The F1 broadcasting change that could solve a lot of driver penalty angst

Whatever way you slice many of the controversial overtaking clashes in Formula 1 of late – particularly those involving Max Verstappen – there’s one element that cannot be denied.

When it comes to drivers fighting hard, title rivals going toe to toe, the best racing machines on the planet being thrown at each other – it makes a great television spectacle. TV can’t replace the buzz of the crowd and the raucous response to great or contentious overtaking moves, but F1 – really more than any other – is a sport designed for broadcasting.

And yet, there is one development in all the excellent output Formula One Management (FOM) produces for its world feed coverage that needs to be undone for the sake of the championship’s sporting sanctity.

And it’s pertinent to the current furore over Verstappen’s driving towards Lando Norris at Austin. In that case, there was a healthy dose of deja vu from Brazil 2021 and the Dutchman’s controversial clash there with Lewis Hamilton.

This is how, in both episodes, the live onboard feed from Verstappen’s car was pointing backwards at the time of each incident (in 2021 it cut there seconds before the clash Turn 4 occurred).

This meant that the respective stewards of those meetings had to make their calls without a very important piece of evidence, which showed the Dutchman’s full attempts to make the corner in real time. They do have steering lock data available as part of their telemetry assessments, but this is rarely explained for watching viewers.

A forward-facing onboard is generally the best view of a drivers’ perspective in any racing move, but when the opposite angle is being used for the live broadcast (including on FOM’s OTT offering, F1 TV) the critical view can only be accessed by the officials and teams when cars return to the pits and recordings from every onboard camera are downloaded.

In Brazil 2021, this was what formed Mercedes’ doomed right-of-review request regarding why Verstappen wasn’t even assessed for a penalty there.

For McLaren’s own similar attempt this time around, however, Motorsport.com understands that the forward-facing feed from Verstappen’s car, when viewed after the Austin weekend, played little part in how the team put together its own unsuccessful legal argument against Norris’s Austin…