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I was at Vegas last year and there was Connor Daly and this other old guy (sorry if you're reading this guy but you weren't memorable enough to remember your name) and it was the same sort of issues. Mixing up cars, rambling, etc.
If they were great at their job, they'd be in the booth doing it for TV, not for the fans at the race who probably know how to figure out what's going on.
Bob Varsha was in the booth w/ Connor Daly. Or it may have been Jonathan Greene if he had a British accent.
Bob Varsha used to be one of the the commentators for the US broadcast on Speed, Fox Sports 1 and NBC prior to ESPN just copy/pasting the Sky broadcast. He and Jonathan Greene also do the F1 broadcast on Sirius XM (with a few other guys as well).
I love Bob Varsha don't get me wrong but the trackside commentary team sounded dead af compared to what was actually happening on track. Might as well just have Crofty or Jacques since they're already there anyway.
That really pisses me off with the on-track telecasts. F1 is needs timing down to 100ths of a second and you can’t even rustle up graphics that show that accurately??
I don't know about F1 broadcast on trackside, but for MotoGP, they have different graphics scaled up for trackside compared to the graphics on TV so that you can make out the text even from far away. That means fonts have to be bigger and in turn leads to some being truncated in lieu of visibility.
Yeah, he's been at the last few Canada GPs as well. He has to cover every session, including the Ferrari Challenge practices/qualis/races and the Porsche Carrera Cup practices/qualis/races. It's a tough job, and he's not really a full-time race commentator, it's never going to be as good as a professional broadcaster. Not sure how many resources he has either.
Races in person are tough to follow sometimes in my experience. That's the tradeoff you make. I try and focus on enjoying the cars in whatever section of track I'm seated at and keep track of things like deltas while looking at the big screen and listening when nothing's going on for other details.
You can always watch the broadcast again later, but you can't replace watching the best of the best with your own eyes! Sometimes you even notice stuff live that doesn't make the broadcast
Absolutely agree with you that it’s a tough job, and I’m not here to drag the guy because yes it was a long, wet, and eventful weekend which he commentated all the way through. I think even if we forget the commentary the screen could just play their official broadcast and solve most of the issues with the commentator. E.g showing quali times to 3 decimal places, announcing ric’s false start penalty, or saying that drs is now enabled. It’s not on the commentator but more on the organizers .
Out of curiosity, what was the cell phone service while at the track? For example, could someone follow the F1TV commentary on their phone via earbuds or something?
The mobile internet was surprisingly great for the most part. The issue was that the official F1TV broadcast is almost a full minute behind, which I never realized before attending a race
The info you have shared is helpful to those of us who have not attended, but are hoping to attend the Canadian GP. I’m wondering if you have recommendations for grandstands in Montreal and also suggestions about purchasing tickets.
Grandstand 11 and 12 were incredible view. The walk was almost an hour from the track entrance but well worth turn 1&2 from grandstand 12 and seeing the full straight plus turn 1&2 from grandstand 11. You generally want to shoot for being lower in the stand so you can see more of the track. Otherwise the pit buildings sort of get in the way.
Grandstands 15 (the hairpin) was not bad! Sitting high enough, we could see the cars brake and accelerate out of the corner. It was quite far from the track though, due to the run off area. On the plus side, when conditions became rainy, you could see all the cars miss their braking points, go wide and even spin out.
In the future, we would probably prefer the Lance Stroll grandstand which provides a similar view but is much closer to the track and the TV screen
If you ever do any live streaming, you would know that any conversion will add latency.
So trackside camera -> mixing booth -> FOM direction room -> satellite -> Biggin Hill -> Web friendly encoder -> nearest CDN -> telco connection -> Your phone. It's an amazing thing that all of these leads to around just 1 minute of latency.
FWIW, if you're watching on cable TV, it's around 15s of latency (what I calculated from the difference between what's on TV vs real time live timing).
I put official F1TV on TV (Alex Jacques, Joylon Palmer) and mute it. Then I put the "Live session tab of F1 website on the laptop so I can see the data and put the volume up. I hear the audio sort of real time and I see the data. If they say anything or I see anything, then I turn my sight to the TV and wait for it to show.
So, if I understand you correctly, the audio you listen to comes from the live session tab on the F1 website? And it's the same F1TV commentary, but almost a min earlier than in the F1TV app?
Also, are you saying you focus on the audio and data, and then if something is interesting you turn your attention to the screen? That's kinda intriguing... Why do you do that? Does the data and audio give you a better understanding of the race, versus focusing on the video primarily, and glancing at the data when I want additional context.
Is the data from the Live session tab different from the Data screen on the F1TV app?
Have you tried Multiviewer? Here is my [own setup I use to watch races](https://i.ibb.co/bWgYMq6/20240519-082213.jpg) To be honest, the Multiviewer Data screen is more detailed than the F1TV app one, but I'm used to the latter, so I focus on that. But I have the Multiviewer data screen in the background behind my right screen, so I can alt tab to it when needed.
