Slipstream Saturdays: F1 TV’s Exclusive Broadcast Is the Best Way to Watch F1

Launching in 2018, F1 TV has grown from just being a cheap way to watch Formula 1 after cutting the cord to the optimal way to watch it in the English language.

For a little over $80 a year, F1 TV remains the cheapest way to watch every single practice, qualifying, and race session of every single Grand Prix weekend. Not to mention it’s also the exclusive home for preseason testing, too.

But that’s not all. Slipstream’s focus today is on the exclusive English broadcast the service provides and how, just a few years into its run, F1 TV has accumulated an exceptional talent lineup.

First things first. The clear MVP of F1 TV is Sam Collins.

Collins is a technical expert who is very adept at breaking things down in a series that has a number of technical variations from team to team.

Unlike other broadcast experts, such as Larry McReynolds, Collins usually doesn’t have the luxury of having a fancy graphic that takes up the entire screen as F1 TV still uses the world feed. It means he has to articulate his points with little-to-no visual reference, and he’s able to do it very well.

Collins also has a knack for numbers on occasion. For example, he was the first one on the broadcast to note last week Max Verstappen used up all of his allocated engines after losing another one in FP2.

Verstappen will now serve a five-place grid penalty this weekend for Sunday’s (Nov. 2) race, a massive shift in the championship chase; Collins was the first one to notice.

He’s also a really fun follow on social media, sometimes.

Will Buxton is a nerd, in a good way. He’ll reference something from say the 1960s and will try and bring historical context to everything, even if he overdoes it a bit. Lawrence Barretto, to be honest, is just kind of there but he’s fine with what they have him doing in the broadcast, which is usually just sticking him in the pre-race and post-race shows.

Something F1 TV is also really good at is bringing in people and getting them up to speed immediately on broadcasting. As an example, Ruth Buscombe Divey has only been part of the broadcast for a few months now, after years of working for Alfa Romeo and Ferrari as a race strategist. But she’s transitioned very well.

Something I can appreciate with Divey and Collins is both make sure to complement each other; they do well to not step on each other’s toes or repeat themselves. Collins has started focusing more on technical aspects, such as upgrades, leaving Divey to come in with in-race strategies like tire wear or managing fall-off.

Laura Winter and Alex Jacques both do a great job in their roles as studio host and play-by-play commentator, respectively. Both do well with clicking with each of their co-workers as they get rotated in and out every week, sometimes even every session while also keeping things on the road and in focus.

Jacques in particular has a rough job in some aspects just because there will always be people who view him as the Great Value brand David Croft. And that’s somewhat fair, as nobody in racing can call a race yelling quite like Croft.

But Jacques has carved out a unique place for himself and is an incredibly solid commentator. I also think he brings some things to the table Crofty does not, namely a closer connection with younger drivers after having covered them in F2 and F3 over the years.

Jacques also worked with them when they were reserve drivers. Speaking of those reserves, F1 teams have a gaggle of them and they appear sporadically in broadcasts. Some are really stilted in an on-air role and aren’t that great. Some could probably be commentators full-time tomorrow, namely Pietro Fittipaldi and Jack Doohan, who are the two most visible reserves.

And then there are the other veteran drivers on the broadcast.

I think Jolyon Palmer and Jacques go together like peanut butter and jelly. Whenever they stop working together in broadcasting, they could make a great podcast together. A lot of practice sessions with just the two of them in the booth usually turn into a Q&A of Jacques finding out what Palmer thinks about the issues of the day.

Palmer brings a different dynamic from a lot of other racers turned broadcasters. As somebody who was a forgettable pilot who spent a lot of time as a test and reserve driver, he brings a new perspective to a lot of things. That’s especially true when we see test drivers come in and get sparse F1 opportunities.

I don’t get to hear a lot of David Coulthard, as he only broadcasts the races and I stick with the Sky broadcast for those just because most of the public does and I can know how to frame Frontstretch coverage. I will say that he seems to do well in a broadcast that typically has two drivers on it with Jacques.

Finally, there is James Hinchcliffe. Yes, the same Hinchcliffe from IndyCar broadcasts who is dabbling with that “other” open-wheel series. I have repeatedly called Hinchcliffe the best “color” commentator in racing for the last few years and he’s been awesome to see over in F1.

Hinchcliffe’s never raced in the series, which means he’s limited in the work he does with F1 TV due to IndyCar broadcasting duties. But he’s still amazing whenever he’s in the booth. The Canadian is great at relating things to the average person sitting on the couch and can also do genuinely funny comedy better than most.

If Hinch does get the FOX gig, I really hope that doesn’t block him from doing F1 TV in the fall. It really goes to show how talented he’s become at broadcasting to be able to mesh as well as he has with this team.

That’s about it for the F1 TV talk. I should note F1 did not pay for this column nor do they pay us (Liberty Media, send me free stuff). F1 TV’s rise has come while Sky Sports’ coverage, what I’ve seen of it, seems to be stagnating.

If you don’t have cable, F1 TV is the best steal in all major professional sports. If you do, and you’re enough of a nerd to have read this far without any shiny embedded Tweets due to FOM blocking them, it’s probably a great deal all the same.