Official F1/Motorsport thread

[Corranga]

Any bordersdown Fantasy F1 going on? I can't find a thread...

[Rossco]

Starts tomorrow/tonight for practice 1. Is it live on Sky? I might stay up and watch it to get hyped up for the season!

[Dazzyman]

Need sky hd sub again but can't afford it, we bought a blumming freesat hd box last year so could watch it live on bbc. I've got my old sky hd sat here off but can't justify price for one thing. Really fed up as I've watched every race live for must be 20yrs this year

[Corranga]

I'm sure there will be an online stream of it somewhere if that's your thing...

[MartyG]

The coverage on Sky wasn't too bad for qualifying, although Damon Hill seems a bit superfluous.

Still feel dirty for watching this on Sky though. It's a proper slap in the face only showing highlights on the BBC, and delayed by 8 hours. It's going to be proper spoilered.

[cutmymilk]

Yeah they put the 1/2 on the front page of the BBC site FFS!!!! I dont venture into sport but thought homepage might be safe.

Still, a decent result and a fight back from RB through the season will be a good watch.

[NW2013]

McLaren is the only decent looking car this year although the colour of the Red Bull manages to hide the bump in the nose quite well.

Ferrari car is a complete dog in both looks and performance!

Qualifying:

->Open Spoiler<-

looks like McLaren may have the race sewn up with a chance of Mercedes being 3rd and 4th. Great performance for Grosjean. Shame Kimi knackered up his Q1 but maybe he'll be able to fight through to a top ten finish tomorrow. Also a shame he didn't give Humphry a kicking.

[PeteJ]

Great qualifying session, best one in ages and the first in years where you had absolutely no idea where anyone would come. Should be a really good season...just a shame the BBC won't be showing it properly

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Excellent result for Jenson! In complete control throughout and a thoroughly deserved victory. Vettel still there or thereabouts, while Lewis will rue his poor start/the safety car. Should really have been a McLaren 1-2 today.

Pretty good first race of the season all round. Mercedes struggled to match their qualifying pace, but Williams looked pretty strong. Shame Raikkonen was so far back on the grid and Grosjean punted out because the Lotus looked to have some decent pace at points, as did Sauber, although one suspects both teams might fall back once the development race gets into full swing.

Bring on Malaysia next week.

[MartyG]

The red button stuff on Sky is exceedingly good. Much as I hate to admit it. The BBC's coverage is going to struggle compared to what Sky is offering.

[Flabio]

Didn't think the BBC extended highlights were too bad to be honest. Kept the pre-race rambling to a minimum (so less Eddie, always a bonus), and didn't cut too much out from the actual race. Mainly a few of the laps between the start and first stop, and the period under safety car.

Ben Edwards is a good commentator as well. I don't think it's going to be a complete disaster only having half the races as highlights for us non-Sky folk. I've never been that fussed about all the guff before and after a race though, so maybe I'm more easily pleased than some of you guys will be.

Props to Ferrari for getting some of the problems sorted, although it's clear a lot of that performance was down to Alonso driving the wheels off it than anything else though. Kimi looks a little ring-rusty but will be a threat given that that car looks to have pace. The Mercs are doing what they did last year, really fast in qualifying but doing way too much damage to the tyres and fading in the race.

The competition down the grid is going to tight, lots of teams much closer together than last year. And it was totally the right decision to not let the HRT race, it was 3 seconds down in qualifying from the Marussia and that's just dangerous.

[Dazzyman]

Really enjoyed the BBC highlights so much so don't think I'm fussed about Sky now. Soooooo good to not hear Brundle turning it into the Hamilton show anymore with all his ties to management with Mclaren. It was very balanced and everyone was spoken about impartially so good to get back to that as not been like that since Walker and Hunt days. Jenson did a great job as did Kimi. Not impressed with Hamilton with his sulky attitude, didn't even cheer when they had group shot. Be happy for your team and your team m8, it's only been one race ffs very sad to see.

[MartyG]

Dazzyman you obviously didn't see the Sky coverage then.

[Dazzyman]

Nope just BBC as said. Showed full race and about 40mins of after race talk with interviews and Mclaren garage group hug and cheers shot. Don't have sky

[Flabio]

Well of course we bloody didn't I doubt we'd watch the BBC coverage if we did...