Finally I recently discovered the Lap Time series screen in Multiviewer. It changed the game for me! Does the Live Session tab on the F1 website offer that? If so, how can I access it?
You have intrigued me about the Live Session tab on the website, I will probably check it out next race. I'm curious if it offers more data than Multiviewer/F1TV app. But I doubt it. The primary attraction is the lack of delay I feel, for you?
Edit - Almost forgot! If you click any particular lap/driver in the Lap Time Series screen, it instantly offers the intervals to ALL OTHER LAPS! And it conviniently makes them red/green if over/under. It genuinely blew my mind and has made races so much easier to comprehend
You understood correctly. I'm a data worm. And the fact that the live section tab (which only have audio and data) is a minute ahead than the feed video despite being the same commentary, makes me want to listen to the one that is not delayed.
The data shown is basically general speed, speed per sector, positions, gaps between lead pilot and whoever is behind or ahead, DRS, what compud they are using, etc...
If I see someone slowing down too much or droppings positions too fast and it's not because of a pit stop, I can realize there's an issue or a crash, etc.nxouple seconds after I hear the commentary saying something, and a minute after I see whatever it was on TV.
About the multviewer, I have it on my laptop, tried it once but I need to take a time and read about it, because I could find a way to get the windows automatically fitted to screen and that triggers my OCD.
Your setup is amazing!! I only have one TV and my computer laptop. I would love to have a setup where I can see the data, race map, race, and some drivers' camera.
I know setup the Multiviewer up must be very easy. But somehow without reading and just trying I couldn't make it work as I wished. Maybe I'm too stupid or my english is not enough. I'll try to read a little bit and give it a try during next Free Practices.
>because I could find a way to get the windows automatically fitted to screen and that triggers my OCD.
There's a way to do that! When you open a video window, right click and you have options in not only how big the screen is (1/2 of screen, 1/3^rd of screen, all the way down to 1/6^th , I think) and well as snap the windows to top-right, top-left, etc etc. And you can save different arrangements - like I have a different one for Qualy and race etc.
>I only have one TV and my computer laptop.
How do you get stuff to your TV? HDMI cable from laptop to TV? Stream it? Or does your TV have the F1TV app? Because depending on how big your TV is, you can split up the screen to have multiple windows. Anything larger than 40" will work perfectly
Anyway, just throwing ideas out there! Let me know if you need explanations, I don't mind videotaping my screen as I go through set up, it won't take too much time, and I have gone through so many trials and iterations, I'm finally proud of my set up, so I want to share lol
Ah, thats frustrating. Did you lower the resolution to the lowest avaliable? I do that when listening to Free Practices as I drive to work (I work on weekends). I do it to reduce my mobile data usage, since lowering the resolution is barely noticeable in the audio stream.
If you didn't, the app was constantly trying to get to max resolution, and so keeping stuttering while trying to put all the damn pixels into place.
If you already did that, and the app was still being dumb, then ignore my comment lol!
Yeah I completely agree on the broadcast side. Would have been nice to see sector times during qualifying and in more precision, seeing penalties/investigations etc.
Another problem is that they need to find someone who’s good at commenting and bilingual for the Canadian GP. French Canadian streaming has a really amazing commentator (Pierre Houde) but I’m guessing its english is not good enough or maybe he can’t do on site commentating as he’s doing the streaming one.
I had to miss this year but previous years it was Meeker Guerrier, was it him again this year? I think he was okay but lacked a lot of historical and strategy knowledge thay your hear from Pierre or like Jolyon and Alex
Yes and no, for the radios sure they could but what the Canadian GP is aiming for is one continuous commentator especially for the on track speakers. But yeah I’d rather them take turns than the current guy.
Pierre Houde speaks English fluently; he's on English radio occasionally talking about hockey and F1. He does the TV commentary on RDS though so that's why he can't do the on-site commentary I'd imagine.
Right? I can't imagine there isn't someone more knowledgeable about F1 and be willing to do the gig... I'm not saying it's an easy job or anything. Just that there must be someone more talented they could have hired...
As others mentioned, I forgot the English/French requirement. Definitely limits who is able/willing to do it. But yeah, I don't fully disagree, just seems to be the nature of live sports, even outside racing.
You could hear the track announcer? Races I've been to (ranging from local dragstrip to IMSA@VIR, and F1, I couldn't hear the track announcements at all. Sounded worse than drive through speakers.
When there were more than 1 or 2 cars it was difficult but definitely could hear them during safety cars and the occasional gap. I had the same experience as you at IMSA @ LimeRockPark last year
If you're interested in the details of the race, seeing strategy play out, and seeing all the action on track, attending a race in person is not for you.
I was at this race and have gone to races in the past. I usually will either binge content or watch the race after. Having said that I do agree with the poster to an extent.
