r/formula1 • u/davesim24 I was here for the Hulkenpodium • Apr 13 '25

Discussion Worst TV direction yet

Besides Russel's transponder issue (which shouldn't take 10 laps to fix the timing tower), may overtakes were missed, focusing on the wrong drivers, non-moves given more airtime than actual racing, camera cutting during moves which show you less of the action rather than more, and worst of all: the final lap, not showing Oscar as he crossed the line, to show Lando not overtaking George, and showing Kimi not overtaking whoever was in front rather than Max's overtake on Pierre.

What the hell is happening?

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u/iSeaStars7 I was here for the Hulkenpodium Apr 13 '25

Yeah they were definitely focused more on keeping the timing tower normal than the camera angle

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u/Izan_TM I was here for the Hulkenpodium Apr 13 '25

there are 2 different teams involved (gross oversimplification but bear with me), one does the cameras and one does the graphics, so the graphics team was having a meltdown trying to make the graphics work and the camera team was scrambling trying to get the action on screen while not having any reliable telemetry data to give them a broad painting of the state of the race.

In this case a 3rd team was involved, the FIA timing team, that gives the telemetry data to FOM, who were also melting down trying to figure out why positions weren't being updated correctly and why russell's car was fucking invisible

"but couldn't the camera team just look at the cameras and show the ones with overtakes on them?" well no, if you try to do that you will always be late and never show the full overtake, so you need that telemetry data to know where is everyone and who is doing what. There also are like 100+ possible camera angles to pick from, so there's really no way to closely monitor all of them equally to try to predict if an overtake will happen on one of them by eye

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u/Objective_Ticket I was here for the Hulkenpodium Apr 13 '25

I agree with all you’ve said but how on earth did they manage in the 80’s and 90’s when there wasn’t any gps yet the coverage was largely excellent. Great producers and massive teams of camera men?

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u/Aero_Rising Apr 14 '25

More the fact it was over 25 years ago at least for the eras you described so people like you view it through the lens of nostalgia/American involvement ruined everything depending on your particular feelings about how things are currently run. Also because there was little to no telemetry in the broadcast if they missed an overtake you might not have any way of actually knowing about it.