FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[patrickboyle]

Ok, so I'm new to F1. I'm watching in the US on SPEED. My question is about time behind the leader and how it relates to track position. I'm seeing times like : 2nd +.500, 3rd +33.500, 4th +2.500. Now how can the 4th place man be closer to the leader than 3rd?

[Hammer278]

Its relative time to the guy directly in front...the gap between 1st and 2nd....2nd and 3rd.....3rd and 4th....and so on.

[patrickboyle]

Oh! I assumed they were all relative to the leader. Thanks for clearing that up.

[IceManpjn]

Oh! I assumed they were all relative to the leader. Thanks for clearing that up.

There's different types of information that they swap through the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it's time behind the leader, others it's time behind the car immediately ahead. Sometimes it's the number of pit stops they've made.

The distance behind the car ahead of them is probably more relevant than the time behind the leader, really. Although you can do the math in your head to figure the distance between them after they've given the time behind the leader, the alternative cuts straight to the point and tells you exactly what that gap is to the next car. The reason I say that it's more relevant is because the eighth-place car needs to worry about overtaking the seventh car long before he would ever be worried about the leader. The nearest car is the most immediately relevant car at that particular moment in the race.

[darwin dali]

Oh! I assumed they were all relative to the leader. Thanks for clearing that up.

There's different types of information that they swap through the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it's time behind the leader, others it's time behind the car immediately ahead. Sometimes it's the number of pit stops they've made.

The distance behind the car ahead of them is probably more relevant than the time behind the leader, really. Although you can do the math in your head to figure the distance between them after they've given the time behind the leader, the alternative cuts straight to the point and tells you exactly what that gap is to the next car. The reason I say that it's more relevant is because the eighth-place car needs to worry about overtaking the seventh car long before he would ever be worried about the leader. The nearest car is the most immediately relevant car at that particular moment in the race.

That's not necessarily true though with all the pitstops during the race. You get shuffled back to 6th or 8th for making a pitstop, but you still very much worry about the gap to the leader who hasn't pitted yet. I prefer the gap to the leader shown. I can easily calculate the gap between two drivers that are right next to each other in position, but it's rather difficult to add up 8 or 10 individual gaps to figure out the gap to the leader that the 8th or 10th placed driver has.

[sennasational]

Oh! I assumed they were all relative to the leader. Thanks for clearing that up.

There's different types of information that they swap through the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it's time behind the leader, others it's time behind the car immediately ahead. Sometimes it's the number of pit stops they've made.

The distance behind the car ahead of them is probably more relevant than the time behind the leader, really. Although you can do the math in your head to figure the distance between them after they've given the time behind the leader, the alternative cuts straight to the point and tells you exactly what that gap is to the next car. The reason I say that it's more relevant is because the eighth-place car needs to worry about overtaking the seventh car long before he would ever be worried about the leader. The nearest car is the most immediately relevant car at that particular moment in the race.

That's not necessarily true though with all the pitstops during the race. You get shuffled back to 6th or 8th for making a pitstop, but you still very much worry about the gap to the leader who hasn't pitted yet. I prefer the gap to the leader shown. I can easily calculate the gap between two drivers that are right next to each other in position, but it's rather difficult to add up 8 or 10 individual gaps to figure out the gap to the leader that the 8th or 10th placed driver has.

The commentators do a good job (usually) of letting you know where everyone is in relation to each other. The time behind the car in front is much more relevant to any driver not competing for the win, plus its pretty much a live time difference rather than the time behind leader which tends to be every lap.

[smokin]

The commentators do a good job (usually) of letting you know where everyone is in relation to each other. The time behind the car in front is much more relevant to any driver not competing for the win, plus its pretty much a live time difference rather than the time behind leader which tends to be every lap.

The quality of the commentary varies wildly. We get the BBC feed via TSN here in Canada but it must have been unavailable at the start of Barcelona and we got Speed instead. It changed to the BBC at the commercial break when Hamilton overtook Webber during the pit stops (which either the TV director completely missed or the break fouled up).

Before the change I found that the best way to keep up with who was where was to ignore the aimless commentary (apart from shouting at the idiot commentators at the start that Schumacher was on options while they wittered blindly on about how well he was doing on primes) and watch the screen. As more and more cars got out of sync I was losing the plot but switch to Brundle and Coulthard and their informed comments suddenly made everything clear.

I pity anyone who can only get Speed.

[Hammer278]

I agree, the BBC trio is the best by far. I can't comment on Speed, as I am one of the unfortunates who have to rely on Star Sports whenever BBC streaming is unavailable online. SS has 1 idiot who has no idea what he's talking about, and another older guy who has such a thick accent you can't make head or tails of what he's mumbling about.

[vlad]

RTL crew is as good as BBC, really a couple of experts. The only problem is, RTL has a commercial breaks of 10 minutes or so... Kills all the fun!

[What's Burning?]

Besides the gap time to the car in front there is additional information that's available. What shown on the broadcast isn't nearly all of the data that's available, and if you've got a smart phone, iOS or Android or even a newer Blackberry you can get a free F1 application. In the help file of those applications there is a pretty in depth description of the color codes and the information displayed that's worth a read.

It really is helpful to keep the app running during the race so you're not completely dependent on commentary or on screen graphics. With all of the pit stops this year, it's almost a must if you want to keep track of more than three or four cars.

[patrickboyle]

SPEED's commentary is indeed very poor. It's especially bad for someone like mysel who is depending on them to figure out exactly what's going on. I wish BBC America would air F1

[What's Burning?]

SPEED's commentary is indeed very poor. It's especially bad for someone like mysel who is depending on them to figure out exactly what's going on. I wish BBC America would air F1

You're new to F1 and you know that SPEED's commentary is very poor? I find commentary to be just that, commentary and often times it can be wrong or feel like filler, but there are some very good points made by the team, Hobbs brings a hell of a lot of historical info, and Matchett is a keen eyed technical commentator. I can't comment on what they are as compared to a BBC crew and based on feedback on this forum I'd have no doubt that they're excellent, but I find it odd that you've outgrown them or made your decision already.

EDIT: I wanted to mention, when you listen to commentators you sometimes pick up very interesting things that are part of reason they've got the commentating job. Hobbs last year mentioned that as a boy he attended the first Silverstone GP in the 50's.

[patrickboyle]

Granted, I've only watched a few races so far, but it does feel like filler quite often. When they do make commentary on the race they focus on a very specific part wether it be the front, or some battle happening further back and then stay with it even after the action has subsided. They also often fail to even acknowledge retirements and provide very little information when they do. It makes me feel like I'm missing a lot of the race because I have to look at it through their eyes.

[What's Burning?]

Granted, I've only watched a few races so far, but it does feel like filler quite often. When they do make commentary on the race they focus on a very specific part wether it be the front, or some battle happening further back and then stay with it even after the action has subsided. They also often fail to even acknowledge retirements and provide very little information when they do. It makes me feel like I'm missing a lot of the race because I have to look at it through their eyes.

Just as an FYI if you haven't caught on already... they're sitting in a studio... probably in North Carolina or something. They're looking at the world feed which has a lot to do with what they focus on since they've got no control over what's shown. Wait until you're forced to watch the races on Fox, and you don't even get the half hour pre-race show. You'll like speed's coverage much more.

Does the BBC crew travel to the venues or are they also in a studio in London somewhere?

[Hammer278]

BBC travels to the venues.