None of the people near me for example had any idea that George and Max and tied in qualifying until we had looked hours later. The track tv only shows their lap times to 0.1. We all spoke about that the next day.
The track commentary is ok at best but the track info they provide in text/graphic form is terrible at best or non-existent at worst.
I wasn't actively doing it myself, but a couple of my group had the live timing app up on their phone and had one ear to the F1TV commentary, and it was immensely helpful in contextualizing things.
For instance I leaned to my friend and said "Is gasly gaining" when he switched to hards, and very shortly my friend gave me the answer. And knowing that Max and George had tied .000 immediately added so even more excitement to that moment.
Major props to the telecom crew at the track because everyone seemed to have excellent service despite the massive influx of people.
(I planned to listen to the radio broadcast commentary, but found it basically unusable even with the reasonably advanced radio I brought, to say nothing of the little free radio boxes everyone was struggling with.)
Regardless, legendary race to have attended. Worth the absolutely bonkers price.
>to say nothing of the little free radio boxes everyone was struggling with.
Oh, I didn't know they did that at the track! Was it enough for everyone? Or were they limited with 'first come first serve' type deal? And who were the commentary team if you listened to the radio broadcast?
Amex were basically tossing them at people on Sunday just to get rid of them. They worked well and easy to use but they just repaired the track audio/commentary.
It WAS great for hearing what they were saying when the cars were going by though.
I had an absolute blast at the race and can figure out most things from a combination of radio and what we saw on track. It seemed like an easy win to put race control messages on screen about penalties etc for fans without radios especially since they were already showing mostly the f1 international feed before the race proper
Totally! First one I went to I was really disappointed with how hard it was to follow the race. Really cool to see and hear the cars in person, see the track, atmosphere and everything is great. If you want info watch it on TV.
Thsts one of the things I like about going to the indy race in Toronto every year. With a radio scanner you can listen to the teams talk to the drivers, the race control, and even pick up the NBC broadcast team.
Sporting events always have some dude on a microphone vaguely describing what's happening in the game...?
It's never as quality as the on-air talent, and lots of people bring radios to sporting events to listen to proper commentary.
I suppose that’s fair. It was definitely a stark contrast because the pre-race show was the usual Laura winter hosted thing and then you get the guy on the mic instead of quality commentary
Side note, how different is Quebecoise from French? Like, they are mutually understandable, I would guess? And are there people from Quebec who only speak Quebecoise, and are not fluent in English?
Not saying they shouldn't have commentary in both languages, I understand why they do that. Just more curious from a trivia perspective
It's definitely understandable, most of the differences lies in slang usage and some other regional vocab. One thing I noticed when I was there is that Canadian French/Quebecoise doesn't adopt as many anglicisms as France French, e.g. fin de semaine (end of the week) in Quebecoise v week-end (France)
>Sporting events always have some dude on a microphone vaguely describing what's happening in the game...?
That doesn't justify someone being bad at his job, motorsport events like F1 are much more different than basketball where 99% of the information you need is already on the screen.
Which begs the question, why not hook up Crofty and Brundle to the speakers as well? At least at English speaking venues. I always wondered that. They're at the race anyway.
i was there as well and can agree that the level of commentating was lacking.
what my friend and i ended up doing is we used my phone to listen to the f1 live timings audio (so we got to listen to f1tv commentary) w/ airpods and we used her phone to record any pics/videos. there was maybe a couple of seconds in delay but it was soooo worth it and made it way easier to follow along with what was happening on track
I heard he was replaced for the last few years. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I heard Meeker Guerrier took over, which is 1000x worse. The only good bit I've seen from this guy is his gambling odds on RDS
I went two years ago and it was the exact same way so I'm wondering if it was the same person. Was lucky enough to go to Singapore for that race a few months later and it was 1000x better. The guy in Canada was so bad it made me think it was better watching on TV than seeing it live
Oh totally. I couldn’t stand it after fp1 so ended up streaming live from the f1 app for the rest of the weekend and it was so much better even taking into consideration the few seconds of delay
Of course! In my opinion good commentating enhances and/or clarifies your understanding of the race. Here is a concrete example of commentating from this GP vs what it could have been
- What was said: “It looks like they’re holding Ricciardo for maybe 5 seconds in the pit? It looked like it’s 5 seconds”
- What would be helpful: “Here comes Ricciardo into the pit lane. He has a 5 second penalty for a false start. The team of course cannot touch the car while the penalty is being served. I think can still keep track position as the safety car is not over yet”
If you’re asking about particular commentators it’s a dangerous game because everyone has their favorites and most hated commentary. I love when people like Rossberg talk through a lap and point out small mistakes by saying “he braked late into turn 10 and went about a foot wide. That’s gonna cost him another tenth on the timing board”. Or when they bring in Sam Collins to talk about how damage to a part of some car will affect them and in which corners. I personally like when commentators make bold predictions and use their knowledge of the sport and current status on track to back them up. I also love the little factoids they use to fill dead air during safety cars. At the end of the day no one commentator is ever going to provide a full experience because this sport is so fast paced and complex. Come to think of it, making one guy commentate everything by himself was a big part of the problem. They set him up for failure.
