Formula 1 has a problem. Well, it has lots of problems, like tires that sometimes last forever, and tracks where passing is apparently impossible. But there’s one problem it has no excuse for: an international broadcast that was almost unwatchably bad.

If you tuned in to the qualifying session of last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, you might have wondered what was going on in the control booth. Cars screamed at full volume on track, completely overwhelming the Sky commentary from David Croft and Martin Brundle. In a complicated session with a lot of action up and down the field, it made the action incredibly hard to follow.

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But of course, this is a billion-dollar sport with TV deals that start in the eight-figure range. Naturally, this audio faux-pas was sorted out in a matter of seconds, right? Oh, honey, no. It went on all fucking weekend. 

I wish I were kidding, but I watched the whole sorry thing. As an Australian, I was tuned in to the Sky feed via Kayo, and I honestly couldn’t believe what was happening. For the entire qualifying session, the track audio was turned up way too loud, and the commentary was far too soft. I looked forward to the distant shots after the cars passed by so I could actually hear what Brundle and Croft were saying.

It’s not exactly clear why this happened. You got the distinct vibe that someone had left the work experience kid on the mixing desk without supervision. What was more confusing was that it went on for the entire qualifying session.

Appeals through official channels did little to help.

At some point, surely, you would think someone at Sky or in F1 would have noticed that the commentary was turned down to almost nothing. They might have picked up a phone and screamed at whichever idiot was in charge, and gotten the problem sorted? Alas, no. The terrible audio mix continued for all of qualifying and the vast majority of the race. Apparently nobody was listening, and many fans rushed to Twitter to complain that something was deeply wrong in the broadcast booth. [Ed note: Yeah yeah, “It’s X now,” but who cares? – Pete]

It’s astonishing that this can even happen. I work at a proud and enterprising automotive website. If I so much as misplace an image or make a few too many typographical errors, somebody will notice and I’ll get a friendly ping on Slack to pull my goddamn socks up. However, you can apparently produce a garbage TV feed that’s shown to millions of people around the world, live, and get away with not even checking the faders for two full days in a row. Just astounding. 

Where does the problem lie? In this case, possibly Sky F1, given it was their commentators being drowned out on their feed. Regardless of who is precisely at fault, F1 needs to step up and ensure the world is getting a better show than this.

Fans Begged F1 1Fans begged to Sky, to David Croft, to anyone—for a solution. Credit: via Twitter screenshot

Unhelpful advice was never far away.

Ultimately, it was a weekend the Formula 1 broadcasters will hope to put behind them. Beyond the regular sound issues, a number of important passes were entirely missed by the telecast. As a weird bonus, the “REPLAY” icon flashed up multiple times during live images for some reason.

Laughed My Ass Off Graphics 2I laughed when I saw the hastily-assembled timing graphics show up late in the Bahrain Grand Prix. I tip my hat to whoever had to smash those together under pressure when the timing system went haywire. Image credit: Me, photographing the F1 telecast on my television.

The most challenging issues raised their head later in the race, when George Russell’s Mercedes stopped triggering the timing system. This not only left the broadcast unable to show accurate timing, but made it near-impossible for Russell—or his direct competitors—to trigger their DRS systems in line with the rules. This was a technical issue outside the control of the broadcast team itself, but it created yet more problems for the on-air product.

Credit where it’s due, the graphics team rushed to manually create custom timing graphics to keep the viewers at home updated as to the state of the race. But unfortunately, it’s not the first time this year that timing has apparently completely gone awry. Previous races have seen the timing tower disappear entirely for ten-plus minutes at a time, leaving viewers in the dark as to how the race is developing.

The fact is that F1 is a major global sport. It doesn’t get any bigger than this. That’s why it’s so shocking that the quality of the broadcast has been so poor. Maybe heads need to roll, or maybe they just need to make sure somebody at Sky is actually watching the feed that’s being broadcast around the world.

Fan Optionion 2There really is no excuse for poor coverage. Getting the sound right is just one of the basic jobs of making television. Credit: via Twitter screenshot

In any case, I’m happy to help out. Give me the number of someone in the booth, and I will gladly ring up and chew them out next time they’ve left a vital audio channel on mute or something. The world (and my friends) will thank you.

Image credits: via Twitter screenshot