointing out that he thought the car was a Pro class car, which seemed to infer a greater degree of awareness (rightly or wrongly). But you're right, he didn't *know* the car had seen him, but he *was* committed at that point. In hindsight many of these situations are avoidable, and while I know they're racing and the margins are small, I do think that sometimes the LMP cars need to do themselves a few favours and sacrifice a few tenths, or even a second or two, and not go for gaps which may not be there. McNish's 'accident' falls into this category for me; he didn't suddenly appear behind the Ferrari and would have seen him from a few corners before - likely before they entered the Porsche Curves - so it just seems like a schoolboy error to fall off where and how he did. Granted he missed the Ferrari, but AD was a bit more 'robust' in the same place with the Corvette a couple of years back (even if they didn't actually touch, he contributed to the Corvette's departure from the track...).
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Nick M
3,137 posts
92 months
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Henry-F said: The McNish incident last year where he came from behind a car to try and undertake a GT car which had no hope at all of seeing him was far more serious and how innocent spectators were not killed I will never know. Agreed - that smacked of sheer impetuousness (impetuosity ?? whatever...) from Mr McNish. He had caught BT and I think BT was slow out of Dunlop chicane which is why AM went for the pass, but even so, it seemed 'optimistic' from my armchair perspective. I know they're paid to race, but they're also paid to *finish* races, so minimising risks is part of that IMHO.
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TonyHetherington
30,896 posts
119 months
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Henry-F said: For what it's worth I think Anthony is one of the nice guys, very much seen as an underdog there are far more arrogant drivers out there. As did I - I enjoy him on BBC free practice for F1 too, however his driving in last year's LM, - when he was being lapped by the leading Audi and caused no end of troubles, really did sour my opinion of him.
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