http://www.itvf1.com/
It seems that the good people at F1 Racing magazine and ITV have teamed up to provide a pretty comprehensive guide to the Grand Prix F1 championship without any assistance from advertisers’ money. They must have produced the site out of the goodness of their hearts as there is not a single ad on the whole thing; a little odd for an ITV production.
Nevertheless the ITV F1 site is a handy little compendium to all the stats on teams, drivers, races and, and this is most important, the email address of the Great Man: Murray Walker. We should all email Him to let Him know that the Grand Prix is made by His commentary.
The site itself is divided into five sections: News, The Pits, ’98 Season, ITV Team and F1 Guide. The News area contains a list of news bulletins dating back to the beginning of the month. There is also an Archive section in here but, curiously, it is empty. Whilst the news stories are current and comprehensive, there is no search facility so you’d have to trawl through all the headlines if you were after something specific.
The Pits contains the email addresses of the ITV F1 team, as well as a competition area and message board which are ‘coming soon’. The bulk and best bit of the site, however, is the ’98 Season information area where there are some nice pictures of each team’s racing car which link to a well of information about the team and its drivers. It’s all a bit spoddy really but if you’re into motor racing, which millions are, then it’s probably worth a bookmark.
Whilst the site is basically well put together and looks pretty good, there are a few gripes. Firstly, quite a few sections are still under construction which is always a bit frustrating. Also, the Circuits section only contains Brazil’s Interlagos course at present. The only other minus is that the race reports and news stories look a bit flat as black text on a plain white background. A bit of glitz never does any harm.
However, I really got the most out of this site by going to the ITV Team area, clicking on Murray so that a picture of MW’s head (shadowed by a picture of… MW’s head) appears in the top left of the screen above a race report for the Melbourne race. I then right-clicked on this picture and chose Set As Wallpaper, and there He was – loads of Murrays all over my desktop. Lovely!
Reviewer: Scott Billings
