Since the WRC is in their summer intercession, I figured i'd spend some time trying to find some better WRC coverage than the shit that Eurosport puts out.

It feels like when I watch a rally on eurosport, i'm just watching the highlights. They don't actually follow the individual cars through the stage, they follow ALL the cars through the stage at ONCE.

I'm trying to find something where they'll show you a brief overview of each stage BEFORE the stage is run, then they'll follow the individual cars, one by one, through the stage.

So they'd do something like give a few minutes to describe the stage and its turns, then say Loeb was up. They'd show video of ONLY Loeb on the stage.

Once he's finished, they'd show Marcus and ONLY Marcus run the stage, etc etc.

I realize that this would be hard to do, since there's usually more than one cars on the stage at once, but I figure it wouldn't be too difficult to do if the video was a little less than live. Like, once Loeb finishes, show all the video of Marcus, even though some of it is dated (IE was shot while loeb was still on the stage).

Anybody know of anywhere I could find coverage like this? I just really feel that the current WRC coverage on Eurosport is really lacking. I'd love to see somebody give WRC a proper hour of airtime, just like any other racing series.

I guess WRC in Eurosport is as good as it gets...

Despite Finland being a real rally country, we have only 30 min per day coverage - on free national channels, with pay-tv you get more (still extremely crappy coverage though). Last season national broadcasting company owned WRC broadcasting rights and we had the same 30 mins per day. Don't have cable so no Eurosport for me...

I think it's more about the whole sport being extremely boring and lacking the competition than the actual coverage. Though I don't like the way FIA tries to make WRC more mainstream and sexy than it actually is, rally is not "sexy" in a way that F1 for example is.

Quote from deggis :

I guess WRC in Eurosport is as good as it gets...

Despite Finland being a real rally country, we have only 30 min per day coverage - on free national channels, with pay-tv you get more (still extremely crappy coverage though). Don't have cable so no Eurosport for me...

I think it's more about the whole sport being extremely boring and lacking the competition than the actual coverage. Though I hate the way FIA tries to make WRC more mainstream and sexy than rally actually is.

My main issue is how eurosport seems to set up cameras in certain corners, and then they'll just show one camera at a time. I really wish they'd follow the individual DRIVERS.

Quote from sinkoman :

My main issue is how eurosport seems to set up cameras in certain corners, and then they'll just show one camera at a time. I really wish they'd follow the individual DRIVERS.

I think that's also to blame FIA / ISC* / rally organizers / whoever hires the camera men... they mostly concentrate on shooting rocks, trees, adboards or whatever instead showing the car. Stupid "cool" camera angles and stuff at least on the coverage I see here. I just want to see the fecking car and nothing else. Are we talking about the same thing?

* International Sportworld Communicators, company that owns WRC television and commercial rights

actually i think its good like this, it makes fans go to the stages wich is much more exciting than watching tv, im not saying i dont agree with the better coverage you are looking for, id like it too

A lot of it is down to camera placement. It's nigh on impossible to cover an entire 20km stage with cameras, let alone 15-20 of them. Keeping in mind how expensive broadcast quality cameras (and people to operate them) are the total cost of doing that would be astronomical. You could use 4-5 helicopters to fill in the blanks I guess, but those aren't cheap either.

It's just not practical to cover a rally that way. It would be absolutely awesome, but I just don't think it's doable in the long run.

i dont like the placement of some of the onboard cameras. I mean, on the fords, they have one on the door mirror, usually covered in mud or flies. I mean, the commentators for example.

"Now, onboard with gronholm, we can see that he must be concentrating really hard."

No, its night, all we can see is the little light that the co driver is using so he can read his pacenotes.

It would be alot better if they got commentators that acctually had a clue what was going on (this is ITV and eurosport).

Quote from spiderbait90 :

i dont like the placement of some of the onboard cameras. I mean, on the fords, they have one on the door mirror, usually covered in mud or flies. I mean, the commentators for example.

Yup, I thought too that purpose of onboard camera was supposed to be showing the driver in work. I don't understand how this requirement is fulfilled if half of the view shows back of the driver seat..

Same thing seems to be with many series, like FIA GT and DTM. Only Aussies with they V8 Supercars knows how to place cams with all their tyre views and stuff

The Eurosport coverage is really bad, I agree. The commentators and interviewers are hopeless and the action they show isn't any better. With so many cars going through so many stages each day they can't realistically show us any details in a 25 minute programme, they should make it an hour each day and give us longer pieces of selected cars, rather than the mishmash they have now. Come to think of it, I don't remember any TV coverage being much better.

Quote from amp88 :

Come to think of it, I don't remember any TV coverage being much better.

The coverage of the last day of the Wales Rally GB the year Solberg took the championship was actually pretty good here in Norway. Not sure how it was in other countries though.

They covered the whole last stage in real time, following each driver through it with split times and the whole package. It was actually quite nerve wrecking since the rally and championship was extremely close at that point.

Something like that only works on short stages though (Super Specials for instance), and isn't really worth it unless there's actually people fighting for positions towards the end, which there rarely is these days.

I will admit the Eurosport coverage is better than last year. Live stages etc etc. The commentary is the biggest problem, they havent a clue what is going on.

"oooooooh, that was a big moment".

When acctually they were handbraking round a hairpin.

Geez.

Following invidiual drivers will be extremely hard. Try to place cameras on a 15 km stage, let's say one camera per 50 meters, how many cameras do you get? 1000:50=20x15=300 - uh, pricey, you need one man for each camera, too. Now think about the longest 50 km stages. Second problem is time..

Quote from Lible :

Following invidiual drivers will be extremely hard. Try to place cameras on a 15 km stage, let's say one camera per 50 meters, how many cameras do you get? 1000:50=20x15=300 - uh, pricey, you need one man for each camera, too. Now think about the longest 50 km stages. Second problem is time..

I'd at least like it if they went over the stage first, before jumping into the actual coverage. Just show a brief picture showing the layout of the stage.

I see a dude breaking traction over a turn covered in dirt, with a wierd camera angle, and that's it. I have no clue what's comming up after this turn, if its a hairpin, a sweeping left or right, the only thing I know is that it's a turn, somewhere on a stage, with lots of dirt.

That's pretty much how the Eurosport coverage goes right now.