Beeb’s coverage to be elivened by authentic Irish craic?
Our F1 mole tells us that Eddie Jordan, pictured above with Emma Noble, Page 3 model Melinda Messenger (remember her?) and Jordan (no relation), has been signed up to be part of the BBC’s F1 team for next season.
When asked about the speculation by the Daily Express, Jordan - the speccy Irish guy, not the glamour model - declined to comment - which is all the evidence we need.
Jordan - the speccy Irish guy, not the glamour model - would make a fine pundit. He’s outspoken, articulate, well-informed and has great access to the major players in F1. Good shout, Auntie.
ITV’s Martin Brundle is one of the sharpest motorsport broadcasters working today, so it’s no surprise that the BBC poached him to be part of its commentary team for 2009. But it’s not only ITV who aren’t happy at Brundle’s transfer. According to The Daily Mail, the FIA is unhappy with the move:
“It is the talk of the F1 paddock that Alan Donnelly, the official representative at races of FIA chairman Max Mosley, has been trying to dissuade BBC executives from employing Brundle, who has been at odds with the governing body since he questioned their handling of last year’s McLaren Spygate affair.”
Brundle has never been afraid to speak out on sensitive topics, and he does have a long relationship with McLaren, but it seems ridiculous that the FIA would view him as a partisan trouble-maker.
This video is taken from a 1997 edition of BBC programme Black Britain and shows a young Lewis Hamilton coming to terms with life in karting, meeting Ron Dennis and learning about podium etiquette. As the total of the show would suggest, there is also a strong emphasis on Hamilton’s colour and his encounters with racism. Any of you unfortunate enough to have read his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes name-dropathon of an autobiography may get a sense of deja vu from some of the stories.
Soon-to-be ex-F1 driver David Coulthard has already got his next job lined up. Instead of causing crashes in Formula One races he will now be talking about them. DC has been confirmed as a studio pundit for the BBC’s coverage of the 2009 F1 season. Grid Crasherpredicted a job for the Scot way back in July, but we don’t like to be big-chinned big-headed about it.
BBC show showcases pretty cars we can’t even buy in the UK
Last week, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and little tiny Richard Hammond were spotted in San Francisco respectively testing out a 2009 Corvette ZR1, a Dodge Challenger SRT8, and a 2009 Cadillac CTS-V .
Over the weekend, rumours that they are filming another hour-long Top Gear in USA show were fleshed out as the boys were spotted at the Bonneville Salt Flats (where there are no corners to test the ropey handling of those lumbering American motors), where they sported some rather fetching baseball caps.
See more pictures of Lord Clarkson et al after the jump…
Hollywood actress who makes a fast Scot very happy
Today’s Grid WAG is 40-year-old American beauty Ashley Judd, an actress who rarely takes a part in a film unless it involves gratuitous nudity. Her husband since 2001 has been Dario Franchitti, a racing driver who left sunny Scotland behind to pursue a career in the CART and IndyCar series. For his 2007 IndyCar series victory, he received the coveted BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year award, but probably only because he was up against the grumpiest man in the world, Andy Murray.
Soccer fans suffer for Auntie’s successful motorsport bid
Football fans - who love nothing better than to moan endlessly about their chosen sport - are currently annoyed with subscription channel Setanta for stealing away all the England away games, and leaving terrestrial telebox viewers without so much as a brief highlights package.
In defence of their perfectly-reasonable decision to host England away matches, Setanta’s director of sport Trevor East has blamed the BBC for spaffing their budget on securing the rights to next year’s Formula One season, paying some £50m more than ITV laid down for their current five year deal.
So, did the Beeb make the right choice in nabbing the F1, or should they have let ITV keep the coverage and allowed footy fans to get their fix of frustration and anger through watching the national side?
Excellent news for Top Gear fans. The programme has now got its very own channel on YouTube. And as this has been setup by the BBC and all above board, it should mean that the videos actually stay up there rather than disappearing when the internet police spot them (as is currently the case). While this is all very good for you, it does not make life much easier for Gridcrasher because embedding is disabled on all the videos, which means we can’t put them on the site for you. Bugger!
