how many races did you watch live?

[bella]

with the march towards pay tv and huge seasons started by bernie, i was wondering how many races you'd watched live this season?

if you watched every single one, will you endeavour to do the same next year?

if you're in the uk and only watched the free ones on channel 4, did you wish there were more?

if you only watched highlights, why?

did you watch about the same number live this year as last, or fewer? or even more?

[fieldodreams79]

I'm stateside and the Euro rounds go off 730 Sunday AM while the Eastern rounds go at 1-3 AM. I do things Sunday AM and sleep during other times so the American rounds were the only likely ones for me to see live. I probably only watched the Canandian GP and Monaco live this year. Monaco is the start of the single greatest day in motor racing so that takes precedence over Sunday commitments.

Our TV package works for me without extra pay. I'm almost to the point where I wouldn't even pay extra for F1.

[BertMk2]

I watched none live this year - I did watch the channel 4 coverage for all of the races though (recorded so I could blast through the ads). That's the same as last season I think - it's just more convenient to watch them in my own time (usually Sunday evenings). If F1 moves behind a paywall then I won't be watching.

[JeremySmith]

I watched all of the races live, I do however record the entire season so that I can watch certain races again ...
I often watch our local Spanish station because they do not have add breaks ..

[Mike Harte]

None, the same as last year and identical since BCE broke his promise that whilst he was alive that all the races and qualifying would be shown live on free to air TV. I don't record any, nor do I watch any catch up programmes.

Coincidently, this also occurred around the time that FOM/FIA really messed up the rules and regulations leading to my lack of serious interest in the sport.

[Mike Bell]

Perhaps I’m contrary, bella, but none of your poll choices cover my viewing!

I miss the opportunity to watch a lot of races live during the European ‘club’ racing season due to being away, but even if I am at home and it’s good weather, I’d rather be enjoying that than sitting in front of a screen. If the race is being shown live early morning or evening U.K. time, I’m more likely to watch....

I don’t have an annual subscription to any sports channel, but have paid for a short ‘pass’ on occasions to watch a race live. (I won’t be changing if all F1 goes behind a paywall- I’ll just stop watching.) Rest of the time, it’s C4 coverage, live or All4 when watching on catchup. Of this seasons races, I probably only missed a couple in total.

Going slightly off topic, I’ve watched a few FP1 & FP2 sessions on Sky when have paid for a pass, and found them less than interesting/informative. C4 showed them for the final GP, and their coverage was much more to my liking.

[gary396]

I watched a few live on Sky for the first half of the season (and regretted most as they were predominantly 'less than thrilling'). Then we cancelled Sky altogether partly because I'm watching less and less sports - especially football which has becoming a real turn off to me over the years - it's all 'tattoos and tantrums' these days. To keep live F1 coverage wasn't a good enough reason to maintain the contract!

So been watching the odd live race on Channel 4 but can't stand the presenter so just watch the actual race segment (would prefer Brundel to Coulthard though). In fairness I didn't used to watch much of the build up and post race rubbish on Sky either but it was marginally better.

When it's no longer free to air I would consider paying for online viewing if the F1 lot provide it at a reasonable cost but only if the racing improves.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

The thing with the FP coverage is that it is very samey race on race by its very nature. Croft and other (usually PDR or Ant) have very little to discuss about the actual on track action. Not least because in FP1 in particular there isn't always more than 2 or 3 cars on the track, and even then they may getting driven by the Friday drivers.

For C4 because they don't have to do this every weekend they could take a different approach to it.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

I'm stateside and the Euro rounds go off 730 Sunday AM while the Eastern rounds go at 1-3 AM. I do things Sunday AM and sleep during other times so the American rounds were the only likely ones for me to see live. I probably only watched the Canandian GP and Monaco live this year. Monaco is the start of the single greatest day in motor racing so that takes precedence over Sunday commitments.

Our TV package works for me without extra pay. I'm almost to the point where I wouldn't even pay extra for F1.

For me the Sunday morning Euro races are PERFECT, I actually missed the last 2 US/Mexico races cause I got bus working and forgot they were on mid-day. But the 8pm re-air on NBCSN was great. Next year with the move to ESPN, I'm out for the season likely unless there's ABC races I catch. No ESPN on my streaming package and the increase isn't worth it to add ESPN and lose other channels.

Think it was at most 3 races live this year, but did record yesterday. Have not had the chance to catch the post-race show for the NBCSN send-off though.

[coppice]

Watching a race live in my world is being there , the rest is a 2D image on your telly.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

The thing with the FP coverage is that it is very samey race on race by its very nature. Croft and other (usually PDR or Ant) have very little to discuss about the actual on track action. Not least because in FP1 in particular there isn't always more than 2 or 3 cars on the track, and even then they may getting driven by the Friday drivers.

For C4 because they don't have to do this every weekend they could take a different approach to it.

