Speaking at the AUTOSPORT International show at the NEC in Birmingham on
Sunday, Rider also urged the BBC to show more top-level motorsport in a bid
to “fill the gap left by F1”.
“The BBC had a great structure for showing motorsport in the 1980s, back
when I started to get really heavily involved, and right through to the
1990s it had a great portfolio,” Rider said.
“In that time we had British Touring Cars, British rallying, the World Rally
Championship, Formula 3, all supporting the F1 coverage as that was the
pinnacle.
“I remember when BBC lost F1 to ITV at the end of 1996. Myself and Mark
Wilkin, who was the brilliant producer of the F1, tried to convince them to
make a strong commitment to sports cars, touring cars, rallying… but their
opinion was ‘We’re out of F1, we have no enthusiasm for other motorsport’.
“There’s now a chance to do what they didn’t do then and replace the gap
left by F1.
“People talk about the damage done by the current BBC/Sky situation, but
to me the real damage is being done by keeping British motorsport off
domestic television. You have BTCC on ITV and that’s fantastic. But there
needs to be more.
“Through the BBC showing F3 in the 1980s, viewers saw Ayrton Senna for the
first time; Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen… I’d love to see
them making that commitment again. The WRC, British rallying, F3 all are
desperate for terrestrial coverage.”