Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Woo hoo!

I mean brilliant. I love this old stuff. Keep up the good work Andrew.

not available in your area????????

whats the matter with Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ? i thought in this day an age with communications and broadband you would be broadcasting to the world.
how about getting your act together and sorting this out, im sure there are a lot of F1 supporters from outside your coverage that would love to see these clips.

McLaren was once a NZ team if you remember....

Great choices Andrew, thank you.

Regarding the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's lack of resources to cut a 'full program' of 40 - 50 minutes; which is highly understandable, as i'd imagine it would take someone with training and the right equipment about a day or so, have you considered asking for volunteers?

I've seen the large quantity of responses this blog generates and there may well be regulars here with the time, equipment and willing to do it for you. what do you think?

sorry modplod was just complaining about the short clips on this site are unavailable to outside viewers.

we have no problem with the coverage of practice/qualifying/full race in NZ and it's not delayed. that is a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ feed on our SKY TV. so yeah we can watch what you folks are seeing which is great...

I know people will complain about them not being available on Freeview, but live coverage should rightly take priority, as we'd be pretty peeved if live F1 was to be ditched to show highlights from another sport. However, what I will say is I'd expect there to be some time over the course of the next few days where even if it's just at 3am, space could be found to show them, even if it's just 1 loop.

Canada '95 is still my favourite F1 race. Jean Alesi was my hero back then. It doesn't seem like it was 15 years ago! Rewatching the finish now makes me wonder; when was the last time we saw one driver giving a lift to another driver on the warm down lap? Are they even allowed to anymore?

Ah yes! More classic 70s F1. Looking forward to watching a couple of great drivers sparring for the win. I was only a nipper at the time, but it's still the best era for F1 hands down. Despite having the slightly inferior car, I think Gilles was talented and gifted enough to have challenged for the win driving a lawnmower round the track. Just think how he could have dominated the 80s had he not been tragically killed....

Andrew, I understand the amount of work that is needed to cut a GP package from two hours down into 30 mins, and getting it all to fit, plus recording a commentary over the top.

But maybe you could do a blog later in the year, detailing the work that goes into cutting the highlights packages, so everyone knows what is needed. There still seems to be a heated debate over it!

@ lethalnz, i could be wrong on this, but i believe the reason that the clips are not available to people outside the UK, is something to do with rights to broadcast being done by country, so while the bbc have the rights to show the footage in the UK, they dont have the rights to show it in other countries (although doesnt really make sense if you can get bbc over there to watch the race footage).

Like i say, i could be wrong and if i am im sure i'll be corrected, but the issue is not an issue with the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ but an issue with the way the rights are handled by the governing body.

"Unfortunately, because of a lack of bandwidth owing to the tennis at Queen's the start of the World Cup and live athletics, we will be unable to offer the content on Freeview."

Or perhaps more correctly - due to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's decision to reduce interactive services everywhere to make way for a limited and slow roll out of HD in some areas you are unable to offer it on Freeview.

Not available in my area, but still remember it clearly. I wish we could see races like those now.

Yeah it's a shame about no freeview coverage but having this feature is great and the coverage has been brilliant, the World Cup team have even taken your 'classic' idea Andrew ;)

@12 : "Or perhaps more correctly - due to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's decision to reduce interactive services everywhere to make way for a limited and slow roll out of HD in some areas you are unable to offer it on Freeview."


Absolutely spot on.

The removal of 302 still disgusts me. Freeview users are treated like dirt.

Thanks for the choices Andrew. I'll look forward to hunching over my PC to watch these later. :-)

I must admit, i put 301 (red Button) on this morning and knew the 'Classic F1' Freeview chances were shot down in flames when i saw the World Cup mob had nicked your 'Classic' idea and decided to loop World Cup Matches. The nerve!! And a shame thye couldn't give us 2 hours at 3am or something.

Anyway, still love the feature (and the world cup incidentally), and hope that although you often get a hard time from posters on this blog, you decide to make it a hat-trick and keep this feature for a 3rd year, next year. Even with a reduced selection of 3 races for each round, there's still enough classic remaining.

