Sidepodcast

Daily: 7th March 2010

My calendar tells me that it is Neil Denham's birthday today, so happy birthday to Neil. I hope you're celebrating it appropriately - cake and presents. Here at Sidepodcast Towers, it is the calm before the storm. Or maybe the storm before the storm. We are scurrying around making sure everything is ready for the season to begin. We're getting there. Anyway, here are some links for you:

• I was a little bit told off yesterday for not featuring the Mexico rally in either of my daily posts so far. The rally has been going on since Friday, and I'm now giving it a well-deserved shout out. Kimi has been struggling, I think, although I must admit I've not been following it as well as I should. I know Mr C is rooting for Kimi as he has him in his Fantasy Racers team.
• Meanwhile, if you are gearing up for the season ahead then it's worthwhile reading Jake Humphrey's post. He is super excited for the racing to get going, although he seems to be a bit at odds with himself. Sometimes he's saying he misses F1 so much, and in the next sentence saying it's five minutes since he was in Abu Dhabi. Well, Jake, it will be five minutes and you'll be in Bahrain. Woo!
• Finally, I didn't mention this yesterday, as there's no way I would have remembered such a thing, but it was the anniversary of the creation of Brawn GP. Lou has written a fabulous post about the event and why we should recognise it, and I am just sorry I missed out on putting this in the correct daily!

Anyway, that will do it for now. We're back to our regular size daily for today. I will see you in the comments.

Friday Fun - Selling F1

It's the final Friday Fun for this off-season, and we've had some great ideas over the course of the series. From planning parties to writing job descriptions, we've covered every aspect of F1, but now it's time to turn our attention to the racing about to start.

In the comments, Maverick noticed that there has been very little advertising from the BBC for this season. Last year there were trailers every five minutes, and you couldn't escape the build up. Now, even Chris Moyles isn't talking about it.

So, our last Friday Fun outing for now asks:

How would you promote F1? Who would you use to sell the sport to non-fans? What slogans can you come up with?

As ever, the crazier the idea, the better, but serious suggestions are welcome to. I like the idea of coming up with a slogan for the sport, and for the year ahead.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with Friday Fun so far, all the great ideas we've had, and all who have taken part. Now, get your thinking caps on!

F1 Debrief - LOL, Retweet!

• Length: 47:05 
• Size: 43.3 MB 
• File: debrief133.mp3 
• Transcript: Coming soon 
• Torrent: debrief133.torrent 

This week we discuss CBeebies, ARCA, exclamation marks, red vs orange, James Allen’s awesome Twitter thing, Kamui Kobayashi and Canadian coverage.

Intro

Our sincerest apologies, but this is definitely a Twitter heavy show.

Good Week / Bad Week

It's been a good week for the BBC, as they keep Anthony Davidson, and got to launch nothing at all. It's also a good week for Paul di Resta who was confirmed at Force India. It's been a bad week for Christian Klien and Nelson Piquet Jr, though, who are still outside of Formula 1.

News and Views

We have more launch coverage, with Toro Rosso revealing their year old Red Bull to the world during the test. Virgin Racing had an even worse time as their online launch didn't go very well at all, and even Twitter couldn't save them.

Also of note, testing was seriously popular which was unexpected, Twitter was huge, and Mercedes signed Heidfeld as their test driver.

Here's the updated table of our launch scores:

Feedback

A voicemail from Nick leads us into a discussion of GP2 vs F1, we get constructive criticism over our content and my pronunciation, plus some thoughts on how teams do and don't declare their fuel weights. We also almost get distracted by talk of LOST.

Housekeeping

There's a new rankings system in town, and it's based on some seriously technical algorithms, plus Kathi convinced Danny to start Fantasy WRC.

Linkage

• Jaime Alguersuari on Twitter
• Sidepodcast: F1 2010 Launch Coverage
• F1 Photos
• Virgin Racing
• James Allen's Twitter Thing
• Tweets of the Week
• Claire Williams on Twitter
• Media. Future. Change.
• Fantasy WRC
• Craig Scarborough on Twitter
• Sidepodcast: Introducing Christine's Rankings
• McRae Formula 5000

BBC Announce Plans for 2010 Formula 1 Coverage

Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Lee Mckenzie interviews Sebastian Vettel following qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix in 2009.

The BBC had an F1 launch of a different kind on Thursday. The British broadcaster hosted a press launch to announce plans for its 2010 Formula 1 coverage and vowed to offer comprehensive coverage across TV, radio, online, red button and mobile.

The UK's F1 rights holder didn't make any significant changes to its 2009 lineup, nor offer any additional programming . However, they didn't reduce their commitment to covering Formula 1 either.

On television, anchorman Jake Humphrey will again be joined by Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard for pre and post race coverage. Martin Brundle and Jonathan Legard remain in the commentary box, while Lee McKenzie and Ted Kravitz continue to bring interviews and action from the pits.

Radio commentary will once more provided by David Croft standing alongside Anthony Davidson. Holly Samos will be found patrolling the paddock and the pitlane as usual. As in previous years, production will be handled by USP Content.

