F1TV - Amazing, But Could Do Better!

The Drama! Nigel Mansell watches potentially his last chance to win a World Championship ebb away in a Portuguese pitlane - captured for all time on F1 TV

One of the nice features of following Formula 1, and attending a race every year, is to see burgeoning indicators that this fan-dependent sport is belatedly entering the 21st Century…..by trying to engage the fans. Who wuda thunk it? They are even researching what we think! A notable step away from the one man show of Bernie and the Briefcase (no more showings available). I’d love to know more about the work of these researchers…apart from one aspect – those who have to gauge the public’s opinion of F1TV…

…That must be a shocker!

The Internet is awash with complaints about the way the service has worked. Bugs, crashes during big live races, no commentary, the famous Pirelli wheel of 404 error, and compendium of other daft errors (it works fine after I reinstall it…?!). The service in many ways seems to be still building up to launch (did they think they are Star Wars?!)….for a sport with a multi billion dollar turnover (one hopes this year anyway) – so far, so laughable!

And yet…..I just ruddy love F1TV! Its like a good friend’s awful fashion sense….you may laugh at them, but you still love them for all that’s good inside. And there is a lot good inside about F1TV! Sadly F1 have baked in foibles to a brilliant product, causing annoyance and pining for what the service should be, overshadowing the gems inside.

Years ago, (mostly lurking) on the excellent Digital Spy F1 Broadcasting Forum, in the dark days of local host broadcasters, incomplete coverage of sessions and a dearth of interactivity, there was one oft repeated vision of the future by the congesgetti. And it was an inspiring one. An Interactive service to succeed the defunct F1 Digital +, to let us see other battles on track and ride onboard with any driver. The amazing archive sitting in Bernie’s Biggin Hill bunker to be prised out of his hands. And all of the above put on video streaming via broadband, available anytime….and preferably for a good value fee, although Bernie would probably ruin that!

Well guess what, I’m an emissary from the future…it happened!!!! And just three and a half years ago, still in the Bernie era, it would have been unthinkable…

The Present Day

Now where I live, I am limited to seeing the present races on F1TV until two weeks after I will have seen the race live. By then I will have read copious amounts about the race, so that moment on Lap 35 where Riccardo passes Kyvat round the outside for 10th never jumps out of the TV at me like a zombie in a horror movie. And yet, even two or three weeks after the chequered flag has fallen, F1TV still retains a capacity to enrapture me, and feel like I am gaining more insight into the sport. The very ‘2019’ spin has been the addition of the Pit Lane Channel, with the very agreeable soundtrack of Alex Jacques. I would like to think I follow the races live closely, with live timing, watching with knowledgeable friends, and keeping a weather eye on the timing tower on screen.

Kevin Magnussen hurtles towards a group of spectators (including the author) perched on the base of the Monza banking at Ascari, during FP2, 2019

And yet, the past year, it has stunned me how much I get from the Pit Lane Channel. There is extra radio, Jacques is sharp at catching action, constant track coverage (for example all of Vettel’s snafu at Monza live) and it adds so much more context to moments that were just numbers on the timing tower (I painfully felt Gasly’s struggle in the Red Bull last year after spending a hurtful 30 minutes watching his onboard, marooned behind Stroll in Canada last year, this brought it home).

As the main feed unfathomably cuts to the crowd, the Pit Lane Channel keeps us updated on how terrifyingly close Vettel is to Stroll......

Combined with this is the almost overwhelming freedom to go onboard with any driver at any time. Onboard with any driver at the start is truly scary, and a reminder that I never could do this. You can pick out individual moments, or join a driver for a whole crazy race. And the genius of the onboards is that because it is synched with the radio, you can totally immerse yourself in a ‘driver’s day’. You can really go up and down on the rollercoaster with them – Riccardo’s Monaco 2018, the nailed on win, the anguish and panic, and the fight to retain the win with a broken car.

As the eyes of most of the world focus on the lead battle, Gasly does not escape the harsh glare of the pit lane channel capturing his attempts to pass Stroll.....

And yet all this amazing stuff isn’t even my favourite bit….