Looking forward to this 'Herman Tilke free' weekend at a Classic Track!

1986 was terrific!

From what Andrew described a dominant win and therefore expecting to bored senseless - it was anything but!

thanks for the reply Andrew.

love the site by the way, great bunch of mad petrol heads you have here.

they don't all agree with each other but they all have a point of view.

keep up the great work, Formula one rocks...

Villeneuve a better driver? Hmm not sure about that! How can you establish that argument?

Many thanks Andrew - Your casting vote was used wisely, I think.

Great to see some prolonged footage of the great Gilles - too often on other races featured he's been tucked away back in the pack in a hopeless car or seen spinning off early on.

He may have been beaten by Jones this time, but made an unbeleivable fight of it against superior machinery- what a Racer!

Yeah agree with swerve1, would be good to get them on 301, but even to see these great races shown on the web is amazing and so much better than what ITV ever did.

Having only read about the great races in the 70's to actually see them is brilliant, and if we cant get them on freeview - well I dont mind hunching over the pc for a while!

That was fab. Great to see the chat at the end with Murray and James Hunt discussing Nikki Lauda's, and James's own, retirement during the season. It's been a long time since he passed away but I still miss James Hunt's incisive co-commentary. I'd have loved to have heard his thoughts on the last couple of years of racing.

Have to say Andrew, can't argue with your deciding vote. Although Alesi's win was inherited as you mentioned, you have to admit it was long overdue.

Who's the co-commentator on the 1998 race? I'm presuming that was a weekend that Martin Brundle was away doing Le Mans (for Toyota in '98?), so who was standing in for him? I know it's not Palmer, Blundell, Allen or Jardine, so I'm having a hard time figuring out who it might be.

@Bortron, if you see about 10 seconds in, it says at the bottom who is it...

Besides Warwick commentating blows out the water Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's argument about a certain commentator...

1995 come on alesi

6:38 - 7:10 Hunt's comment on track layout is priceless. It proves that some things don't change and no matter what people will always praise the past.

One thing "Jones had the faster car"? Given that Scheckter won the World Championship and Villeneuve finished second and the Ferrari won more races than the Williams how exactly did Jones have the faster car. The 312T was probably the only decent F1 car Ferrari produced in the 70's and most of the 80's it certainly wasn't a dog.

Villeneuve like Senna has attained almost mythical status in death, he was a very good driver but sometimes as in the inference in the quote in my first para, he is given more credit than in truth the feat really warrants. IMO obviously.

I agree with Post 25 - I thought the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ would only use the commentary of those employed by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, so how does Derek Warwick work for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ then?
Im sure that Mr Benson cannot use the ridculous rule to block the Commentary of one Certain Mr James Allen.

Still 1998 had it all, maybe it could happen again and Im astounded to see how small gap that was between Wurz and the gravel and the fact he could have been killed had the gravel trap rolled on been a bit higher.
Hopefully, it will be the same for 2010 :D and no 2009 race this time :D

re. #27

Ironically Canada is probably easier to over take on now than in 1979. They've got rid of the old turns 1-3 (bit of a shame, because the look good) so it's a straight run from the hairpin to the final chicane, which also looks a bit tighter nowadays.

I'm expecting serious brake problems for some teams this weekend though. Just as tough on brakes as Bahrain, but because the walls are so close to the track the hot air has no where to go, and on-track air temps rise, making cooling very tricky.

Great stuff Andrew.

Brilliant to see the old drivers, cars and circuit layout changes, and to heartbeat very sadly-missed James Hunt. Also fun to see the "fashion"of the time! What was Murray wearing under his jacket - looked like a string vest. Was he going for the Alf Garnett look? (for overseas readers who don't know that name he was a comedy character in some old TV shows)

A big thanks to you and all the people who put this feature together, in my view it's the best part of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ coverage.

Keep up the good work, and keep using your deciding "vote" for Gilles Villeneuve races!

