Australian GP
View from the Sofa!

by Stephen Slater

For 2002, the long awaited pay per view F1 Interactive Digital service (where you can choose your own camera angles, access on board cameras and pit data) has finally come to Britain. Of course we had to subscribe to it!! What we saw was monumental. The commentary was brilliant, the quality amazing and the action superb. As the cars lined up on the grid I sat with my friends Robin and Alex with the adrenalin rush that you always have at the start.

As the lights went out we all screamed "GO GO GO!". The camera then cut to an on board shot of Ralf Schumacher and suddenly we were quite literally flying. As long as no one gets hurt, we all love a startline crash (go on, admit it!!), and this was certainly one of the better ones. By the end of lap 1 we'd lost virtually half the field and the Jaguars were incredibly in 5th and 6th places. The digital channel provided its best action during the great battle between Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya.

The overriding story of the race aside from Schumacher's dominance was the performance of Mark Webber in his debut Grand Prix. In front of his home crowd he battled against car problems and a late charge from Mika Salo in the impressive Toyota. The Finn caught Webber with one lap to go, and we were being treated to another spectacular on board shot this time looking back from Webber's car, when Salo, accompanied by our cheers, spun going into turn 3.

The ensuing celebration from the Aussie was a joy to watch. But as the circus moves on to Sepang, the question on everyone's lips is, if Michael Schumacher can dominate with a year old car, what on earth can he do with the new model? As for us, we fell into bed at 6am still giggling from listening to Kimi Raikkonen's Finnish. The F1 Digital+ channel has proved a success and we've already booked our tickets for the rest of the season. Roll on Malaysia...