Listen to this article
But what many don’t realise is that before these images reach us, they have travelled many thousands of miles in a near instant. And this involves quite a bit of technology.
Television production of a Formula 1 race is a huge undertaking. For each grand prix event, there are 90 cameras and 147 microphones installed, plus around 80 kilometres of cable have to be laid.
In the past, everything was produced on location at the F1 Broadcast Centre, after which the world feed was provided to the broadcasters. Individual rights holders then added their own commentary to the international feed, and forwarded the images to the viewers at home.
Since 2020, however, and earlier than planned due to the COVID-19 enforced pandemic, footage from all the cameras at the track has been directly sent to Biggi …