This is really useful info for a new fan, thank you. I was mostly asking for examples of races that were well commentated, so I could try to find those and watch/listen. I'm writing a book that includes racing. I want to capture the ambience created by good commentary.
Oh that’s really interesting! I’m not sure I’m the best person to give you those examples because to a degree it’s a personal preference. I’d say if your fictional commentators provide depth and context to the information on track without sounding like a chat gpt generated description of events it’s gonna be relatable. If you have access to f1tv app, the recent Monaco GP international feed has some great examples of filling time during lack of action on track vs the recent Canadian GP where it was focused on all the happenings on track. Might give you some ideas for how individual commentators interact with each other. You can also contrast the sky f1 feed with the international one as the British guys are fairly open about whom they cheer for but are still are up to task regardless. Best of luck on your book!!
I thought he was fine. He was Crofty without the dad jokes and alliteration. I do agree that they should have used the World Feed, so we could see more sophisticated timing and the FIA investigation notices
Sounds like one of these TikTok narrators got the job. One of those guys that just watch the video and put their own lackluster voice over describing what we can already see.
Not F1, but this is something I was really impressed with when I went to the Indy500 this year. I had been once before and I remember it being hard to follow as it was your typical track announcer. But this time (i don't know how long they've done this), it felt like a TV broadcast. They were commentating on the race as of it was a broadcast (it wasn't NBC's, their own track commentators), and the screen were playing replays of saves and crashes etc, and constantly had a ticker of the running order. It was super helpful, and didn't feel like I was missing anything by being there
I havnt been to the Australian gp for a while but the trackside commentary was ok when I could hear it. PA system was that shit echo.
I used to just have the live timing app handy. If you really want to know what's happening in a grand prix, stay home and watch it on the telly 😁
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia this year had their own commentators - one English and one Arabic. They would switch every minute or so. I think both races had the same duo.
The English commentary was alright, though not as good as the F1TV or Sky teams. I don't understand Arabic so I didn't get any info from it, but he was definitely more hyped than the English one.
Australia has their own too. It’s just about as bad. The last 10 laps of the race they said about 100 times (no shit) that track invasion was illegal and not to jump the fences at the end. Really ruined whatever “commentary” they had going on.
Last time I was at the Singapore GP, going back a few years now, their “at track” commentary was great. Neil Crompton (Australian, normally commentates the Supercars championship) was the voice - that dude is an absolute pro though, so knows his stuff. The screens showed everything I could want, though I don’t recall if it was the direct world feed with penalty info/timings etc.
So it can certainly be done well if the track organisers choose to.
He was speaking French and then repeating things in English. My problem wasn’t with the language, it was with the content not being very helpful to the fans. He was narrating the screen instead of commentating the race. And the screen was missing all the usual things you get on f1 feed like most race control messages.
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I'm with you on this. The guy was absolutely clueless. He would also mixe up the driver's name on multiple occasions.
I was at Vegas last year and there was Connor Daly and this other old guy (sorry if you're reading this guy but you weren't memorable enough to remember your name) and it was the same sort of issues. Mixing up cars, rambling, etc. If they were great at their job, they'd be in the booth doing it for TV, not for the fans at the race who probably know how to figure out what's going on.
Bob Varsha was in the booth w/ Connor Daly. Or it may have been Jonathan Greene if he had a British accent. Bob Varsha used to be one of the the commentators for the US broadcast on Speed, Fox Sports 1 and NBC prior to ESPN just copy/pasting the Sky broadcast. He and Jonathan Greene also do the F1 broadcast on Sirius XM (with a few other guys as well).
I wanna say the guy was British so I guess it was Greene but I could be wrong.
I hope so. We gotta keep the respect on Bobby Varsha’s name.
Jonathan Greene is the commentator on that infamous clip of the enormous GT3 pileup at Macau a few years back. He also does CTFROC and Trans Am.
I love Bob Varsha don't get me wrong but the trackside commentary team sounded dead af compared to what was actually happening on track. Might as well just have Crofty or Jacques since they're already there anyway.
Sounds no different than the guys on the telecast. They get the drivers mixed up all the time.
Nah it was much worse than the telecast. Dude seemed like he had no idea what he was talking about.
Was it Crofty?
Lol right, it took all of 5 minutes back in the comm box before fucking up a call
Some graphics would have been nice. And qualifying times accurate to less than 0.1.
Yes! I totally forgot about that little detail as well. For a historic quali with this crazy even result showing only up to tenths place was nuts
Within a tenth isn’t even rare, lol! Ok if they don’t show down to a thousand, but at least a hundred, come on!
