[Monolithic]

Originally Posted by shibujp

Vettel at the back. Given the nature of the circuit it may be difficult to break into the top ten. Given that Vestappen has qualified 4th looking forward to some unorthodox overtaking moves to make up places.





Well according to the Star Sports TV guide they have listed the race on Star 4 (SD) tommorrow. I hope this is the reality.

Drive on,
Shibu.

I just subscribed to SS Select HD on Videocon d2h and I can't get a signal! The Videocon folks too are clueless on whats happening.


Anybody watching the race on Videocon d2h?

[rohitoasis]

Guys,

I dont think you are missing much. Drivers are happier to maintain bigger and bigger gaps between them. I have changed channels at least a dozen times since start to keep me awake.

[Arjun Reddy]

Originally Posted by dmplog

@avdhesh15.
The full race is available on Star Sports 4 Standard Definition. Am I missing something?

It's available on Star Select HD2 on Tata Sky.also streaming on the Hotstar app.

[Makin Rulesz]

Nico wins his first race in Singapore, 3 in a row of such achievement now after Spa and Monza and takes the lead in championship. Good fight by RB though it was only good for second. Exceptional drive by Vettel to finish 5 starting from the end of grid.

POS NO DRIVER
1 6 Nico Rosberg
2 3 Daniel Ricciardo
3 44 Lewis Hamilton
4 7 Kimi Räikkönen
5 5 Sebastian Vettel
6 33 Max Verstappen
7 14 Fernando Alonso
8 11 Sergio Perez
9 26 Daniil Kvyat
10 20 Kevin Magnussen
11 21 Esteban Gutierrez
12 19 Felipe Massa
13 12 Felipe Nasr
14 55 Carlos Sainz
15 30 Jolyon Palmer
16 94 Pascal Wehrlein
17 9 Marcus Ericsson
18 31 Esteban Ocon
NC 22 Jenson Button
NC 77 Valtteri Bottas
NC 27 Nico Hulkenberg
NC 8 Romain Grosjean

[Turbo_Charger]

The first half of the race was a snooze fest. No team was willing to take a risk. The brakes too didn't help with both Rosberg & Hamilton told to manage them. Apart from the Hulkenberg crash there wasn't anything interesting. But the race came alive in 2nd half & how!!! Hamilton made a mistake & Räikkönen grabbed it & passed him & opened a 5 second gap. Vettel began overtaking with ease & was upto 5th place. Then Mercedes baited Ferrari with their Plan B for Hamilton & Ferrari being Ferrari grabbed it with both hands & snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. If Rosberg could manage to keep Ricciardo at bay, surely Räikkönen with a similar gap could have kept Hamilton behind him. Even if he couldn't he would still be 4th which he finished anyway. There was nothing to lose & everything to gain.

Sometimes I wonder how does Ferrari select it's strategists ? The radio conversation between Räikkönen & his race engineer was a shining example of what's wrong with Ferrari. While Räikkönen was cool (Iceman) his race engineer was jittery & couldn't decide if he should pit or not. Usually it's the other way around. They were taken aback by Hamilton pitting like they never expected it, when even the commentators predicted that he's going for 3 pit stops after hearing his race engineer asking him to go for plan B. Finally they played into Mercedes' hand by copying them when Ferrari should have just kept Räikkönen out like Mercedes did with Rosberg. Mercedes bluffed & Ferrari folded.

Apart from the engine & aero troubles, their strategy & decisions are also a major reason for their failures and languishing in 3rd place in Constructors standings. They are missing brilliant tactician like Jean Todt & technical wizard like Ross Brawn. It's their inability to find worthy replacements that has bogged them down. First they didn't have a decent package and when they do, they regularly do hara-kiri in the race to gift positions to their rivals. If this continues they have no chance in 2017 too.

For me driver of the day was Vettel. His coming from the back to claim 5th position on a street circuit is as great a drive as Hamilton did in Spa.

A word on the commentary on Star Sports. The commentators are hugely biased in favour of Hamilton & Verstappen. Whenever Hamilton makes a mistake or is having a bad day they always try to blame the car whereas in case of Rosberg they always blame him as a driver. IMHO they are evenly matched & such prejudice is off putting as a viewer.

[Monolithic]

Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger

.....

A word on the commentary on Star Sports. The commentators are hugely biased in favour of Hamilton & Verstappen. Whenever Hamilton makes a mistake or is having a bad day they always try to blame the car whereas in case of Rosberg they always blame him as a driver. IMHO they are evenly matched & such prejudice is off putting as a viewer.

