Leigh Diffey

I enjoy Matchett and Hobbs, and can easily tune Diffey out. What really roasts my buns, however, is that hyperventilating blowhard twit Will Buxton. He constantly talks over pit radio transmissions and uses way too many words to describe nothing relevant, all the time being oblivious to what is happening on track. He adds nothing but annoyance.

 

I will say that both Varsha and Diffey are light years better than Daly. Anyone but Daly.

 

Great point. It wasn't that long ago when we were limited to F-1 on ABCs whim. We'd usually
get Monaco but only on a tape delayed basis. One year, they even spread out the tape delayed
coverage over two weekends, half of the race on one Wide World of Sports and the second half
on WWoS the next week.

Commentators ranged from Jim McKay (an American sports broadcast institution but not
a racing expert by any means), Chris Economaki (who was a racing expert but not an F-1
insider), they even got Jackie Stewart involved. That goes back to when even the Indy 500
was on a tape delayed basis.

Fast forwarding to when ESPN took up the F-1 broadcasts, we had to endure Economaki again
along with Derek Daly and the insufferable John Bisignano among others.

So, we really can't complain too much these days. Yes, Diffey is over the top at times but
looking at history, he can't be any worse than some of the other announcers we've had to
put up with over the past few decades.

BHW

 

Going back even farther, I can remember CBS covering Monaco with Bud Palmer. I believe that was 1961.

Jack

 

Diffey just pulled the most bush league move yet. He gave the full run down on the "drama" between the Mercedes teammates like some hack TMZ reporter.

I think Hobbs is hilarious and I enjoy his input.

Matchett is fine at the beginning of the broadcast, but as the race wears on, he starts rambling and has awkward outbursts. I don't remember what race it was last year, but he was yelling "ADVANTAGE RED BULL! ADVANTAGE RED BULL!" Wouldn't surprise me if he's taking a few pulls off a flask throughout the broadcast.

 

I have no idea why they moved Varsha out of F1 coverage. Diffey is absolutely horrible for F1, and he was even worse in the Winter Olympics. On one bobsled run - all 58 seconds of it - he talked about the competitor's background/history and ignored his duty as a commentator on what was going on with the run.
And if I have to endure him adding one more "R" sound to a word like "Honda" I may scream.
Bring back Varsha! YESTERDAY!!

 

It was suggested that Varsha, being a Fox employee, didn't follow Hobbs and Matchette to NBC for contractual reasons.

 

Why do English/Australian people do this? Matchett used to do it all the time (Felipe MasseR) but he has gotten better.

Hey geniuses there is no R at the end of Massa. You'd think they could pronounce the language they invented.

I'd have to say that Matchett is far and away my favorite commentator on the team. He is great. Diffey is just annoying and Hobbs seems to struggle to keep up anymore - and as the years wear by he seems to care less and less about being so obvious about being a Hamilton fanboy.