TV qualifying lacked drama. (Merged Again)

[touringlegend]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

Lee MacKenzie is part of the A1GP productions team as pit reporter and post race conference interviewer. Also in the pits (or at least on the grid walk) was the Gareth (can't remember his second name) who went by the name of Gaz Top when doing Kids programmes a few years ago.

I don't think SKY are going to be sending their own pit reporter around the world with the series so we should hear more from the A1GP pit team pre and post race from now on.

I know the guy you are talking about, he co-presented How 2 didn't he. (memories from my childhood!)


If I remember correctly, I think Keith Huewen is joining Georgie Thompson and Andy Priaulx in the studio for the next race. That should be a big imrpovement to adding someone with quite a bit of knowledge in there, if anything it'll help Andy Priaulx learn the ropes quicker.

[ensign14]

Gaz Top = Gareth Jones, former roadie for The Alarm.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

That's him......Thanks, couldn't for the life of me put a surname to him.

And yes Touringlegend, it's How2 that I remember him from too. From more years ago than I care to count.

[THR]

did any of you actually expect sky sports to do a good job??????

i certainly didnt... lol
they aint exactly a motorsport friendly channel now are they!

[muzza4ever]

I had no preconception - mainly cos I'd only ever seen their football coverage and because I took Sky Sports purely for A1GP.

I see some elements that show promise - if as indicated Lee MacKenzie is part of the A1GP productions staff and Sky won't send their crew to each track then we should end up with something decent.

I was probably a bit harsh with regards to Sophie Aal - but she was really dire in presenting terms.

I think if they hand over to Ben and John a fair bit earlier in the feed then we should be OK. Let's face it most of us just fast forward through most of ITV's pre-show fluff.

A better grid walk would be an idea though - one of the highlights of the ITV show - but requires a suitably charasmatic presenter. Try having it before the drivers get into the cars! I found the microphone under the helmet a but intrusive and please ask some decent questions. Ms Aal was lucky that Robbie's response was only "Why are they interviewing me?" to the rather banal question "what's going through your mind right now"

Finally on the Sky side they need to either come up with a programming schedule that fits around the format (I think this will probably come in the shape of a much shorter programme - 4 hours was ambitious) and they certainly can't get away with 3 repeats of the features as they tried with Andy's guide to the cars.

I think there were also problems on the A1GP side with the timing and the onboard shots.

As has been said elsewhere though I think if Sheikh Maktoum has anything to do with it (and he managed to get this new spectacle off the gorund when people said he was mad - if you believe his version of events ;-) ) then these problems will probably be eradicated by Lausitz and if not certainly by Estoril.