I miss Bob Varsha and Steve Matchett. Bob was always very even-toned (no screaming), informative, and even when a big moment came like someone was about to win the championship, he still was calm. Matchett was great because he had connections all throughout the paddock and would say things like, "I was talking with several of the engineers last night and they were telling me about…" which is not something any driver commentator ever seems to do. Being an engineer myself and interested in that aspect of the sport, I miss that.
I think that Sky likes Crofty's screaming, since they use it all the time when they play the highlights from a race. But what bothers me even more is the bizarre way he says the driver's names at the ends of sentences. Sometimes it makes sense if you switch from Verstappen to Hamilton back to Verstappen when you're describing something, but he'll say "Lewis Hamilton loves his dog and brings him to every race does Lewis Hamilton." 🙄 He also says "uh" a lot, in places where he should clearly know what he's saying. It's terrible. "Piastri set the quickest time on the last, uh, lap." Brundle does both of these things too, but I can let it slide because he's a former driver and the color commentator, so technically it's not his roots, even though he's been doing it for many years. (To his credit, Crofty doesn't fall into what Leigh Diffey used to do, which is to say "oh! Look at this!" when something exciting might be happening. It's TV. I'm already looking. Duh.)
I find Crofty annoying enough that I watch the F1 Kids broadcast instead when it's available. They're a bit silly at times, but they don't say "uh" all the time.
I find it bizarre that even though Sky's F1 coverage is broadcast in Canada and the U. S., they often talk to the audience like they're only in Britain. They will say good morning or thanks for staying up late even though it's totally a different time in North America. You'd think they'd acknowledge us more.
All that is to say that I hope Apple gets a better "play by play" announcer and does a better job than Sky/ESPN (who as someone else noted, cuts away after the race end as fast as they can, leaving you to find the post race stuff on ESPN3 which doesn't always come up).
The one thing I am concerned about Apple's coverage of F1 is being able to watch the sessions and races on delay. With the events taking place all around the world, many sessions are live past my bed time. I hope they let us watch any session when we want, and also don't spoil them with the result of the session on the card before I watch it.
