Count Von Bismarck

Rosenthal doesnt like F1, never did and never will, and it shows big time. His attempts to sound enthusiastic and knowledgeable are dreadful to behold. At least J. Allen is enthusiastic about the sport.

Brundle is good but I've noticed that the longer time goes on he has less currency with the drivers in the grid walkabouts. the newer drivers probably dont even know who he was.

the local TV directors always bugger up the coverage at critical moments too. The first corner in Brazil the screen kept showing the back of the grid going through when you were dying to see Schumacher and Montoya scrapping throught the Senna esses for just the first example

[Edited by Count Von Bismarck - 4/1/2002 10:36:31 PM]

johnfelstead

I can't take it anymore. Murrey Walker, all is forgiven.

James Allen talks so much crap during a GP it's seriously driving me nuts. If Martin Brundle wasnt there i would switch it off.

The start of Malasia he started the race with "it's coming, it's coming, it's coming" geez, is this F1 of a night in Soho.

This one it's Montoya, he is " Monster, monster" ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Is it just me or is he an ******* of the first order? Doing my head in.

andym172

Lol!

This is a rant worthy enough to go in the EVO forums 'Hate Forum'

I partially agree - I can't remember what he said at the start of todays race, but I do remember smiling to myself thinking how much of a prat he sounded.

I wasn't a fan of Murray and so wouldn't welcome him back - I reckon James Allen will improve over time (hopefully soon!).

johnfelstead

Not a chance in hell of him improving. He gets worse by each race.

If i had access to Sky Digital i would be gone like a shot from ITV, they really are pants! We have dracula as anchorman, Louise "i havent a brain cell inbetween my ears" goodman for the pitlane interviews. Tony "i'm a rally driver you know" Jardine for asanine comments with dracula. And who the hell was that dizzy brunette who interviewed DC's girlfriend? Second question "do brazilians like food?" Hello, brain dead female #2 alert!

Mudley talker did my head in a lot in the last few years, he was losing his abilities for sure but he was a genuine guy who knew the sport and could express his real love of it. Some of the talks him and martin had were great. James Allen on the otherhand is an idiot, hasnt a clue how to express what the sport is about and on top of that talks utter bollox. I can hear Martin starting to get pissed off by his constant crap, he is starting to tell it how it is when James Allen makes a fool of himself.

Please ITV, get rid of this gimp, say he is indesposed due to verbal diareah or something. [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Funkii Munkii

Wasnt the start of the Brazilian funny
Allen: "WERE RAAAAACING"!!! like a demented fool

Only bettered by Pele having a chat to someone whilst 1st and 2nd ripped passed the finish line and he should have been waving the chequered LOL

Dave

Neil Smalley

The best deputy 'Murray' they put on was Alan Jones(think that was his name) for the aussie GP one year.
He knew his stuff and was interesting to boot. His acid wit shone through a few times too.

Murray is difficult to replace, i'm not sure who else could do the job. I've seen a few compilation tapes where Clive James did the commentry. He was fun to listen to, and seemed to give that 'amatuer enthusiast' feeling that Murray did at his peak.
However, at least Nigel Mansell or Damon hill resisted the call up.

XRS

Totally agree with Mr F. You can hear him trying out different catch phrases.

There must be someone out there who can do better, perhaps Mr Jones (World Champ in 1980) but I suspect he was brought in as the expert, as Murray only missed a few races inthe past couple of years.

Ben Edwards? I used to enjoy listening to him and John Watson (over Murray and DOCTOR Jonathan Palmer) on Eurosport.

rr_ww

Quite like Ben Edwards style (used to do Eurosports Cart commentary) AFAIK Edwards and Hill now do Skys Digital service. Don't know as bloody Telewest cant offer it to me.

Having said that its not easy being a commentator,(I coulddn't do it) but I completely agree with Mr. Felstead :P that we could do without the "lifestyle" bits with Turner and the inane question / answers with Rosenthal and Jardine. Think I would have like to have seen the press conference!

p.s. the BEST commentating team is the Eurosport MOTOGP pair of Toby Moody and Julian Ryder. BAR NONE!

Stevie

John,

I agree with you mate. James Allen is a total ar@e.

He must go.

Jer

Turn the sound down and put 5 live on the radio. This way you get to lisen through the adds, and it has better interviews.

ChrisB

If they tell us about trying to warm up the tyres and brakes on the formation lap, once more..... [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] Arggggggggggggggggg!