The archive, the archive, THE ARCHIVE!!!

This is where the bugs in the bytes really hurt the perception of F1TV I feel. As someone who started watching the sport in the early 1990’s, the Archive is a real Treasure Trove. It’s great to be able to read a memorable feature by one of our great motor sport written journalists, say about Alex Caffi’s great races, or one of Jean Alesi’s day of days (or days he shouldn’t have turned up). You can have really cool ‘theme weeks’ with yourself, (ummmmm or friends I guess…) like I did with every Italian GP on there before going to Monza last year.

The amount of tidbits you then pick up from the very good quality audio, and the pictures, especially on the longer races, is great. I didn’t know Warwick’s tyre nearly hit Piquet’s head in Adelaide 89, nor that Ken Tyrell was having a full throttle argument with the stewards before the race! Instead of burrowing round YouTube and not getting what I really wanted, I get more than I asked for – in a good way! I love to just sit down on an evening and know it is all there, and ready, and you can scope about or go on a random ‘I fancy this’ (I always end up back at 1991-1993 though!). The joy of listening to Murray Walker and James Hunt again never abates….add in a few Sky Sports Tales from the Vault shows, and an increasing amount of documentaries from F1 themselves, and it’s a great mix – (no offence I like you too), Netflix, but for me.

Leyton House realise their 'Independent Front Wing' prototype has a large flaw...

And yet…..

I can’t say I am not desperately wanting improvements myself. I’m just enjoying what I have too, and not staring at the half empty glass (looking at you Twitter!). I’ve had a list of potential imporvements knocking about in my head for sometime, so why not (virtually) jot them down?:

1. Personalisation (I have a name you know)

We have seen the effect in the past decade where data drivrs personalisation, which drives recommendations to users, which drives engagement. It can have some sinister effects, but some benefits too (I tend to think of my Youtube or podcast subscriptions as my own ‘package’ a la cable TV, and it jolts me back to the real (boring) world when it logs me out. And yet on F1TV, despite two years of copious data gathering (I hope?!), the personalisation level is currently….

Zero!

Everytime you login to the app (or even window it!), its like you were never there. When you open the app. This is where it gets really quizzical. The aforementioned login is with your F1 account, which has your nationality, favourite driver and team, store purchases and fantasy team (even race tickets purchased through them!). Given the way the world has evolved, I find it astonishing this information is not (visibly) linked to F1TV, nor is your data feeding into the rest of the service. In 2020, its mystifying the act of logging in gets everyone the same generic homepage. I’m voluntarily registered with Formula 1 as a Lewis Hamilton and Williams fan – would it be beyond F1TV to give me a ‘greatest hits of’ Lewis or Williams when I open the app? Even more bizarrely, no video you watch triggers a ‘you watched this so you’ll like this too mate’ recommendation. Unbelievable that F1, in modern tech parlance, has created its own walled garden, but left a huge hole in the wall.

The basic lack of algorithm driven personalisation is even more frustrating when the amount of personalisation links is…non existent as well. F1TV doesn’t link to any other part of the F1 ecosystem. So if I’ve watched Brazil 2008, I don’t get a link to Germany 2011, but I also don’t get a link to Lewis’ Beyond the Grid Interview, or one of his cool caps in the store. The Internet has evolved from the walled gardens of AOL et al, to smashing these down, and then putting them back up…but F1TV isn’t too concerned with keeping people in. And if you won’t F1, Netflix will….

2. Personalisation (Let me be me!)

Now although many of us, may want more, the selection of stuff on F1TV is pretty epic in my view. If you want my list of favourite races from the app….

There isn’t one!

Yes that’s right, you CANNOT favourite races in the app. I know it is unfair expecting F1TV to be as sophisticated as Youtube, but I don’t think YouTube copyrighted the concept of favourited videos….