The BBC's Head of Formula 1 Ben Gallop said he was delighted with their efforts in 2009.

"The BBC Sport team will once again be bringing great coverage across all our platforms, meaning F1 fans can follow the action and interact wherever they are, whenever they want.

"We're proud to offer our audiences the opportunity to follow the great stories and share all the excitement of this fantastic sport."

Predictably there was no mention of High Definition F1 content appearing any time soon.

Follow the BBC Team on Twitter

• Jake Humphrey on Twitter
• Lee McKenzie on Twitter
• Jonathan Legard on Twitter
• Ted Kravitz on Twitter
• 5Live F1 on Twitter

Abu Dhabi 2009 - Schedule

It's the last race of the year, then, and we are heading to the brand new Yas Marina Circuit. Thoughts of the upcoming track seem mixed, and now is the moment of truth.

Here are your final two schedules for 2009, with the first indicating when the BBC broadcasting will begun, which in turn dictates when the live commenting threads will appear. The second table is our podcast schedule, which is slightly more flexible.

TV Schedule

It is an evening race in Abu Dhabi which equates to a regularly scheduled race here in the UK (all times GMT).

Podcast Schedule

Here are rough estimates of when the shows will be released over the coming few days:

We'll be around for every session in the live comments, and I hope you can join us when you can. Either way, enjoy the race!

Daily: 18th October 2009

Yesterday was something to behold, wasn't it? For those of us watching qualifying, we had quite a long time to wait to get to the results. For those who didn't, the highlights will sum it all up for you in a much more sensible amount of time! Here are some of the things we're talking about:

• F1 Wolf had some troubles with his site earlier today, but is back up and running now with his rundown of all that went on in qualifying. Probably best to read as many posts as you can about qualifying to try and make sense of it all!
• Ollie has written about the BBC and their coverage of the extended session yesterday. We've had some choice words to say about the BBC recently, but they did seem to cope with the uncertainty really well.
• In the self-promotion department, we have got the new season page working over in the playground. It lacks something in the looks department, but is fully automatic, so everything should update as the site does. Yay for not having to manually enter things anymore!

That'll do for now, I reckon. I'm hoping that today there will be less hanging around and waiting for the action to begin, but who knows!

Brazil 2009 - Schedule

After a brief respite from the racing action, we now head into the final two races of the season - with the championship battle getting more interesting every minute.

There are two schedules for the upcoming weekend in Brazil. The TV schedule details when the BBC start covering the sessions, and thus when the live commenting thread will go live. The second is our podcast schedule, but you will have to bear with us as we are still trying to locate cables from our move.

TV Schedule

It is quite a change from the early mornings in Japan to the afternoon sessions of Brazil.

Podcast Schedule

Here are rough estimates of when the shows will be released over the coming few days:

We'll be around for every session in the live comments, and I hope you can join us when you can. Either way, enjoy the race!

Japan 2009 - Schedule

We have barely recovered from the night action in Singapore, before it is time to head on over to Japan for some back-to-back racing.

We've got two schedules for you this weekend, with the first being a guide to the BBC coverage, and therefore indicates when each live commenting thread will go live. The second is our much looser podcast schedule, particularly this week as we are moving house.

TV Schedule

We're all about Radio 5live, have you made the switch yet?

Podcast Schedule

Here are rough estimates of when the shows will be released over the coming few days:

We'll be around for every session in the live comments, and I hope you can join us when you can. Either way, enjoy the race!

An Aside with Joe - Guardians of a Tradition

• Length: 46:48 
• Size: 38.0 MB 
• File: aside12.mp3 
• Transcript: aside12.pdf 
• Torrent: aside12.torrent 

A long distance call sees Joe join us from Singapore, tackling questions from the comments on the subject of street racing, a packed calendar and ghost commentating for the BBC.

Additionally, the 50th issue if GP+ magazine was released this week, so we find out what it means to Joe, how it all began, where it's going next and where it fits in the world of F1.

As ever, all of this and so much more in this episode of An Aside With Joe.

Linkage

• Subscribe to Grand Prix+ Magazine (50 issues, one low price)
• Read Joe Saward’s Grand Prix Blog (now with added donations)
• Grandprix.com (including Mike Doodson's excellent articles)

Sidepodradio (Part 3) - Lukeh's Lunch Time Comedy Show

• Length: 25:40 
• Size: 24.2 MB 
• File: sidepodradio3.mp3 
• Transcript: Coming soon 
• Torrent: sidepodradio3.torrent 

Lukeh guides us through a half hour of potential ideas for the future of Formula 1, including but not limited to - buttons to make random things happen on track, and a new insults game for the FIA vs FOTA.

Highlights include:

• A letter from the paddock
• Some ideas to make F1 more interesting
• Some thoughts about the BBC
• A driver speaking in Morse Code

Related links:

• Hour 3 Replay and Live Comments
• Sidepodradio Wiki Page
• Sidepodradio - The Aftermath
• Sidepodradio - The Charity