Well I thought so.

The program was obviously aimed at a less knowledgable audience but I liked the format.

Also the film of Robbie Head giving Jon Desborough driving instruction in the new 555 liveried Scoob was good.

I'll certainly be watching tonight's show.

Yeah I thought it was good,especially for the viewers new to rallying. Lets hope tbey keep it up over the next 12 months.

Chip.

Yeah a good start,I've been inundated with people at work today asking questions about Rallying in General following the program last night & comments like "Eh your car was on Tele last night was'nt it" etc.... where I simply replied with " Yeah,did ya like it";);)

555

Sorry to disagree, I thought it was crap, too much talking and not enough action, seemed to focus pretty much on McRae and Burns, what about the Mitsubishi's, the only time I saw them was an in car shot at night with Delecour driving.

Early days guys. Remember that apart from the sparse coverage on BBC, those without Sky etc maybe won't have seen the championship before, hence the brief explanation about rounds, scoring etc.

It was only the first day, but seemed a decent mix of rallying and interviews. Burns - you're a lucky lucky boy. Let's hope that doesn't last all season.

Do the graphics look very similar to last years coverage on Eurosport with the maps zooming in, or have I seen this somewhere else?

One last thing, were the Focuses (Foci?) lighter blue up the side due to salt, or is this a new graphics scheme?

Mike.

I thnk the graphics are done by the production team that is part of Dave Richards organisation.

The graohics are also used on the WRC PS2 game, which I don't think has anything to do with Eurosport either.

I think Eurosport are given the coverage for the day which they either play as it is, or edit, and then do the voice overs.

i thought it was a good start.sum gud ideas sum poor.overall think you get a good flavour of the monte.The channel 4 coverage on the 1600 uk championship was brillaint so i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest this is the intro for the wrc for those who can't tell theor time controls from their parc ferme's. Hopefully more rally and less chat in sweden.
robbie brilliant. pPenny what a surprise shes done really well.
burnsie..predictable. Colin actually came across well.Alastair the star in the wings?

Yeah, overall pretty good - lots of airtime which is what the sport needs. Could do with more action and less talking, and I still prefer the Eurosport format (music's better!), but I was looking forward to the hour long fix all day today!

APJ

I second your thoughts on the ratio of talking and action. A lot of the stuff that is being covered during the rally could have been included in an hour long preview program on the Thursday before a rally starts.

This would leave more time for action and comment for the action that has taken place over during the days rallying.

I do enjoy the reports that are done about what goes on behind the scenes and what a team gets up to during a rally, hopefully as the audience gets more educated there will be more action.

I'm sure that in last night hours long program there was less action than the equivalent Eurosport half hour round up.

Yep I agree, good start & a nice intro for newbies (and the preview on the drivers on Thursday)

They now need to get more action & less studo chat, I will have to watch Eurosport as well to compare.

It sure beats the BBC's pathetic 1/2 hour highlights!

Gonna throw my two penneth in. I think that the new format is OK. Not great but just OK. The complaint I have is, as others have said; Not enough action and too much talking. Plus how many cars are actually doing this rally? Six or Seven? I know its the World Rally championship but what about the up and coming drivers who aren't in works entered cars? Do they not exist? looking at the results elsewhere on the net, the Super 1600 battle has been awesome. I think the top car was up to 15th overall and beating some pretty big names in WRC machinery. I think that C4 need to have a little look about and rearrange things.
PS The same crack about 6 or 7 cars applies to the video of last years WRC as well. Poor.

I enjoyed the C4 coverage. Considering their program has to cater for the novice and hardcore fan, I think they did well. So much better than the Beebs offering.

However, I hope they drop the 'lurve' machine references, when Loeb competes! And what the hell is Tommi wearing, it looks like bike leathers!

What a great season we have to look forward to!

There was a little more action in tonights program, which was great, especially the in car footage of some of the decents from the Cols (if only it was as easy as Petter makes it look).

Hopefully in Sweden the Friday and Saturday shows will show more action from the stages.

But yes much better than the BBCs half hour two weeks after the event has been completed.

Did I watch the same program?

What new graphics?

Without looking at the top right hand corner "eurosport" I wouldn't have known it was NEW to CH4

After all the promises of Overlayed coverage and PS2 graphics

I for one was dissapointed

Still it was on at the time it said unlike Eurosport

5/10 try harder next time


Phil :(

Guys.
It's impossible to squeeze in all the action from evry category, every car, every driver and cater to all tastes in between in such a short 1 hour programme. We should be thankful that we get an hour a night whilst the rally is on, especially on terestrial (non sat). I really enjoyed both the chat and the action. It gives a good balance for everyone. Informative pundit chats with behind the scenes to boot. Nice from Max Mosely to say that WRC should be as big as F1 soon!! Let's hope so.

One last positive.
All this good 'advertisement' should boost the residual sale price of our motors!

I fully agree with Al. I enjoyed the coverage of the stages and the frequent driver chats are really welcome. The presenters are sound and have attracted some interesting guests (even though the Herbert chap was solidly on the fence). So far so good and an excellent result for the SWRT it seems.

Herbert on the fence? I was siutting there wondering what he was talking about... apparently driving an F1 car with slicks on a dry track is like driving a rally car on ice!

Another one I loved was "the rally cars have more aids than F1 cars"... such a launch control, traction control, ABS?

The show was better than the BBC's efforts but it does need less studio time.

I was quite amused that guy doing the driver interviews would just not let the 2 minute penalty drop... ever! ;)

I thought Herbert was talking out of his bottom - he didn't even have the facts straight about how many Citroens had retired at the start.

Overall I thought the coverage was excellent; much better than the BBC can do even for the UK rally. Just need to tell Penny Mallory not to shout though - that's what microphones are for :D:D

I thought the coverage was ok too ! again could have done with more action and less talking but not as bad a start as it could have been had they copied the BBC format !!!!

Have you checked out the website too ?

http://www.channel4.co.uk/sport/microsites/W/wrc/index.html