We here at F1U! would love to tell you exactly what occurred during today's race, we really would.  It seemed like an exciting one, full of strategy and tense calls by drivers and the guys on the pit wall.  Unfortunately, I'm honestly not sure we'll be able to.  You see, today's Grand Prix of Canada was on Fox and while they had SPEED's Legendary Announce Team providing commentary, it wasn't their normal coverage... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.  THIS is your F1U! for the Canadian Grand Prix!

*...AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS:  We think we counted eight commercial breaks during the actual race portion of today's broadcast.  As this was a remarkably quick contest (only around 90 minutes, give or take), we missed out on a substantial portion of the actual contest while we were watching ads for deodorant.  For example, the Lotus of Jarno Trulli retired at some point with flaming brake discs... literally.  We never saw it, as it occurred during a commercial break.  The relentless (and apparently inviolate) network schedule also saw us head to a break just as HWMNBN was trying to pass someone for position.  Appalling.  Just as appalling was the Legendary Announce Team's coverage on the day, though this is somewhat more understandable.  You see, one of the main reasons we love the L.A.T.'s race call on SPEED is that they automatically assume that the viewer has, at the very least, a grasp of the basics of Formula 1.  This allows them to work in more detailed and intelligent conversation on the nuances of the sport.  Unfortunately, when the races are on Fox, they must assume the complete opposite, that the people tuning in have little to no idea of what actually goes on during a F1 race.  As a result, they "dumb down" their call, having to spend time explaining, for example, why the T-camera on each car is a different color... or, for that matter, what a T-camera is!  They also spent time explaining why there's so much red in the grandstands, the rivalry between Ferrari and McLaren (and why it mattered to the sport), and most tellingly, the difference between a F1 car and your average NASCAR vehicle.  All of this makes perfect sense, as Fox is the home of NASCAR and most of the people who'd be watching are fans of that form of motor racing.  But when they have to spend five minutes explaining how the race is actually started, you know that it's going to be a long day for the knowledgeable fan.  As we here at F1U! use the comments of the L.A.T. to identify the key moments of each race, not having the smart banter around made this something of a frustrating day.

*TIRE RACE:  Which is a bloody shame, because if there was a race that needed the sort of in-depth, expert comments that the L.A.T. provides during their SPEED coverage, it was this one.  More than any other contest this season, the Grand Prix of Canada was a race of tire strategies.  During the Quals writeup we here at F1U! said that it looked like McLaren and Lewis Hamilton were going to be in trouble, since they were on the soft tires and the Red Bulls were on the hard.  As the softs were only very slightly quicker and much less durable than the hard rubber, we expected the Red Bull duo to hang with the McLaren until the faster tire fell apart, then jauntily head off into the sunset.  Except, it didn't happen that way.  Hamilton won, with his teammate Jenson Button right behind (for the second consecutive race, no less), and Ferrari's HWMNBN was third.  Neither Red Bull was ever really a contender, but we couldn't tell you why that any of those cars finished where they did.  Except for one thing: the tires today were crap.  It all came down to the tires, and because the L.A.T. had to explain to the viewers why there were so many people servicing the cars during a pit stop, they couldn't explain the nuances of what was actually occurring, both on track and on the pit wall.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Lewis Hamilton was supposedly on the wrong tires, with a car slower than the Red Bull.  Yet, somehow, he made it work and won his second race in a row.  In fact, upon reflection, it wasn't even really a contest... you never got the feeling that he wasn't in control of the outcome at any time during the day.  What more can you ask for?

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  McLaren, surely.  Their second 1-2 finish in a row, they've moved to the tops of both Championships, and their cars were bullet-proof while Red Bull's Seb Vettel had "an issue" that was, it seems, nearly terminal.  Again.  Good job, boys.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  Not to sound like a broken record, but this one goes to Lewis Hamilton.  On Lap 15, he was in third, trailing close behind leader Sebastian Buemi (yes, really) who had yet to make his first pitstop and Ferrari's HWMNBN.  Coming down the run into the Champion's Wall chicane, he got a tow behind the Ferrari and broke to the outside while HWMNBN moved inside to close that option off... which is what Hamilton wanted him to think he was going to do.  By faking the Ferrari out, he skipped from the tow of the Ferrari directly into the slipstream of the leading Toro Rosso.  As the McLaren began to ease ahead, we began to become concerned as it looked like he was going to just run the slower Toro Rosso over.  Just as Hamilton needed to decide whether to evade or go for the chicane, Buemi went straight on into the pit lane, opening the way for the McLaren driver to make the pass cleanly... a pass that, it turned out, was actually for the lead.  Very nicely done, but we can't help but wonder if he had gotten information from the team that Buemi was going to pit.

*MOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE:  Usually we here at F1U! prefer to give this award for bad driving to one specific event; a driver being distracted by something shiny and wiping out half the field, for example, or a pit stop where the car drives off before everybody is done working and dragging the rear jackman halfway down the pitlane.  Today, however, we're going against our preferences and instead giving the award based on an entire body of work.  Slappy Schumacher, as the announcers are wont to tell us every time his car is on screen, has more wins than anybody else in F1 history (and his win total is more than the number of starts that 12 drivers in the field had... combined) and is a seven-time World Driving Champion.  While it's fair to wonder just how many of those victories would have been taken away from him if Ayrton Senna had survived that terrible weekend in Imola, there's no question that Slappy is on the short list of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.  None of that mitigates the performance he put in during today's Canadian Grand Prix.  He didn't just look slow out there on track, but dangerous as well.  He was involved in the usual Turn 1 hijinks, losing an endplate in the process.  He later bulldozed Robert Kubica off the road while "defending his position" at Turn 5, sending them both off on some agricultural racing.  Late in the race, he moved aside to allow the faster Felipe Massa pass him going into the final chicane, then dodged back into the racing line at the last moment, crunching the Ferrari's nose in the process.  It's poetic justice that he was passed on the last lap by the two Force Indias, dropping him out of the points, and with any luck he'll be penalized for dangerous driving in the post-race review.  None of this is new, of course; he was always aggressive-on-the-verge-of-dangerous, but when he was with Ferrari he could get away with it because he was Der Schumi.  Now?  Not so much.  It couldn't happen to a better guy.