Charlie *** & John Watson work well on the BTCC on the Beeb, but the best pair I've ever had the pleasure to watch were Keith and Julian doing WSB on Sky Sports. Very passionate and very mad.

astraboy

I do the five live thing too. I do miss brundles commentary, but the only thing missing from james allen is the cricket bat wrapped round his head that he so badly needs. maybe someone could take brundle to one side and give him the equipment he needs to do the job and make us all happy...
astraboy

johnfelstead

The bike commentators are very good, both on sky and Eurosport. I met Toby Moody on the NetworkQ in 1999 and he is just like on TV, he talks like that all the time. I.E. He isnt false!! He is a genuine enthusiast, i even get mails from him on occasion filling me in on his latest programmes. Top bloke.

We could do with Suzy in the pitlane, she is brilliant, another natural interviewer/commentator.

These people do exist out there, why should we put up with this crap. I need to mail the studio on the next F1 race and suggest they stick a cork in james allens gob. (and a boot up his ***)

mark_h

I don't like James Allen either. I'm not a fan of ITV's F1 presentation at all, with one exception - Martin Brundle! He's the best F1 commentator I've ever heard. And he never restrained from telling Murray he was wrong. Superb.

mark_h

Martin Haven from Eurosport is good. And Amanda Stretton who worked the pitlane for Le Mans in 2000.

matrix

Jim Roseuphis4rse needs to go as well

When Tony Jardine hesitated on Michael (b4astard) Schumachers name
at the start of the show he quickly corrected him and if looks could kill Jardine would be in Sao Paulo nick right now.....

Hoppy

LOL John! James Allen was good from the pits last year, but he does get on yer **** a bit, agreed. Brundle is superb, though, and I will not hear ONE WORD of criticism of Beverley Wassername who does those daft lifesyle bits

But what is seriously wrong with the coverage is the TV director who doesn't know which part of the action to follow. We missed loads of action yesterday. What they need is a dedicated team that does nothing but film the GPs, instead of using the local TV network supplier who only does one GP a year and only knows that Ferraris are red and usually at the front, so let's film them.

Same point as the drivers were making about inconsistent judicial decisions. Bernie's budget could surely strech to that? In fact, he could pay for it with his loose change.

Oh, and those damn ads. I know we've got to have them, but the timing...

Richard.

PS Pele was... well, he used to be good. Too much hospitality, methinks

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

Martin Brundle is brilliant, I love his dry wit and his fabulous technical knowledge. James Allen makes a lot of mistakes and says some really stupid things but that could just be down to nerves and the fact that he's newish to doing a full commentary. I didn't mind Murray's mistakes at all as that was part of his character, I miss him and Martin Brundle together.

My favorite to replace James Allen has got to be Charlie *** though for his raw and seemingly endless enthusiasm

Sal

Chris L

Both the guys we had a chat to in Spain are pretty good too - Jeremy Hart (C4) and Mark James (Eurosport). I like the idea of tuning into Radio5 for the commentary. I'm just waiting for Sky to offer F1 TV to both NTL and Telewest.

In the mean time I think Sal & I will be visiting her parents as they have Sky Digital and we'll split the cost of the F1 TV subscription.

Made me laugh aswell when Pele totally missed Michael and Ralph coming across the finish line What a nobber

Chris

johnfelstead

Bernie does have a dedicated TV crew for the races. It's called F1-Digital and i cant get it because i dont have Sky Digital.

James Allen was an ******* in the pits last year too, he talked complete bollox half the time. Being a bit techy and in the know on the techy side of racing myself he used to drive me nuts with his misinformation.

OK, i could just about put up with that because i didnt have to listen to it for 2 hours non stop, but now, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

There are so many good comentators out there to pick from, I dont care if James Allen is nervous or not, he has had 6 months to get over that, if that were the case, which it isnt IMHO. The guy is a bull****ter and there is no cure for that. Get rid of him!!!!!!

As for Martin Brundle. Brilliant in everything he does!

drumsterphil

iTrader: (1)

What I would love to see would be a programme with both Martin Brundle and Randy Mamola (Eurosport MotoGP) discussing both car and bike racing.

Both are absolute gods when it comes to getting insight into what's going on on the track, the technology involved and the techniques the drivers/riders are using.

Randy is a damned good laugh as well as the perfect antidote for Toby (although I think both him and Julian Ryder are superb) when he gets carried away.