Fair point. I guess the camera coverage chosen by the producer is beyond their control as well. When George Russell was in the FI GP before last I hoped to hear and see coverage of his debut. Nothing. When watching Sky the FP commentary seems more just two blokes chatting about anything in particular....

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

I'm stateside and the Euro rounds go off 730 Sunday AM while the Eastern rounds go at 1-3 AM. I do things Sunday AM and sleep during other times so the American rounds were the only likely ones for me to see live. I probably only watched the Canandian GP and Monaco live this year. Monaco is the start of the single greatest day in motor racing so that takes precedence over Sunday commitments.

As someone living on the east coast of the US, my response is similar. Decades ago, in the days before the internet or DVRs that made it super easy to time day, I would get up very early to watch on Sunday morning. Now, I record everything via DVR and watch it at my convenience (generally Sunday mid-day). I generally avoid the forum or news so I don't spoil myself with respect to results or race specific drama. The bad part is that I tend to fast forward through much of the races anymore.

I selected "one or two" in the poll to cover the North American races, but to be honest, I record those and while I might watch them "live", it really is "semi live" in that it may pause the race to do something like a bathroom break, etc. and then fast forward through commercials. So I could have easily have selected "none" in the poll as well.

Richard

[chillibowl]

similar N.American time zone boat in that none of the answers speak to me directly.

but that said i picked 75% and i am counting those races i DVR and watch within an hour or two of the actual start time as the same as me watching the race live.

[loon]

I think sunday was my last F1 watch, so much more interesting motorsport available on the internet

[Aysedasi]

I watched most of those I could for free live, but having voted, I remembered that I had to go back to the start of recordings in a couple of cases, which allowed me to cut out all the chatter before the races started......

[Alfaholic]

Didn't see any of them live, but, as a Sky subscriber, I was able to catch up with either the highlights or full race replays of most. What I did do 'though on a couple of free Sundays was to have the 5Live radio coverage on through a single earpiece while out for a bike ride.

[Razzzor]

Back in the Schumacher era, I watched every race live, even Canada and Brazil which over here come on at about 5am in NZ.

These days, not a chance. I'll watch most races which come on at midnight here, but I'm not waiting till 1am and I'm definitely not getting up before 8am. There's no point seeing the races live anymore because they don't have free timing & scoring on the website. Now you've got to pay for it and it's only an app so I don't imagine I'd even be able to track the full field on a stupid little cellphone sized screen.

Plus the cars and Merc dominance has made F1 pretty dull.

[Adam43]

Live? I’m not sure. Half of them? That depends If you count watching with a slight delay.

They tend to be on i the middle of the day when I’m doing something.

[brands]

Watched some races live before the start and after the end of the UK motorsport season.
During April-October I'm usually at a track so record the races and usually watch as live. If I've found out the result beforehand then highlights and FF will do.
Don't bother with FPs, sometimes will record qually highlights and my race watching starts 5 minutes before the start and finishes before the awful podium interviews.
Since we have Sky that is the coverage I watch.

I used to watch 75%+ races live or listen to live radio commentary but gave that up around the time I stopped going to GPs (2006).
We had Bernievision via Sky for the one season it was on and watching free practice was new and fresh. 15+ years later it's same old same every event. Even Martin's gridwalk has no interest now.

The household will watch far more rugby and other sport than F1, even other motorsport will have more airtime than GP coverage.

[Hawkwood]

None o the poll options quite covered me, but I watched less than half of the races this year (I watched the first 4-5 races, then one or two throughout the season, and then the season-ending race).

The ones I watched, I watched live. I can't bring myself to watch a race the next day or whatever when I've already had the results spoiled for me.

[RWill2073]

I watch all races on dvr. I also record and watch fp2 and qualifying. The move to ESPN is likely to hinder my viewing of f1 overall. I imagine fp2 and qualifying will be on espn3 only, meaning i will probably miss most if not all of those sessions. Man the loss of nbcsn is gonna hurt...

[Number4]

This F1 season has been a great cure for my insomnia, and I finish the year feeling younger, fresher, and fighting fit. I only managed to stay awake through two races, the rest either sent me to sleep or just the idea of watching them sent me to sleep. Show me just a few moments of the pre-first-practice-warm-up-show and my lights go out.

[Armco Bender]

I watched all the races I didn't sleep through.
The other ones I fell asleep while on the second bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

[Skam85]

Only race I missed watching live was Hungary, which I recorded and watched, unspoiled the next day.

Which was also the first race since falling asleep during the 2002 Malaysian GP that I've missed watching live.

[VIVA GT]

I recorded the C4 coverage of every qualifying and race and watched it when I could. A lot of the races being in the middle of Saturday/Sunday would have seriously interfered with family time. Another advantage of recording is the ability to fast forward through the preamble (and the adverts) so I can just watch the action. My favourite races were the ones shown really early in the morning so I could get up before everyone else had, enjoy them (still recorded for the reasons above) without spoiling the family weekend.
Race highlights that were shown late on Sunday night I'd avoid anything that would tell me the result, and get up early on Monday morning and watch before coming to work.