Sidepodcast

The British Grand Prix weekend kicks off tomorrow morning and with David Coulthard choosing today to announce his impending retirement, we’re all set for a Sunday afternoon to remember.

I get the impression that DC fully intends to enjoy his last few months racing in F1, as yesterday’s visit to his old team’s headquarters will attest. Today’s official press conference came across as a pretty relaxed affair with just the three British drivers in attendance. Plenty of banter ensued, that culminated in Lewis offering to go head-to-head against Jenson in a future triathlon, while David wisely avoided the proposition.

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For the next 14 days Sidepodcast is going a little bit Great Britain crazy, because not only is our home GP just around the corner, but we’ve got three days of fantastic Silverstone testing to look forward too as well.

As I attended on my lonesome last year, Christine’s never been to a test before, so we’re planning a whole bunch of coverage for you this week. Wednesday is the big day and if you’re in the vicinity of Northamptonshire please don’t hesitate to stop us and say “Hi”. We’ll be packing both audio and video equipment, so if you’re up for an interview then all the better (no pressure, although we have been known to offer bribes).

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Okay, it was pretty much a given from the moment the BBC announced they’d acquired the rights to broadcast F1 in the UK, that HD was factored into the deal somewhere. But it’s nice to get some form of vague confirmation from the beeb anyhow.

Yesterday, the corporation’s head of HDTV Seetha Kumar posted a blog entry responding to consumer feedback regarding the channel’s recently launched Freesat service. One of the first questions answered was related to F1 and of this Seetha said:

Regarding F1, we hope that this will be available in HD as soon as possible within our new contract, but this depends on demand from other international broadcasters as well as from us.

So by the sounds of it, the BBC at least have the technology side of things ready and following the launch of Freesat, potentially everyone in the UK now has access to a subscription-free HD channel.

Take Your Brain to Another Dimension

On this subject Dominic Wells of The Times recently noted that in addition to any planned HD transmissions, the BBC are also investigating the possibility of showing F1 races in 3D.

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Formula 1 fans in the UK received a second helping of good news this month when it was announced today that F1 television coverage is returning to it’s natural home, the BBC. Last week Formula One Management finally caved in to pressure and allowed races to be broadcast online, and next year they will also be shown uninterrupted and commercial free.

This is excellent news for any Formula 1 fans living in the UK, and as pointed out by Lou in a comment earlier:

We are gonna get to watch the WHOLE race!

For many years ITV has been the subject of criticism from fans for it’s poor coverage and incessant advertisement breaks, ruining the flow of the action during what are often the most important points of the race.

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