UPDATE 641pm: Slappy wasn't even given a... er... slap on the wrist.  No penalties.  Felipe Massa, on the other hand, was given a 20sec penalty for speeding in the pit lane after Slappy broke his nose.  This didn't affect his final position, so it's pointless.  Robert Kubica was given a reprimand for his action involving Adrian Sutil (see below), and NKOTT got the same for causing an accident with Rubens Barrichello on the start.

*DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:


"Oh yeah, who's team is this now, biznitches?  Don't hear none of that Button's Team $#!7 now, do you?" - Lewis Hamilton

"I'm happy with the result, I just wish it was reversed!" - Jenson Button (note: real quote)

"Well, it's..." - HWMNBN (note: Fox cut away from his interview after he said those two words... for a commercial.)

"There's no reason to panic from our side, even though my gearbox nearly exploded halfway through the race and I ran over my teammate two weeks ago.  We've got a good car, and as long as we keep our heads, maybe it'll hold together long enough for us to score some points.  Or maybe not." - Seb Vettel

"I wanted to get some champagne today, but I'm an Australian, I always want to get some alcohol." - Mark Webber

"Man, those tires sucked." - Nico Rosberg

"I wonder if Sutil has recovered from the heart attack I gave him?" - Robert Kubica  (note: into the final chicane, Sutil got past the Renault under braking.  Just as the Force India was about to turn in, Kubica, who was on the inside of Sutil, decided to go for the pits, going straight as Sutil turned.  One can only imagine the mess inside Sutil's firesuit...)

"Did you notice?  Up there in the rant?  I LED THE RACE!  Okay, yes, it was only for a lap, but for that lap, I was leading a Formula 1 Grand Prix.  Me!" - Sebastian Buemi

"Usually in a Turn 1 incident, you only hit a car once.  Not me, though... I hit Massa twice!  Because I'm just that good." - Vitantonio Liuzzi

"Vijay, please bring me my brown trousers..." - Adrian Sutil

"I don't know what you're talking about, no comment, go away you insolent little insect!" - Slappy Schumacher

"On the positive side, I finished the race." - NKOTT

"GRARRRRWWHHHH!!!  HULK SUCK!" - Nico Hulkenburg

"My brakes were turning such pretty shades of orange..." - Rubens Barrichello

"I thought I had gotten away from that (censored) when he left Ferrari.  Guess I couldn't be that lucky, huh?" - Felipe Massa

"I lapped both HRTs and both Virgins... we're big-time now!" - Heikki Kovaleinninninninnie

"Two drive-thru penalties?  When was the last time you saw that happen in one race?" - Vitaly Petrov

"I had a good race." - Cowboy Karun Chandhok

"The beginning of the race for me was very positive.  Then I realized I was in a Virgin, and it was all downhill from there." - Lucas DiGrassi

"Five pitstops will make any race bad.  At least they were all fast." - Timo Glockenspiel

"S'mores, anybody?  Flavored with carbon brake smoke!" - Jarno Trulli

"Lump go poof." - Pete Rose

"We had a gearbox failure apparently.  Second gear was lost and there was no way to finish the race without it on this track.  Or anywhere else, actually." - Bruno Senna

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" - Kamui Kobyashi

So, that about covers the Grand Prix of Canada.  We'll be back in two weeks from Valencia, Spain, for the Grand Prix of Europe!  See you then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:14 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 1966 words, total size 13 kb.

1 One  of the reasons American TV networks really love baseball and football is that the games have ready-made pauses in which they can run advertisement.

Basketball is a bit more of a problem, but they've worked it out. And tennis is great. More organic pauses where ads can be inserted.

But they don't do so well on things like soccer and car racing where the action is continuous. Sometimes they bite the bullet and insert ads in the corner of the screen, but more often these days they say, "Fuck the fans. Here come the ads."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 13, 2010 04:58 PM (+rSRq)

2 Wow, that's some serious use of strong language there Steven. =/

Posted by: Abdul at June 13, 2010 05:00 PM (UElET)

3 There were times during yesterday's coverage that I felt I was watching F1 for Dummies.  Nothing against the Legendary Announce Team and I'm sure they were told to make the explanations, but it sure got in the way of the coverage.  How much longer will Fox being doing the coverage????? 

Posted by: Mallory at June 14, 2010 01:45 PM (WJ2qy)

4 The next three races, Mal.  Aren't we lucky?

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 14, 2010 04:27 PM (iJfPN)

5 And to think I used to get annoyed by the ITV coverage here in the UK! It is so much better on the BBC the past couple of years though, all the bonus and web stuff has been great. I won't go on about it though, it doesn't seem fair given what you've got for three more races

Posted by: flotsky at June 16, 2010 01:07 AM (16eCj)

6 I noticed that during the Indy 500, when they went to commercial they would do this "split screen" kind of thing where the commercial ran, yet up in the corner you could still see what was going on in the race (minus the sound). I thought that was a really cool idea.

Posted by: madmike at June 16, 2010 09:07 AM (CIsMt)

7 I don't know if I like that side by side thing.. it almost feels like the network thinks they can run more commercials because they're still showing the race. You're also getting the audio of the commercials, instead of the race. 

Posted by: pxcasey at June 16, 2010 12:19 PM (Y4/VY)

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