Friday pm - BBC and MotoGP: Shall we Calm the Rage?
Dear
Crash.net visitors, as the journalist who broke the story that
Eurosport might be losing its coverage of
MotoGP from 2009, I understand your anger now that this threat has become a reality.
But in the case of British fans, can we have a touch of calm before we lob the TVs out the window and vow never to watch the BBC’s offering?
It seems to me that Belinda Rogerson, the BBC’s MotoGP series producer, did quite a courageous thing in entering
Crash.net's forum last week to outline how the corporation intends to cover MotoGP and the 125 and 250cc classes next year.
After all, she probably knows she’s never going to win over hardcare fans of
Eurosport’s Randy, Toby and Jules show.
Two things she didn’t mention in her remarks:
• Precisely how many hours of coverage the BBC will devote to a MotoGP weekend compared to
British Eurosport’s output of 11-plus hours from some rounds;
• Who the commentary team will be to cope with the Beeb’s increased output.
So I phoned Belinda, who was in England, from the Sachsenring today to ask her.
"We care about MotoGP and we will look after it," she pledged. "But it’s only halfway through the current season and we haven’t got into detailed planning for 2009 yet."
That’s surely as much as she can say at this moment. By all means direct your opinions to the
BBC, but common sense suggests that they’ve not paid to acquire exclusive rights to the series only to neglect it.
Friday pm - The Reality Behind Toseland’s Last Position
It looks so bad for
James Toseland, 17th fastest after the first day of practice here at the Sachsenring, 2.282 seconds off the record-breaking pace set by
Casey Stoner. But JT was looking composed and pragmatic about the situation when he walked out of the Tech 3 Yamaha pitbox after debriefing his technicians.