You've nailed it on Ferrari! This is the second time they've made a strategic error this season. Even Kimi sounded like he was not sure if they should pit. Soon Ferrari may become a team which drivers would avoid.


I've observed the bias in the commentary too. I'm not sure about this, but I think Star sports and Sky have the same team. Sky always tries show Hamilton in positive way.

[Hatari]

Great race! Though it was a bit late to opt for the extra stop after everyone's original round of stops are done. Feel you need to commit early to take full advantage.
Kimi stopping was a waste, the team must have know the gap to Lewis after he made his stop. There was nothing to lose in staying out.

Great driving from Fernando and the team backed it up with good strategy. He is F1's best starter by a long way.

On commentators and networks, they always support their own countrymen. Even Coulthard is very pro Button, will rarely mention Alonso.

[a*ed]

Originally Posted by Monolithic

I've observed the bias in the commentary too. I'm not sure about this, but I think Star sports and Sky have the same team. Sky always tries show Hamilton in positive way.

The Star Sports telecast is that of the Channel 4 telecast. It has Karun Chandhok, Mark Webber among others. They are marginally biased to Hamilton but not as biased as the Sky Sports team of Crofty and Ted !

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by GTO

Jfxavier is at the Singapore GP , so I'll start the thread this time around.

Originally Posted by arunphilip

jfxavier is forgiven for not starting this thread, but he better have a stonking race report to give us!

Just came back from Singapore.
Sorry for being off line as I generally tend to use only the phone and stay away from laptop and other gadgets while travel.

I must say that my impression about the Hybrid engine sound has been altered quite a bit after hearing them up close.
Although not screaming and wailing like the old NA engines, these ones doesn't sound bad at all. I am impressed by the sound, albeit a more deep throaty sound, with the classic turbo popping noise under braking.
Not bad at all. Sound close to a 1000 hp to me

https://youtu.be/QupOXCYLqFI

[sgiitk]

I think Star Sport are primarily for a British audience. So the bias is something we can laugh off.

Yes, Ferrari were initially uncertain about the final pit stop of Raikkonen. Then the decided to do so. I am wondering whether their telemetry showed them that not doing so will be iffy. I am sure that if Raikkonen had come out in front of Hamilton he would have held on. We must remember Ferrari are a bit shy of the ponies vis a Mercedes. One thing we are ignoring is Vettel starting last and finishing fifth.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I think Star Sport are primarily for a British audience. So the bias is something we can laugh off.

I don't think Star Sports is even available in the UK - it's primarily an Asian channel, with India being its biggest market.

The commentators however are UK-biased, as is the sport itself. I believe UK is no.1 in terms of viewership too (although USA overtook it in some seasons).

[gtonsing]

Quite an impressive launch by Hulkenberg. I keep thinking what would have been the result had he not crashed.
Excellent recovery by Vettel I have to say.
Other than that, it was a dead race. I kept away from the TV and its not keeping me glued to the screen.
Someone posted if anyone was able to watch on videocon dth. I am able to - both on SS Select HD and SS 4 (I think) on SD.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by GTO

I don't think Star Sports is even available in the UK - it's primarily an Asian channel, with India being its biggest market.

The commentators however are UK-biased, as is the sport itself. I believe UK is no.1 in terms of viewership too (although USA overtook it in some seasons).

Yes, but they are picking up the UK feed. I have seen the same jokers speaking there are here. Even today see the news clips on Beeb and you will see, it is the same lot.

Incidentally, STAR started out as a refurbished US satellite (relaunched, by I think the Shuttle) which was bought by the consortium. And I must say all hell broke loose on the comfy local monopolies.

[Chetan_Rao]

The commentary is so bad I watch the races on mute these days, except when radio snippets are broadcast. Much better inferences can be drawn from live timing data than any of the tosh spouted by the 'commentators', who often get the simplest, most obvious details wrong.

Star no longer has its own coverage, they just buy/license the Sky/Channel 4 coverage. Croft was a decent radio commentator on BBC but has now turned into an insufferable hack, mostly rambling on about stuff that has nothing to do with what's on-screen. The only decent chap on that team is Brundle, but he doesn't do many races and when he does, needs to spend a chunk of his time correcting/admonishing Croft/Kravitz.

I couldn't bear to listen to Star's erstwhile commentator Steve Slater either (worse than Croft, sounds implausible I know), the only redeemer there was Gary Anderson's occasional technical analysis.

Chandhok is a natural, knows his stuff and a genuine nice character. I hope he takes up commentary full-time once his racing days are behind him.