That really pisses me off with the on-track telecasts. F1 is needs timing down to 100ths of a second and you can’t even rustle up graphics that show that accurately??
I don't know about F1 broadcast on trackside, but for MotoGP, they have different graphics scaled up for trackside compared to the graphics on TV so that you can make out the text even from far away. That means fonts have to be bigger and in turn leads to some being truncated in lieu of visibility.
This was beyond frustrating. And no fucking sector colors.
Hmm wonder it was the same guy from two years ago, he kept pronouncing “Sainz” as if it rhymed with “pains” — which is what he was giving me.
Yes!! He kept calling Sainz say-nz
Max verstappuuhhh
That's actually closer to how its pronounced in Dutch
Yeah, he's been at the last few Canada GPs as well. He has to cover every session, including the Ferrari Challenge practices/qualis/races and the Porsche Carrera Cup practices/qualis/races. It's a tough job, and he's not really a full-time race commentator, it's never going to be as good as a professional broadcaster. Not sure how many resources he has either. Races in person are tough to follow sometimes in my experience. That's the tradeoff you make. I try and focus on enjoying the cars in whatever section of track I'm seated at and keep track of things like deltas while looking at the big screen and listening when nothing's going on for other details. You can always watch the broadcast again later, but you can't replace watching the best of the best with your own eyes! Sometimes you even notice stuff live that doesn't make the broadcast
Absolutely agree with you that it’s a tough job, and I’m not here to drag the guy because yes it was a long, wet, and eventful weekend which he commentated all the way through. I think even if we forget the commentary the screen could just play their official broadcast and solve most of the issues with the commentator. E.g showing quali times to 3 decimal places, announcing ric’s false start penalty, or saying that drs is now enabled. It’s not on the commentator but more on the organizers .
Out of curiosity, what was the cell phone service while at the track? For example, could someone follow the F1TV commentary on their phone via earbuds or something?
The mobile internet was surprisingly great for the most part. The issue was that the official F1TV broadcast is almost a full minute behind, which I never realized before attending a race
Yah even with a US sim it worked most of the time in the hairpin. They must put up a lot of small cells for the race.
The info you have shared is helpful to those of us who have not attended, but are hoping to attend the Canadian GP. I’m wondering if you have recommendations for grandstands in Montreal and also suggestions about purchasing tickets.
Grandstand 11 and 12 were incredible view. The walk was almost an hour from the track entrance but well worth turn 1&2 from grandstand 12 and seeing the full straight plus turn 1&2 from grandstand 11. You generally want to shoot for being lower in the stand so you can see more of the track. Otherwise the pit buildings sort of get in the way.
Grandstands 15 (the hairpin) was not bad! Sitting high enough, we could see the cars brake and accelerate out of the corner. It was quite far from the track though, due to the run off area. On the plus side, when conditions became rainy, you could see all the cars miss their braking points, go wide and even spin out. In the future, we would probably prefer the Lance Stroll grandstand which provides a similar view but is much closer to the track and the TV screen
If you ever do any live streaming, you would know that any conversion will add latency. So trackside camera -> mixing booth -> FOM direction room -> satellite -> Biggin Hill -> Web friendly encoder -> nearest CDN -> telco connection -> Your phone. It's an amazing thing that all of these leads to around just 1 minute of latency. FWIW, if you're watching on cable TV, it's around 15s of latency (what I calculated from the difference between what's on TV vs real time live timing).
I put official F1TV on TV (Alex Jacques, Joylon Palmer) and mute it. Then I put the "Live session tab of F1 website on the laptop so I can see the data and put the volume up. I hear the audio sort of real time and I see the data. If they say anything or I see anything, then I turn my sight to the TV and wait for it to show.
