Everything about watching a Formula 1 race in the metal is all that you could want from a motor sport event. The noise, the feeling, the smells, the fans, the atmosphere… it’s just the best. Apart from one thing: after the first round of stops, you’ve no idea what the hell’s going on.
Yes, if you’ve shelled out for one of those Koala Bear tellys, or you’re in a box or one of the garages or watching it on TV in your motorhome, then you know what’s happening. But if you’re in a grandstand, then it’s hard to keep track of everyone.
You know who’s in the lead, and you have some idea of the top runners, but it’s very easy to lose touch with who’s exactly where. Especially when the cars are spinning off as much as they were today.
So how about this: LEDs.
At Le Mans, the cars all have three lights on each of their sides. The class leader has one light lit, 2nd place has two and 3rd has three, so you know who’s where.
So let’s do it with Formula 1 too, only as it’s the best of the best, why not cover the whole field?
The cars could each have a small cluster of LEDs just behind the airbox, or some such, that then displayed the position number that each driver’s in.
They could even have the bad weather lights at the back showing the position too – constantly on if the weather’s good, flashing if not – so drivers coming up on a car would know what they’ve got to gain by overtaking the car in front.
It would be a little extra donkey/carrot type incentive when a driver saw a flashing 1 on a car six seconds up the road.
LED numbers should be easy to make happen for some of the brightest brain boxes on earth, and we the punters would all know exactly who was where on track at any given time, just from a quick glance at the car we were interested in.
Obviously, this is just an idea I’ve had, so if you don’t like it, then suggest some of your own. Who knows, if we make enough noise, maybe Bernie and Max will listen?
The paying punters get over looked too often in this game…
Agreed on this – I managed to stay on top of what was going on at Le Mans this year by listening to the odd bit of booming French commentary and keeping an eye on the car position LEDs.
It made it easy to work out who was racing for position, and has the added benefit of helping to avoid those TV commentary cockups in the vein of “and it’s Massa passing Coulthard for 9th…, no, wait, that’s Kimi passing Webber for 4th. We think.”
I’d love to see the back of the car that’s bringing up the rear. He’d have more lights than an old man’s birthday cake!
I have to admit I think that’s a truly brilliant idea – absolutely why not – it should be a total doddle for them to sort out – it’s all GPS and electronic timing anyway, so why not. Great Idea!
Even easier still (and possibly more informative) would be to show the number of positions a car has moved up or, a simple arrow in the appropriate direction followed by a number. Giving an indication of who is fairing well, so long as you have a good idea of what the qauli’ positions where.
A small portable radio is always a good idea at sporting events, i bring one to the football for when nature calls. Nothing wore than hearing a crowd cheer and not know who scored.
there should be a tower or two at each track so everyone on the track and in the stands can see it and know where the are, or if they could squeez the position # on the wheel and maybe time behind too.
Good idea
How about a scoreboard or 2? maybe like the ones at the cricket which show replays of wickets, they could show replays of spin offs and overtakings for the people in the “wrong” part of the track at the time? that way a quick glance now and then would let you know exactly where everyone is.
That’s one of those ridiculous ideas that stops being ridiculous when you think about it for more than a couple of seconds and starts to make perfect sense…
great idea, another one is to have the tower of numbers, like in indianapolis, where it puts the car number next to the position, although only certain fans near to the tower could view this.
I was thinking of going to silverstone this year, and in many ways glad i didnt with the rain and mud and the fact that it was such a thriller on the TV!
I swear there are giant TV screens at Silverstone, so why don’t they just put all the ITV graphics on them?
I know they’d rather be shot in the face than use any idea from the US, but at NASCAR races you can rent a little gadget from Sprint/Nextel that gives you the TV broadcast, running order, or what ever other stats you want. http://sprintenterprise.c om/speed/?id9=Ad_2008q2_n ascar_fanview_300×250&#fa nview
Yes Mikeado, there are giant screens at silverstone, and they get exactly the same feed that ITV watchers get – graphics and all.
I was one of the lucky (and brave) ones to be there at the grand prix yesterday and my dad and i found the easiest way to keep track of positions and who was where was by using the same method that the drivers use. By looking at the pit boards we could watch Hamiltons lead grow from about 4 seconds to the massive 68 seconds by which he won. This method is handy if you know the drivers helmets but if you’re not that familiar you might struggle.
Delanie:
they already do this at the F1 races, just as Jamie mentioned in his original post…
“Yes, if you’ve shelled out for one of those Koala Bear tellys”
He was joking when he called them Koala Bear tellys, it’s actually called ‘Kangaroo TV’. They’re excellent and give you everything the US model does and more, including the team’s radio.
http://formula1.about.com /od/resourcesandenhancer s/a/kangarootv.htm
There’s a Java app on formula1.com (official site) that shows live timings and even has commentary. During qualifying it show split times for each driving and is colour coded so you can see who has the fastest sector time.
Get a decent phone and bobs your uncle.
LED’s denoting position are for events where there’s a large number of competitors in different classes. F1 is a fairly small field.
