Cutting through the absurd waffle of the #C4F1 viewing figures

Right down to the wire I had hopes that Channel 4 would manage to replicate their coverage of horse racing in the way they would cover Formula One - albeit without the constant referencing to ladies fashion. As in most things in life I was doomed to disappointment.

As I said here after the Australian GP, the main disappointment was Steve Jones (although maybe disappointment is the wrong word as I don't think anybody expected anything of him at all). I lost count of his puerile attempts at humour and even the number of times he managed to get the word 'sex' into conversations. Of course maybe he was trailing his latest sleazy programme on Channel 4. I'll only say it once more as the subject is boring me now. Steve Jones is 'dumbing down' personified.

So back to the main subject. This is a press release from the Channel 4 press office released at 10.05 am today.

#C4F1 live coverage of #BahrainGP was watched by an avg of 2.3m & peaked at 3.2m viewers making it the most watched channel over the slot

Yeah, so what? All that indicates is that Formula One has a larger potential audience at that time of day than anything else. Didn't we know that already? Those figures say nothing whatever about the quality of the C4F1 coverage itself because it now has a captive audience (disregarding Sky's utterly insignificant figures).

Indeed the only important figures I can find say that during last year's Bahrain GP the audience levels peaked at 5.3 million across Sky and the BBC. Indeed the BBCs average figure was 3/4 million higher for the whole year than for this single race on Channel 4. And 3/4 million is actually higher than Sky's total on Sunday.

We can see where this is going. From 2019 Sky will take over all Formula One's coverage with the blessing of Bernie Ecclestone. Bernie really wants to exclude the UK from F1 altogether as it forms no part of his business model which is now concentrated in the emerging markets of the near and far East.

Bernie did a lot of mumbling over the weekend - mainly about the illiteracy and innumeracy of F1 drivers and how they should play no part in deciding the rules for qualifying etc. However my ears pricked up when he said that he has been in favour of a return to V8 power units and abandoning the costly hybrids. This interested me particularly because I have been wishing for something similar myself for some time but was wholly unaware of his sentiment in the matter. I think Bernie now mutters things in the hope that people cannot really latch on to what he says and hold him to account.

I don't think anybody in the motor industry really believes that hybrid technology is the future for ordinary motorist and that Formula One represents its cutting edge. If Formula One were really to show the way forward for the motor industry it would surely be developing simple hydrogen cells or power units using bovine emissions.

Please may I see one more magnificent Grand Prix season where the emphasis is on driver skill rather than the depth of the pockets of the manufacturers. However I doubt I will because even if Bernie's latest fantasy is fulfilled it cannot happen before 2017 which will be pushing my luck.