The Sport Thread

Horrible crash. Have to say, astonishing coverage - must be hard to film a burning car only 50m away knowing you can do nothing about what happens next.

As you'd expect. Will be a dilemma I suspect on whether that should be included in any highlights, regardless of whether the race goes ahead. Assumed the race was later today with it not being on C4 till 9pm but same time as most European races, so not sure why it's later on C4 than usual.

P.S. Looks like the graphics team didn't get the memo about the kit today - Ireland in black, Georgia in Maroon, but graphics in green and white.

Between the halo positioning and the fact it was on lap 1 when the safety car was at that proximity, there was some divine intervention at play today. Horrific to see in real time.

EDIT: By which I mean kudos to all the safety measures in action, but it took literally all of them combined.

No dilemma at all as he's not seriously hurt.

I mean apart from the F1 TV Pro feed and Sky F1 I can’t imagine any broadcaster had a post-race buffer that would prevent an hour delay in the race from creating scheduling problems.

Agree - it’s been shown plenty enough times on the World Feed. Although FOM were mighty careful to make sure the first close up shown was Grosjean sitting and talking in the medical car. The in car reply was stopped well before the impact and the point the signal would have been lost.

Absolutely no reason for C4 not to show it. It’s a very noteworthy incident, with incredible bravery from those first on the scene, and testament to all those who’ve worked to improve safety in F1 over many years.

The incident was very well handled by Sky - calm, no sensationalism and - once the replays started to come in - very careful analysis to try and work out what might have happened.

There was even some swearing from Gunther Steiner.

The encode delay in transmission from the car means they probably didn't have footage of the impact anyway... the last frames received would have been from half a second or so before impact.

I'd like to think coverage of F1 has moved on considerably from the days of Imola 1994. When Aryton Senna was fatally killed then, the world feed footage I believe was a bit more graphic than what was going out on the BBC at the time, as they opted out, and I suspect it was their saving grace that they happened to have a camera of their own in the pit lane on that day to opt out to. IIRC they (World Feed) were on Senna's onboard camera and happened to cut away from it just before impact.

The modern trend seems to be don't show the replays in any form until its clear the driver is okay, and walking away. I note they froze the replay from the onboard long before the car hit the barrier, but I suspect the following footage (if the camera was still transmitting after the smash) was far too graphic to show, though I suspect somebody in a gallery somewhere had a hard viewing experience as they monitor all those feeds live. The later incident with the rolled car was also frozen on its onboard during the roll, but I suspect that's a limitation of the signal transmission technology since its obviously not designed to penetrate a car that wouldn't normally be upside down in the first place.

There should always at least be a dilemma. It isn't just about the driver involved but also about considering how it might trigger viewers who may have been in similar situations, although car accidents is one of the things that rarely gets flagged as potentially upsetting on the soaps etc. and often used as entertainment on "caught on camera" style shows.

That said though I think knowing the outcome it is better that viewers of the non-live coverage get the full story too, though I suspect C4 won't start the race coverage as live and show that in real time but more show it as a package of what happened before the race restarted. Be interesting* to see how they handle it actually as don't they generally treat the highlights as if they are covering it live, so the opening half hour or so would be filmed before the race.

* Although not interesting enough for me to actually watch F1

Well it has. I think 1994 was back in the days when the 'local' broadcaster provided the bulk of the actual pictures for the world feed, and some were more 'sensitive' than others. Today F1 are in total editorial control.

Realistically if you're going to be that upset over a potential car accident on screen you wouldn't be watching F1 in the first place. That's like saying you hate the idea of performing animals and then going to the local circus.

Thankfully he's released through his team a video message.

https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/1333140470604701699