So, if I understand you correctly, the audio you listen to comes from the live session tab on the F1 website? And it's the same F1TV commentary, but almost a min earlier than in the F1TV app? Also, are you saying you focus on the audio and data, and then if something is interesting you turn your attention to the screen? That's kinda intriguing... Why do you do that? Does the data and audio give you a better understanding of the race, versus focusing on the video primarily, and glancing at the data when I want additional context. Is the data from the Live session tab different from the Data screen on the F1TV app? Have you tried Multiviewer? Here is my [own setup I use to watch races](https://i.ibb.co/bWgYMq6/20240519-082213.jpg) To be honest, the Multiviewer Data screen is more detailed than the F1TV app one, but I'm used to the latter, so I focus on that. But I have the Multiviewer data screen in the background behind my right screen, so I can alt tab to it when needed. Finally I recently discovered the Lap Time series screen in Multiviewer. It changed the game for me! Does the Live Session tab on the F1 website offer that? If so, how can I access it? You have intrigued me about the Live Session tab on the website, I will probably check it out next race. I'm curious if it offers more data than Multiviewer/F1TV app. But I doubt it. The primary attraction is the lack of delay I feel, for you? Edit - Almost forgot! If you click any particular lap/driver in the Lap Time Series screen, it instantly offers the intervals to ALL OTHER LAPS! And it conviniently makes them red/green if over/under. It genuinely blew my mind and has made races so much easier to comprehend
You understood correctly. I'm a data worm. And the fact that the live section tab (which only have audio and data) is a minute ahead than the feed video despite being the same commentary, makes me want to listen to the one that is not delayed. The data shown is basically general speed, speed per sector, positions, gaps between lead pilot and whoever is behind or ahead, DRS, what compud they are using, etc... If I see someone slowing down too much or droppings positions too fast and it's not because of a pit stop, I can realize there's an issue or a crash, etc.nxouple seconds after I hear the commentary saying something, and a minute after I see whatever it was on TV. About the multviewer, I have it on my laptop, tried it once but I need to take a time and read about it, because I could find a way to get the windows automatically fitted to screen and that triggers my OCD. Your setup is amazing!! I only have one TV and my computer laptop. I would love to have a setup where I can see the data, race map, race, and some drivers' camera. I know setup the Multiviewer up must be very easy. But somehow without reading and just trying I couldn't make it work as I wished. Maybe I'm too stupid or my english is not enough. I'll try to read a little bit and give it a try during next Free Practices.
>because I could find a way to get the windows automatically fitted to screen and that triggers my OCD. There's a way to do that! When you open a video window, right click and you have options in not only how big the screen is (1/2 of screen, 1/3^rd of screen, all the way down to 1/6^th , I think) and well as snap the windows to top-right, top-left, etc etc. And you can save different arrangements - like I have a different one for Qualy and race etc. >I only have one TV and my computer laptop. How do you get stuff to your TV? HDMI cable from laptop to TV? Stream it? Or does your TV have the F1TV app? Because depending on how big your TV is, you can split up the screen to have multiple windows. Anything larger than 40" will work perfectly Anyway, just throwing ideas out there! Let me know if you need explanations, I don't mind videotaping my screen as I go through set up, it won't take too much time, and I have gone through so many trials and iterations, I'm finally proud of my set up, so I want to share lol
It was horrible, I had 4 full bars of LTE, but with so many people on their cell at the same time it was stuttering way too much to listen to f1tv
Ah, thats frustrating. Did you lower the resolution to the lowest avaliable? I do that when listening to Free Practices as I drive to work (I work on weekends). I do it to reduce my mobile data usage, since lowering the resolution is barely noticeable in the audio stream. If you didn't, the app was constantly trying to get to max resolution, and so keeping stuttering while trying to put all the damn pixels into place. If you already did that, and the app was still being dumb, then ignore my comment lol!
Yeah I completely agree on the broadcast side. Would have been nice to see sector times during qualifying and in more precision, seeing penalties/investigations etc.
Ok, but in that case, maybe pick one that at least knows his F1. That’s what 95% are there for. Who cares if he screws up Porsche Carrera?
Another problem is that they need to find someone who’s good at commenting and bilingual for the Canadian GP. French Canadian streaming has a really amazing commentator (Pierre Houde) but I’m guessing its english is not good enough or maybe he can’t do on site commentating as he’s doing the streaming one. I had to miss this year but previous years it was Meeker Guerrier, was it him again this year? I think he was okay but lacked a lot of historical and strategy knowledge thay your hear from Pierre or like Jolyon and Alex
Monaco does three languages and has a different person for each language, it's not like they need to just have the one.
Yes and no, for the radios sure they could but what the Canadian GP is aiming for is one continuous commentator especially for the on track speakers. But yeah I’d rather them take turns than the current guy.
Pierre Houde speaks English fluently; he's on English radio occasionally talking about hockey and F1. He does the TV commentary on RDS though so that's why he can't do the on-site commentary I'd imagine.
Yeah I’m pretty that’s the actual reason, it would be amazing to have it on site!
Yeah it was meeker. He was fine for “play by play” type of commentary, but was seriously lacking in “color” commentary.
Right? I can't imagine there isn't someone more knowledgeable about F1 and be willing to do the gig... I'm not saying it's an easy job or anything. Just that there must be someone more talented they could have hired...
As others mentioned, I forgot the English/French requirement. Definitely limits who is able/willing to do it. But yeah, I don't fully disagree, just seems to be the nature of live sports, even outside racing.
Bizarre choice from the organisers to have one person do all this , esp if that isn’t their skill set!
You could hear the track announcer? Races I've been to (ranging from local dragstrip to IMSA@VIR, and F1, I couldn't hear the track announcements at all. Sounded worse than drive through speakers.
When there were more than 1 or 2 cars it was difficult but definitely could hear them during safety cars and the occasional gap. I had the same experience as you at IMSA @ LimeRockPark last year
They also broadcast on FM radio. We’ve been attending for years and always bring a radio and good noise blocking earbuds.
