It comes up almost every year now. Personally… This feels so easy to fix. Just send someone out in front of Brundle to gauge everyone’s interest, or just tell him to back off a bit when he meets legitimate resistance. Why manufacturer drama like this? The sport just doesn’t need it in my opinion. He had two opportunities to not do what he did this weekend, but he pressed on.
Sure, it’s historical and all. But it just feels a little greasy to essentially force an interview on someone. Who is to say that Brundle can demand someone interview with him? Why are we owed that? I like Brundle and his way of interviewing, but I feel like he needs to be more respectful of those that aren’t there to be interviewed. We don’t own celebrities and no one is owed an interview simply because a celebrity decided to attend a race.
Thoughts?
This the Cara Delevigne thing on the Silverstone grid walk?
These people are not just “attending a race”. They are on the grid minutes before a race, a grid that is heavily covered with cameras. As Martin says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3lKU8JpMo), it’s an explicit part of the deal now (after Miami) that if you want to be on the grid that you have to be willing to be interviewed. That seems a reasonable exchange for an amazing privilege. And if you’ve made that deal, you should hold up your end of the bargain.
The above argument didn’t apply in Miami because the rule wasn’t there. It was a more understandable incident. That said Miami still annoyed me. If you’re going to attend an F1 race and be granted these privileges, surely you should have a little respect for the sport, the people that are involved and the TV coverage? Most of us would jump at the chance to be on the grid, that opportunity felt wasted on someone if they’re only there to look cool and don’t care about where it is they’re doing that.
Most but not all. I suppose if they’ve explicitly agreed to be interviewed, it’s lame to back out. But why does not interviewing with Brundle equate to not caring? What if they simply don’t want to engage in an interview? Impossible to be on the grid then? I feel like we don’t need to force that. But that’s just my opinion.
The grid walk interviews seldom offer anything meaningful. I wouldn’t be upset if they just didn’t happen.
I haven’t watched any pre-race coverage for years. I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
Over this season I’ve migrated over to only watching the F1TV coverage and haven’t switched back to the Sky feed at all anymore. I don’t miss all the awkwardness over on Sky at all and the F1 coverage has caught up on anything that Sky was better at before.
Same. I like the F1TV guys a lot.
I find it hilarious to watch him and his reactions in that frenzied manner. And yeah, everyone on the grid signs a waiver consenting to interviews. They should know better and should be willing to talk. That’s the only reason they should be there.
Who knew, when you try to compel live speech you get shitty speech. The interview exchange is the most contrived medium of exchange ever invented, it actually got a lot of push back when it was first invented or used in news media in the 1850s, presumably for coaxing and normalizing bullshit.
I don’t watch grid walks or anything outside of lights out / chequered flag because shoving cameras in faces of people is just a celebrity on celebrity toss off nowadays.