Oh yeah, James Allen's 'it's coming it's coming' comment had me cringing behind the settee. The man is an ****, no doubt!!

DP.

astraboy

hijack thread.
In the words of Baddiel and Skinner:
"Pele was sh ite!"
\hijack thread
astraboy.

rr_ww

Somebody told Pele the Tax people were looking for him!!!

And they alledgedly asked Rosethal, which Races he would like to go to. His reply was "None, this isn't Athletics/Rugby/Football/(Insert hardly watched sport here) so Im not interested"



Richard

BOB.T

Shoot the *******[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] with the exception of Brundle of course

Did anyone else notice how Chump Allen started his sentence really low....built it up.... and paused half way through.... then carried on... really low... SPEAK NORMALLY, YA FATASS CHUMP[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]mad:

I was quite happy with what I saw though, I fell asleep after three laps, then wpke up with about ten to go, tremendous

Deffo think they should find Suzi Perry a job in F1 though, in fact I'd be happy if TV and radio consisted entirely of Suzi, Buffy, Billy Connolly and Mark and Lard

Bob

Hoppy

JohnF, I didn't know there was a dedicated F1 camera crew. So who is the plonker who decides which camera is on for us poor ITV bods? If that is the same person every race, they need a slap. And I think Martin Brundle would happily administer it.

You've all got me going on this James Allen thing now. I just know he's gonna get right on my nerves as soon as he opens his mouth next time!

Richard.

CrisPDuk

I thought it was just me who couldn't be doing with the w**kers.

BTW do you think James Allen will apologise to Kimi Raikonnen(?) for accusing him of losing concentration and crashing 3 laps from the end, when it was perfectly obvious to anybody with eyes that his wheel had been coming loose over the previous 500 yards. To55er!

Christian_Driver

All I can say is get Sky Digital! I watched both Australia and Malaysia with it, and it is excellent.

I had the misfortune of not being at home to watch the Brazilian GP, so had to endure ITV. What a difference! Not only is James Allen a complete knobber, but the TV feed they get from the local directors is invariably so terrible that you miss half the decent battles in the race

There is just no comparison with the F1 Digital coverage. There are 7 different "live" feeds, plus a highlights channel. No adverts!

You've got Damon Hill and Perry McCarthy on the Master channel, doing a race analysis/sort of commentary. It is a bit amateur hour (Perry is a bit crap), but Damon is quite good and can read the race.

You've also got John Watson and Ben Edwards doing the main commentary, and they are both very good. For the first race I switched the audio to the ITV coverage for Martin Brundle's commentary, but got so sick of James Allen that I just listened to Watson/Edwards. To be honest, I enjoyed the race more that way - at least they both know F1. They talk to the audience as fellow enthusiasts, rather than some pleb who happens to have taken root on the couch when the F1 came on. That said, my ideal commentary combination would be Martin Brundle and Ben Edwards, I have to say...

All that said, the best bit for me in the In Car channel. Superb! Watching Montoya on a qualifying lap or starting the GP is pretty awesome I have to say. You also get radio transmissions for some teams, probably the best being Williams/Montoya. If you watch the practice sessions, you end up listening to Montoya and his engineer setting up the car, which adds another dimension to things if you like the technical stuff as well. Even better was in the race at Malaysia was listening to Montoya's engineer telling him he had a drive-thru penalty after colliding with Schumacher - his response was "That is bullsh*t - I gave the motherf***er room!" - which was worth the £12 alone for me!

Plus you get the live timing screens that the teams use, a pit lane camera, and 2 additional track cameras (showing the lead battle, plus another down the field).

Absolutely top coverage. I won't be watching another race on ITV...

cullenj

That has to be the worst race coverage I have had the mis-fortune to watch. Whoever produced/directed that needs stringing up!!!

Hoppy

CD, so is it the case that Sky have an offical F1 camera team that covers all the GPs, as you describe, and then there's another local team who feed crap to us lesser mortals? Have I got this right? Please confirm? If so, £12 a go seems worth it

Cheers,

Richard.

Chris L

Hoppy

Look for the blokes in the silver suits carrying cameras - you always see them hovering around the pits - these are the F1 TV guys. It's not a Sky exclusive - they work for Bernie's TV company and sell the pictures to anyone willing to pay.

Just to give you some idea about how serious Bernie is - this shot was taken at the British GP last year. All these trucks belong to F1 TV.

Chris