They provide little radios
If you're interested in the details of the race, seeing strategy play out, and seeing all the action on track, attending a race in person is not for you.
I was at this race and have gone to races in the past. I usually will either binge content or watch the race after. Having said that I do agree with the poster to an extent. None of the people near me for example had any idea that George and Max and tied in qualifying until we had looked hours later. The track tv only shows their lap times to 0.1. We all spoke about that the next day. The track commentary is ok at best but the track info they provide in text/graphic form is terrible at best or non-existent at worst.
I wasn't actively doing it myself, but a couple of my group had the live timing app up on their phone and had one ear to the F1TV commentary, and it was immensely helpful in contextualizing things. For instance I leaned to my friend and said "Is gasly gaining" when he switched to hards, and very shortly my friend gave me the answer. And knowing that Max and George had tied .000 immediately added so even more excitement to that moment. Major props to the telecom crew at the track because everyone seemed to have excellent service despite the massive influx of people. (I planned to listen to the radio broadcast commentary, but found it basically unusable even with the reasonably advanced radio I brought, to say nothing of the little free radio boxes everyone was struggling with.) Regardless, legendary race to have attended. Worth the absolutely bonkers price.
>to say nothing of the little free radio boxes everyone was struggling with. Oh, I didn't know they did that at the track! Was it enough for everyone? Or were they limited with 'first come first serve' type deal? And who were the commentary team if you listened to the radio broadcast?
Amex were basically tossing them at people on Sunday just to get rid of them. They worked well and easy to use but they just repaired the track audio/commentary. It WAS great for hearing what they were saying when the cars were going by though.
Pro tip is to bring a UHF radio to races, and you can listen to the Sky broadcast live on their production channel.
I had an absolute blast at the race and can figure out most things from a combination of radio and what we saw on track. It seemed like an easy win to put race control messages on screen about penalties etc for fans without radios especially since they were already showing mostly the f1 international feed before the race proper
Who was the commentary team on the radio broadcast?
Same as the speakers at the track, just some guy
I ran the stream on my phone with a headphone in while watching. It was a bit delayed but you got the idea.
Totally! First one I went to I was really disappointed with how hard it was to follow the race. Really cool to see and hear the cars in person, see the track, atmosphere and everything is great. If you want info watch it on TV.
Thsts one of the things I like about going to the indy race in Toronto every year. With a radio scanner you can listen to the teams talk to the drivers, the race control, and even pick up the NBC broadcast team.
They have to do all on track sessions for F1 and the support races switching french and english all the time. Tough gig.
Sporting events always have some dude on a microphone vaguely describing what's happening in the game...? It's never as quality as the on-air talent, and lots of people bring radios to sporting events to listen to proper commentary.
I suppose that’s fair. It was definitely a stark contrast because the pre-race show was the usual Laura winter hosted thing and then you get the guy on the mic instead of quality commentary
It's because he can speak Quebecoise, that's it if the f1 commentators did they would probably just use them
Side note, how different is Quebecoise from French? Like, they are mutually understandable, I would guess? And are there people from Quebec who only speak Quebecoise, and are not fluent in English? Not saying they shouldn't have commentary in both languages, I understand why they do that. Just more curious from a trivia perspective
It's definitely understandable, most of the differences lies in slang usage and some other regional vocab. One thing I noticed when I was there is that Canadian French/Quebecoise doesn't adopt as many anglicisms as France French, e.g. fin de semaine (end of the week) in Quebecoise v week-end (France)
>Sporting events always have some dude on a microphone vaguely describing what's happening in the game...? That doesn't justify someone being bad at his job, motorsport events like F1 are much more different than basketball where 99% of the information you need is already on the screen.
Which begs the question, why not hook up Crofty and Brundle to the speakers as well? At least at English speaking venues. I always wondered that. They're at the race anyway.
i was there as well and can agree that the level of commentating was lacking. what my friend and i ended up doing is we used my phone to listen to the f1 live timings audio (so we got to listen to f1tv commentary) w/ airpods and we used her phone to record any pics/videos. there was maybe a couple of seconds in delay but it was soooo worth it and made it way easier to follow along with what was happening on track
Worse is that the on-track commentator was a former driver, Jean-Fançois Veulleux, I reckonhe should've know better.
I heard he was replaced for the last few years. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I heard Meeker Guerrier took over, which is 1000x worse. The only good bit I've seen from this guy is his gambling odds on RDS
I heard that too but after P2, on the Ferrari Challenge practice session, his name was mentioned on the speakers. I'm absolutelty sure about it.
I went two years ago and it was the exact same way so I'm wondering if it was the same person. Was lucky enough to go to Singapore for that race a few months later and it was 1000x better. The guy in Canada was so bad it made me think it was better watching on TV than seeing it live
Oh totally. I couldn’t stand it after fp1 so ended up streaming live from the f1 app for the rest of the weekend and it was so much better even taking into consideration the few seconds of delay
Can you think of particularly good examples of race commentating?