It was just one of these things that Derek Warwick was included but I thought that Andrew would edit out his commentry like he does with James Allen. Shame that James Hunt is still not with us.

What is anyone's favourite crash? Note: No-one who get hurt

Re: Post 28.

Ferrari won both titles in 79 by virtue of having a decent, reliable car and a bizarre points system rather than an out and out fast one. Ligier were strong at the start of the season and when Williams introduced their new car (the FW07) mid season it was by far and away the fastest, a position it retained into 1980 and it was still potential championship winnning material in 1981. The Ferrari 312T was getting long in the tooth by 79 and its flat 12 engine wasn't really suited to ground effects, as shown by the woeful T5 in 1980.

Gilles was denied a shot at the title because of a combination of bad luck and team orders. When you see races like this, Watkins Glen, Kyalami and Zolder from the same year, not to mention his races in other seasons, it's hard to argue against Gilles being one of the fastest guys ever.

A fair response, Andrew. Whilst I think Chad's got a point on Villeneuve's reputation exceeding his acheivements (he did spin off a bit too often for one considered so great - Clark was arguably as fast but never seemed to put a wheel wrong, compared to Gilles being almost always right on the ragged edge), and that Scheckter showed more maturity in bringing the car home to secure the championship.

However, I find it refreshing that apparently Villeneuve didn't care too much for the title; what mattered to him most was to race - to be the fastest and to strive to be first on every occasion, even if it meant crashing out in a vain pursuit of the leader.

I'd agree with Laffite; he did pull off miracles on enough occasions to be considered so great despite those failed attempts.

Re Post #25, #29 and #32.

Derek Warwick was part of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ team for the 1994 Monaco GP. He performed the duties of pit lane interviewer for that race. I seem to remember some quotes from him at the time that it was not a role that he felt comfortable with which probably explains why Tony Jardine was drafted in soon afterwards. But he could be considered as part of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ team.

Hi, I've just tried watching Martin Brundle driving a Ferrari at Fiorano.
Unfortunately it's been ruined by some moron pasting music all over the soundtrack.
Who are these people who do this? Why won't they let us listen to the presenter speaking, and why won't they let us listen to the sound of the engine?
Most of all, who do we complain to and how can we get this put right?
Sorry to make my first post an angry one but I'm sick of having to put up with this.

Andrew,

Thanks for the blog & a great job your doing especially taking time to write effectively, a second blog with a response to some of the comments on here.

As always it's great to watch these races, I know freeview viewers such as myself get a bit of grief when there's something else on, but to be honest I don't mind as I'm going to read the result here so I might as well watch the races here.

As for the territories, thanks for the response. I wanted to watch these in my lunch break but as my employers servers are located outside the licence fee area I can't. Nevermind...and on that topic, as a license fee payer it is only fair that these sort of great features are restricted to those who pay for them :)

Thanks again Andrew & thank's for creating a spark for us blog readers every weekend where there's no GP, has the Hamilton v Button set a record for responses yet?

Thanks again :P

Oh...and great to see you left the interview with Hunt in at the end discussing Lauda's retirement. Great insight into the 'motivation' and that the drivers of that era really wanted to race for the glory, the glamour was a side plate.

Hope to see some good choices for Valencia!

WHY WHY WHY is it always Freeview viewers who lose out??? I recorded the Turkish GP Forum, which the TV EPG said was on as usual after the GP. I end up with a programme labelled "F1 Forum" but which was 60 minutes of tennis. And I see here again that we lose out? Is my license fee money less valuable than anyone elses?? ANNOYED! Rant over!

Canada '79: Pretty sure this is the oldest race that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has given us full highlights of. Certainly interesting from the point of view of not really knowing how much credibility the likes of Piquet for example had in 1979.

Of course I suppose the big story at this point in time was always going to be Lauda's retirement though watching it knowing of his future comeback was a bit wierd.

in 1995 alesi was absoulutely superb and i dont know how he didnt win more races. 1998 was an interesting race and Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher down the straght was classic. For Valencia will we have last years race coz i hope we dont. It was boring !!!

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?