Sidepodcast

ING / F1 Racing Survey Results

A couple of days ago, Scott W gave us a quick summary of the ING/F1 Racing Global Fan Survey results. The stats were printed in this months issue of the magazine, and as things have been a bit hectic at Sidepodcast Towers recently, I hadn't had a chance to do any more than look at the pictures.

However, some of the things Scott pointed out are worthy of attention. It's hardly a surprise that Hamilton picks up the highest percentage in the favourite driver category, closely followed by Raikkonen and Alonso. I am surprised at the margin, though, as many polls I've seen recently have put Fernando at the top of most popular driver, and he has only 12% to Lewis' 27%.

Scott also pointed out that poor Trulli is the least favourite driver with only 0.1%, but I don't want to dwell on it too much, as the Trulliometer is a very fragile thing.

The top five are made up of drivers who won a race this year, hit the headlines a lot, and were in the public eye more than they've ever been before. The sixth most popular driver is Jenson Button, and if I were him, I would be really happy with that. He's had a rubbish year, been screwed over by his team, and suffered a lack of attention as a British driver. As 6th highest, he beats 17 other drivers, including the ever-popular Vettel, and I think that can only be good for Button's career.

The Future of F1 category has almost 50% of participants wanting more races on the calendar, whilst 90% want F1 to continue at classic venues (read: Canada). Sadly, both of these aren't happening with circuits falling off the calendar at a frightening pace. Reverse grids are an unpopular idea with only 17%, and banning refuelling is also pretty low down - 18%. On that last point, the majority of respondents then, will not be impressed with the 2010 season.

The BBC should take note of the "What you want to see more of on TV" category, as it has some serious hints for their coverage. Interviews with drivers and engineers are immensely popular, whilst random celebrities don't get the thumbs up. Please no cringeworthy gridwalks, BBC. Most of the options around the 50% mark are about getting more information, such as increased team radio, access to telemetry and more on board cameras.

Overtaking is the most important thing in F1 for most participants, with the best drivers and good commentary falling behind. Sponsorship, road-relevance and glamour are not really top priorities.

Finally, there seems to be mass confusion over next year's rule changes. Only 41% think slicks will make the racing more interesting, 64% won't judge KERS until they've seen the evidence out on track, although 16% believe it will increase excitement.

Unfortunately, that's all the statistics we have at the moment. Just five sets of results were printed in the magazine, and I can't seem to find anymore anywhere else. I know I answered more than five questions, but perhaps the other results will be forthcoming soon.

There has been some criticism of the survey on the web already, with some worries that it's a very narrow selection of people - F1 Racing readers mostly. However, I would say that I saw that survey advertised everywhere I went for at least a week, you could hardly miss it. You have to take all survey results with a pinch of salt, as you do with any analyses that come out from it.

Nevertheless, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the results of the survey, whether it was worth taking, and if you think anything will come of it.

Rough Around the Edges

A while ago we received an email from frequent commenter Dirty Scarab who kindly suggested that our header image could do with a bit of a makeover. Now we're always up for a bit of constructive criticism, but this mail went one step further and supplied a set of replacement images too.

Quite honestly we were bowled over by the gesture, and now all that pesky racing business is out of the way, we've finally got a moment to use them. Thus, as from today the main Sidepodcast header has been refreshed.

If you like the design, we recommend you check out Scarab's portfolio, there's some seriously creative work to be found there and we thank him profusely for all his efforts. We're also up for anyone else designing some alternate headers too, although the man has set a pretty high benchmark there.

In the meantime, we have another two designs which we'll run in rotation until the end of the year, and after that it'll be time for the annual website redesign. Which brings us nicely on to...

Turning the Tables

Back in the summer we ran a series of articles looking into the various sites owned by drivers and teams. We tore shreds off of all and sundry and managed to find flaws in the most unexpected of places.

Now, we can comfortably sit in our ivory tower, waxing critical about everybody else's efforts, but what of our own?

The comments posted alongside the aforementioned articles provided as much, if not more insight than we originally offered. So seeing as you guys and girls clearly know your way around the Internet, we figured it was high time we trained the sights upon ourselves.

Therefore, as the two of us are now focusing our attention on the future and looking into what Sidepodcast 3.0 will look like, we're asking for any feedback as to what can be improved. We're specifically looking for Website thoughts today (we'll do a post looking at podcast / show ideas next week), and criticism might include areas such as:

• Usability - do you struggle to access any parts of this site?
• Navigation - anything we should make more / less easy to find?
• Layout and design - is stuff where it should be?
• Readability - any problems with the colours or legibility?

Please don't limit yourselves to this small selection though, we'd love to hear anything you have to say that might make Sidepodcast better in any way, shape or form.

Also of note, Rich has mentioned plans of putting together a Sidepodcast Survey for us, before the year's out. We'd like to take general comments here and then combine those with whatever the survey spits out before making plans for what we're go to do next year.

As ever, we appreciate anything you have to throw at us, and unlike the FIA / FOM, we promise we won't chuck the best ideas in the bin and go our own way regardless. Thank you.