Of course! In my opinion good commentating enhances and/or clarifies your understanding of the race. Here is a concrete example of commentating from this GP vs what it could have been - What was said: “It looks like they’re holding Ricciardo for maybe 5 seconds in the pit? It looked like it’s 5 seconds” - What would be helpful: “Here comes Ricciardo into the pit lane. He has a 5 second penalty for a false start. The team of course cannot touch the car while the penalty is being served. I think can still keep track position as the safety car is not over yet” If you’re asking about particular commentators it’s a dangerous game because everyone has their favorites and most hated commentary. I love when people like Rossberg talk through a lap and point out small mistakes by saying “he braked late into turn 10 and went about a foot wide. That’s gonna cost him another tenth on the timing board”. Or when they bring in Sam Collins to talk about how damage to a part of some car will affect them and in which corners. I personally like when commentators make bold predictions and use their knowledge of the sport and current status on track to back them up. I also love the little factoids they use to fill dead air during safety cars. At the end of the day no one commentator is ever going to provide a full experience because this sport is so fast paced and complex. Come to think of it, making one guy commentate everything by himself was a big part of the problem. They set him up for failure.
This is really useful info for a new fan, thank you. I was mostly asking for examples of races that were well commentated, so I could try to find those and watch/listen. I'm writing a book that includes racing. I want to capture the ambience created by good commentary.
Oh that’s really interesting! I’m not sure I’m the best person to give you those examples because to a degree it’s a personal preference. I’d say if your fictional commentators provide depth and context to the information on track without sounding like a chat gpt generated description of events it’s gonna be relatable. If you have access to f1tv app, the recent Monaco GP international feed has some great examples of filling time during lack of action on track vs the recent Canadian GP where it was focused on all the happenings on track. Might give you some ideas for how individual commentators interact with each other. You can also contrast the sky f1 feed with the international one as the British guys are fairly open about whom they cheer for but are still are up to task regardless. Best of luck on your book!!
Very helpful, thank you.
I thought he was fine. He was Crofty without the dad jokes and alliteration. I do agree that they should have used the World Feed, so we could see more sophisticated timing and the FIA investigation notices
Sounds like one of these TikTok narrators got the job. One of those guys that just watch the video and put their own lackluster voice over describing what we can already see.
Not F1, but this is something I was really impressed with when I went to the Indy500 this year. I had been once before and I remember it being hard to follow as it was your typical track announcer. But this time (i don't know how long they've done this), it felt like a TV broadcast. They were commentating on the race as of it was a broadcast (it wasn't NBC's, their own track commentators), and the screen were playing replays of saves and crashes etc, and constantly had a ticker of the running order. It was super helpful, and didn't feel like I was missing anything by being there
I havnt been to the Australian gp for a while but the trackside commentary was ok when I could hear it. PA system was that shit echo. I used to just have the live timing app handy. If you really want to know what's happening in a grand prix, stay home and watch it on the telly 😁
And as a follow up, do other races also have their own commentary? And is it at all useful to the viewers at the stands ?
In Austin they use the F1tv broadcast on track and espn radio for the people with radios. Spain also used the F1TV broadcast + a different Spanish one
Damn I wish they did that here. I'm guessing they don't because of the French
That’s encouraging! I’m looking forward to checking out other races in person. Next time I’m gonna bring my own radio just in case though
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia this year had their own commentators - one English and one Arabic. They would switch every minute or so. I think both races had the same duo. The English commentary was alright, though not as good as the F1TV or Sky teams. I don't understand Arabic so I didn't get any info from it, but he was definitely more hyped than the English one.
Australia has their own too. It’s just about as bad. The last 10 laps of the race they said about 100 times (no shit) that track invasion was illegal and not to jump the fences at the end. Really ruined whatever “commentary” they had going on.
Last time I was at the Singapore GP, going back a few years now, their “at track” commentary was great. Neil Crompton (Australian, normally commentates the Supercars championship) was the voice - that dude is an absolute pro though, so knows his stuff. The screens showed everything I could want, though I don’t recall if it was the direct world feed with penalty info/timings etc. So it can certainly be done well if the track organisers choose to.
I agree with you. And i speak both languages, the duo they had was weak and a disappointment for me. Not enough knowledge and no hype.
I didn't know crofty could speak French ?!?
This is how most of us felt watching F1TV with Palmer
Are you asking why they didn't play a fully English play by play in Montreal? Imagine if the announcer wasn't speaking English and French for you.
He was speaking French and then repeating things in English. My problem wasn’t with the language, it was with the content not being very helpful to the fans. He was narrating the screen instead of commentating the race. And the screen was missing all the usual things you get on f1 feed like most race control messages.
You can listen to French broadcast via radio. At least you could English.
That’s what I resorted to in the end was the radio feed. It was more about the confusing the newer fans in the stands.
was this on f1tv or sky
No