Whatever your views on Formula One or whether the BBC was right to pay for it,
what is undeniable is that their coverage over the last three seasons, and
for the two decades before it lost the rights to ITV, has been thorough and
mostly excellent.
Occasionally their support of the sport verges on hero-worship, particularly
with Jake Humphrey’s breathless and obsequious interviews with the drivers,
but what they have tried to do, for better or worse, is turn the grand prix
into an event.
It will never be thus again. Shorn by half, the BBC will be unable to convey
the ebb and flow of a season or put across a convincing narrative.Its
presence in the paddock will feel sporadic and arbitrary. Already Martin
Brundle has moved to Sky, with more departures expected to follow.
Its authority will doubtless suffer as a result, as will the popularity of the
sport. Those that want it can subscribe to Sky, but the apathetic middle
will grow ever more disaffected.
So it was a rather sad day, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching the
BBC’s coverage. Instead, it felt just like business as usual — the familiar
over-excited babble from Humphrey (“Wonderful that you could join us this
afternoon at this wonderful circuit…”), the familiar chaos of Brundle’s
grid-walk (“We’ll just give it another 10 seconds, and then, um…”), and the
familiar enthusiastic salesmanship from Eddie Jordan (“I think it’s been a
classic year. Formula One delivers every single time”).
With most of the real prizes already handed out, the BBC decided to make up
its own, complete with laughably small trophies. All incredibly naff, of
course, but you couldn’t imagine Sky being quite so irreverent next season.
The look on Jenson Button’s face as he was handed what looked uncannily like a
glass coaster was one to cherish. “I’m so glad that you haven’t wasted too
much taxpayers’ money on it,” he remarked wryly.
Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa were given the ‘Naughty Boy’ award for their
numerous flashpoints over the course of the season. “Oh, for crying out
loud,” muttered Hamilton, a man not instinctively attuned to light mockery.
Massa, on the other hand, looked far more enthused with his gong, possibly
because it was the only thing he had managed to win all year.
But perhaps the most unintentionally poignant moment was when the team caught
up with ex-footballer Ronaldo in the pit lane. Once a man universally hailed
as a peerless master of his craft, now he was unable even to claim ownership
of his own name without the word ‘Fat’ prefixing it.
Likewise, the BBC are about to learn what it is like to be displaced in the
public consciousness by a newer, sleeker model.