Welcome to another edition of The Editor's Blog, and a bit of a
round-up of the latest happenings.
Firstly, the whole team got together after the Belgian GP to
talk about the future of F1Lite. We've become an important piece in
the armoury of many an F1 fan across the world, and as a result it
gives me particular pleasure to tell you that we'll still be around
next season - something which wasn't so assured a few months ago.
Although the exact details haven't been fully decided, we're set to
experience significant changes to both our Twitter feed and the
website side of the project, which we'll tell you about a little
nearer the time. Although there will be a few sacrifices here and
there, we hope that next season we will be in a position to offer a
better overall service than ever.
Next, a quick word to welcome Biancha to the the F1Lite Fan
Blogger Team. We've got a good deal of contributors from across the
world and we value them all very highly, but Biancha approached us
with some unusual proposals, including F1 blogs specifically aimed
at our female demographic. While we're yet to publish any of these,
Biancha has already produced a number of excellent pieces which
have gained an unprecedented reaction from our readers, and we're
very much looking forward to working with her for a long time to
come.
Finally, the main subject of today's blog: the Italian Grand
Prix. On Thursday I told my colleagues that it was my favourite
race of the year, and this provoked a fierce debate as to which
circuit is actually best. It's a longtime problem, and we
considered Suzuka, Spa, Silverstone and Monza - but in the end we
couldn't reach an agreement. It's still a touchy subject in the
office.
Actually, It's surprising just how much a race weekend can take
out of you, leaving you feel pretty shattered and strangely
antagonistic towards F1 come Sunday evening. Our work starts on the
Friday - in the evening we tend to schedule the majority of our
build-up for Saturday morning. This year a slightly embarrassing
glitch led to us tell you qualifying was just five minutes away
when it was approaching midnight in the Monza paddock, but on the
whole the benefits of scheduling far outweigh the problems. Any
editing that needs to be done takes place about two hours before
the session, and from then on we're free to focus on commentary -
we only go "live" five minutes before the cars take to the track.
It's the same procedure for Sunday, and once the race gets underway
we have two people monitoring the coverage, one doing the all
important typing (probably the least enjoyable job since you only
catch snatches of the race) and the other simply there to step in
if needed and inform the commentator if there's anything important
to publish. Lastly, the post-race analysis. This has become a
hugely popular feature, and work starts about fifteen minutes
before the end of the race. Then, in a very short space of time, we
have to gather the full results, standings and reaction while
racking our brains for the famous "F1Lite Awards" and "F1 Wars". I
have no idea how we managed in the days before scheduling, because
it's hugely difficult to get everything done on time now, but
generally we try to write everything at least half an hour before
it reaches you. We judge our success largely on the numbers of
positive comments, retweets and followers we gain over the course
of the weekend - and if it's not enough we try and do things
differently next time around.
So there you go. It can be quite dull and is undoubtedly harder
work than it would seem - as a result of all the research needed to
produce a slick race show and the need to simultaneously update
both website and Facebook, it's become an all encompassing job
rather than a light hobby, but at the end of the day there's
massive satisfaction to be taken from pulling off a faultless
weekend - particularly when we get comments from people who solely
rely on us for their coverage. This is part of the reason we enjoy
our work so much, and despite the exhausting and occasionally
exasperating nature of keeping things rolling for four or even five
consecutive hours, we're more determined than ever to make our
coverage as good as it can possibly be.
Best wishes and see you all in Singapore,
Alex