Was Mercedes’ Television Coverage Intentionally Cut at the Bahrain Grand Prix?

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: April 26, 2015

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At last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton cruised to his third victory in four races this season. Meanwhile, his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, spent the evening battling the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.

After the race, one of the talking points was that the television coverage seemed to miss some of the key moments and, in particular, that the Mercedes cars did not get much screen time.

"Inside the press room," wrote ESPN F1's Kate Walker, "the director's decision to avoid broadcasting footage of the Mercedes pair unless it was unavoidable to do so for the narrative of the race was so apparent that we took to shouting out every time a Silver Arrow appeared on-screen."

Meanwhile, longtime Formula One journalist Joe Saward wrote on his blog that "it is pretty hard to avoid showing the leader of a motor race, particularly if there is a fight going on at the front, but it was very definitely what some people thought as we watched Saubers when the battle at the front was tense and interesting."

The implication is either that Mercedes have been too dominant recently (they have won 19 of 23 races since the beginning of 2014) or that the team did something to anger F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone and therefore had their TV time cut.



Either theory is plausible: Few fans want to watch the same car touring around unchallenged each week, while Ecclestone's influence over all things F1 certainly encompasses the television broadcast, which is produced in-house by Formula One Management.

But despite plausible motives, is the premise actually true? Did Mercedes have less screen time in Bahrain than at previous races?

To answer that question, I grabbed my stopwatch and rewatched the last three grands prix—Malaysia. China and Bahrain—timing when a Mercedes car was featured on-screen. Before you see the (admittedly unscientific) results, here...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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