BBC Sport has released detailed plans for its 2012 Formula 1 broadcasts, including confirmation of the races it will show live next year.
Ten races will be shown live on BBC One throughout the season, including the British, Monaco and season-ending Brazilian Grands Prix.
There will be extended peak-time highlights of the other ten races on BBC One, either 90-minute or two-hour duration depending on the race location.
Live races on BBC TV in 2012:
Round 3 – China (April 15) Round 5 – Spain (May 13) Round 6 – Monaco (May 27) Round 8 – Europe (June 24) Round 9 – Great Britain (July 8) Round 12 – Belgium (September 2) Round 14 – Singapore (September 23) Round 16 – Korea (October 14) Round 18 – Abu Dhabi (November 4) Round 20 – Brazil (November 25)The BBC’s live free-to-air race coverage will be as extensive as before, with all the action on and off the track across TV, radio, online, red button and mobile.
Sky Sports will have exclusive live coverage of the opening two races, with the Chinese Grand Prix being the BBC’s first live race weekend of the season.
There will be no live coverage on the BBC during next summer’s Olympic Games in London, of which the corporation’s resources will be used to undertake the biggest broadcast of a sporting event in its history.
The presentation team, lead by Jake Humphrey, will be at all the races, including those that are not being broadcast live on BBC television. Full details of the team will be revealed at a later date.
There will be full live coverage of both qualifying and race on BBC One, BBC One HD and the BBC Sport website, plus a one-hour evening highlights programme on BBC Three and BBC HD.
For these races, all three practice sessions will be shown live on the red button and the website.
The F1 Forum will continue on the red button for about an hour of comment and analysis after the programme.
There will be extended highlights of the other 10 grands prix on the calendar. Races in the Far Eastern time zone will have highlights broadcast on BBC One at 2pm, with those in the European time zone receiving 90 minutes at 5.30pm.
Qualifying highlights will also be shown on BBC One, and will be up to 75-minutes in length. They will be screened on Saturdays at 5.30pm for European time zone races and 1pm for early morning races.
The full narrative of the weekend, including live text and audio commentary, news, interviews, pictures and highlights of all sessions on track, will also be available on the BBC Sport website. Full broadcast timings are yet to be confirmed.
All 20 grands prix will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live or 5 Live Sports Extra, and the BBC Sport website and red button will broadcast live coverage of every second of on-track action for all the races that are live on BBC One and will have highlights of the others.
Ben Gallop, the BBC’s head of Formula 1, said: “We’re really looking forward to 2012 and what promises to be another great year of Formula 1 on the BBC.
“With presentation from the track at every race, we’ll be there every step of the way to tell the story of the season.
“Through a mix of live coverage and extended highlights, we’ll have the best of the action from both on and off the track, plus all the news, analysis and big-name interviews.”
Sky Sports will screen every race live in 2012 on its new dedicated F1 channel Sky Sports F1.
.
I’m absolutely not against live racing! I really loved this and it gave me the feeling I was there!