Why look at the driver’s helmets? Hasn’t anyone noticed that the two drivers of the team have different colors on that wing over their head, the ine with the TV camera in… One driver has that coloured in red , and the other in green. For example look at the cars of Massa an Raikkonen: Felipe’s is green, and Kimi’s is red… You can figure which one you’re seeing right away…
I would like to see the LEDs tried on the cars, then i would like to see someone try tell how many lights there were on the car as it screamed by at 190mph down the straight ! There should be a scoreboard set-up anyway.
dinkelbaga thats all well and good as long as you can see the pit board
I was at the race yesterday and it was a fantastic experience. However I had the same problem. I didn’t have a clue who was where at any point after the first pit stop apart from Hamilton. I don’t think though for one second I would have enjoyed the day any more if I had done. Little radios are useless because everytime a car comes past which is at least every 30 seconds you can’t hear it, and hiring those little TV’s defeats the object of being there because you can just watch it at home. Mikeado is right there are big screens around the track but you can’t read the text on them shown on the normal pictures. The images are those that a broadcasted across the whole world not just on ITV and at the track it comes through as Silvertsone TV. So instead of showing just those they should falsh up the poisitons in full on the screen every ten laps or so. Therefore the organisers of the race should be responsible for informing the fans of the cars position. Teams shouldn’t be made to design new lights on the cars, they are there to go racing not please the fans with fancy gimics. All of it is pretty academic anyway because just being there is good enough, knowing who is first and who is 10th should be the least of any spectators worries. Spectating on a rally you have no idea who has won the stage or if someone has crashed out 2 miles down the road but being able to see a car been pushed to the limits by the best drivers in the world far outweighs wanting to know who is where. The real problem F1 has with fan is the lack of access fans have to the teams and drivers.
They have the screens, they have an unknown amount of computer generated statistics. Would it be so difficult to show a constantly updated running order with time splits?
While we are at it. Could we please modify courses in the emptier areas to create stretches where they will actually overtake?
Clearly what Jamie’s advocating is an LED setup that actually spells out the position number – not a car with 20 little lights on it.
great
I agree with Frenchdayz. But that gave me an idea. What about those screens you have around football pitches, those which change the advertiser every other second? Bernie could splash out on some of them and install them at the pit walls of all circuits, along with all other straights of the circuits (or along big-radius bends) and show all info you want ala Nascar/Indy broadcast(you know, that rolling bar Americans use at the top of the screen showing race order, average speed, no. of pit-ins, places won, fastest laps, current laps, no. of pounds sweat away, no. of rabbits run over, etc)
I was at the GP and i had a big screen across the track infront of me, it made it easier to follow. Plus the commentary you could sometimes hear. It all depends were you stand, or sit.
was at all 3 sliverstone days it was ace!! But why on earth is it going to doddinton that an’t got anything why not just leave it at sliverstone THE HOME OF THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX !!!
Do yourself a favour, forget F1 and watch REAL racing. MotoGP!!
Awesome Idea!
Guy, comment 13, is it the pack for £60 you mean on the F1 site? I thought this sounded like a great idea until I saw the price, £60 for info I can get elsewhere for free, pass I think. Unless of course I’ve been looking at the wrong app!
Totally agree on this idea, I hope it happens!!!
Good idea….
It’s not actually that hard to keep track, all you need is an FM radio. BBC Radio Northants, Five Live, and Silverstone FM all have commentary, and I was in front of a big screen so I saw what happened elsewhere on the circuit
(I was at Stowe)
easy, have indy 500 style number pole`s around the track,complete with car n.o`s or drivers names (ham,butt,mass,kov ect !!
great idea
silverstone attendee: ahhh, we (US) must have ripped that off from the F1. The US version is exactly the same thing, called kangaroo tv and everything. I guess his joke didn’t translate to american …. I should ask my British theater prof. to translate for me.
spain has a tower like on nascar
http://img.racingpasion.c om/2008/02/catalunya.jpg
I was there, sitting in the uncovered grandstands on the pit straight. Whilst it was wonderful to see and hear the cars in the metal and carbon fibre to be honest I would have much rather seen the race at home – mind you the same applies for any circuit racing bike or car. Silverstone “the home of the British GP” sic. truly is an anachronism though. The screens are rubbish, they are not high enough resolution to show the information put through them. The pit buildings are a laugh, the stands made of scaffolding, the food shocking, the beer off and the prices on site and to get in extortionate. Finally, it comes to something when the toilets are more numerous and pleasant at Glastonbury than the British Grand Prix. Disgusting is the only word. Will Donington be any better? Marginally maybe but not much – still an old fashioned course – now if something could be done to the track at Rockingham there might be something to compare to the Spanish, Chinese, Middle Eastern and German tracks. By the way, LEDs with position number would be perfect.
i went this year and took a radio and some headphone and knew exactly what was happening in all the races qualis and practice. £10 and you can hear all news
we were at the race this year and were at the end of the pit-straight so we could see who had come out of the pits to make their pit-stops. this way we were able to work out who was where without a big screen as we could not see on of these. You just need to get in the right place