The worst of this is that there is such a diversity of videos, that even a simple favouriting system wouldn’t be enough. Oh no….for example, back when I started watching F1 I loved Nigel Mansell as much as I do Lewis now…what if I wanted to create separate playlists for Nigel’s best races then and Lewis’s best races now? What about the Aguri Suzuki fan who wants to bookmark Suzuka 1990 and Bahrain 2006 (think about it)? And wouldn’t it be brilliant to ‘note’ moments during races – I would note Mansell’s stunning pass of Senna in Barcelona 1991, but also him pulling into the pitlane at the same track four years later to end an era…

Sad face!

3. Personalisation (Let me be me…..in front of others)

Now Nigel’s McLaren pulling down the pitlane that sad day is an example of a moment more significant than it seems on first viewing. So I’ll tag, and I know it is there, and the race might even make my putative ‘Top 5 Nigel Mansell Daft Moments’ playlist. But…why should I only see it?!

Spotify only has a finite number of tunes, and the algorithm won’t always throw up enough new, interesting ones to keep people on there. But another way they drive engagement is by making playlists, visible to everybody. You might see a playlist, posted by a friend on Facebook or a celebrity on Instagram. These might be uber mainstream, or ridiculously specific. But no matter either way, they do their job for the major platform. One that F1TV, coldly and harshly, is competing for people’s time with. And yet F1TV seems set up not to do extra things to keep people there. Set it up, and drive discussion and engagement. Get the drivers to create their own playlists, and celebrity fans too!

4. Personalisation (Its Good to Talk)

Probably the most risky one here (have you seen the comments under YouTube videos?!) but enable a comments system under the races, or a related forum, and link it to the tagging system, let the discussion and comments flow, and keep people in F1’s ecosystem that little longer.

5. Shows Shows Shows

Now to be fair F1TV is doing pretty well with adding shows. Tech Talk, Paddock Pass, and some very good documentaries. On top, I’d like to see F1TV take advantage of the fact they can’t take their paddock pass away from themselves. Play around with the freedom, do a hard hitting ‘Big Debate’ show, do a comedy show taking the mickey out of paddock personalities (in a sport that takes itself very seriously, even funnier) and even stick a fun cartoon on there…

6. Get Everything!

The burglars have made a good start in raiding the vaults of Biggin Hill, and hopefully there is more pre 1981 content to come with the Brunswick Films acquisition, but I can’t help fixating on comments made when the service was launched that the amount of footage in the adults is just staggering, probably needing Oceans Eleven to cart it all off. If possible, just let us have all the full length races, all those old qualifying sessions and onboards and pit lane footage. Maybe few individually will watch each video, but remember once the sunk cost of finding and uploading has been incurred, more videos will drive more engagement, more discussion, tagging, playlists, social media and keep people subscribing!

7. What is everything?

Now this might be trickier, but it might be worth exploring if F1 wants a comprehensive mega platform that can compete with giga platforms. Part of the inexorable rise of the tech superpowers has been their capacity to monetise things traditional media companies wouldn’t have given a second look, and get others working for them. When I take lovely little videos like my favorite ever by the Ascari Bridge at Monza (3 views), even though it was taken within the track and F1 is the copyright holder, its YouTube who gets more of that millionth of a cent (and they all do add up!). And think of all the camera phone videos from F1 fans on there….

Hang on….

So instead of letting Google/Alphabet count the cash and reap the commitment of hardcore fans….get in there yourself F1…on your own footage! Let fans upload directly to F1TV, to sit alongside FOM’s own footage in a separate folder on the app, that can be recommended, commented and playlisted by F1 fans. Why have F1 fans leak out to Youtube, when you can keep them for yourselves?

8. The Bleedin’ Obvious

Lastly…the obvious ones that are always brought up….I have a Chromecast, a Firestick, a Smart TV and a PlayStation 4, yet can’t get F1 TV on any of them. Make it much easier to get on the big screen and surely the numbers of satisfied customers go up. Fix the crashes that especially seem to afflict live viewers from what I read. And for goodness sake, if I pause the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at 44 minutes in on a Tuesday, please make the app remember that by Thursday….

So that’s my suggestions - F1TV is excellent and what I’ve dreamed about for years, but my goodness is there a load of unused potential within it. I’ll continue to enjoy it immensely, and I hope my ideas are heard by those poor F1TV researchers….