He has a very long history in F1 as mechanic, chief mechanic and car designer, but I generally find his comments irritating and often not very informative or accurate at all. Is it just me? I read a couple of Autosport Magazines before the season began, and here was Anderson "voice of expert", who'd done sod all in F1 since Jordon, having his say. Red Bull, he assured the reader, would be streets ahead of the rest, and he imparted a rather vague morsel about shape and aero parts. Mercedes and Ferrari would be next, his "expert eye" told him, with Mclaren's and Renault's basic form possibly a distant fourth and fifth... Roll on the start of the season, and he was informing us that, oh yes, Mclaren clearly is the best designed car. He keeps suggesting tid-bits, which seem to me always wrong, bar his guesses at Monaco. So why do the BBC rate him so highly, especially when every other expert says that spending years away in motorsport terms is detrimental to your ability, purely because the technology moves so fast... Surely someone more up-to-date would offer more technical insight, then? Also, if anyone wants to keep track of his predicitions, that's welcome, I shall try to also!
Sometimes I think these "experts" are no more knowledgeable than us, and that's saying something! Didn't these "experts" also say Toro Rosso was looking super quick this year? and the same with Williams the year before that? Look what happens! the car turns out to be crap... Pundits and experts that blab their mouth about and get it wrong should be fired on the spot and then put into stocks so we can throw rotten vegetables at them.
I wonder who would want to be a pundit after this was enforced... Possibly just sexy girls with no knowledge of F1... That might be ok I agree with you on pundits being a bit daft a lot of the time, it's fine being wrong, but adopting a kind of know-it-all posture and tone when presenting subjective-tripe is just obnoxious, in my opinion. I wouldn't mind if pundits were wrong, just I wish they had more of a Martin Brundle ease about putting across their views. I think people tolerate Eddie Jordan because he's eccentric and perhaps funny, but he's the most ridiculous individual, being louder (if possible) than his own shirts. He invents random nonsense which (very very very quickly) goes nowhere, but keeps talking and talking until an unnatural moment of inflexion, at which point he points the mic at his latest hapless victim, who has to try to decipher some logic from the crap Eddie's spouted and respond with something that'll answer the "question"... It's just bizarre.
I've become a big fan of Anderson. I realise that he's not your typical TV type and doesn't have that screen charisma but I find that refreshing. I like it that there's no waffle, just hi-tech stuff explained in a way even I can understand. And I've noticed how Coulthard and Edwards were just as impressed with the accuracy of his quali time predictions - but they're pundits too so what would they know? I can see that he's probably TV marmite though so I can understand why he'd "grind your gears" (© Peter Griffin) but, personally, I'd rather have Anderson than the bland likes of Simon Cheezenby on Sky. Although, apparently, Cheezenby is a lot less bland off screen... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2164678/Simon-Lazenby-Sky-presenter-trouble--Charles-Sale.html
I wasn't keen on Anderson when he started, but that was ignorance on my part, it turns out the man is a genius and is usually right with everything he says.
Overall Gary is good. He provides useful information like Ted Kravitz did, and he can explain the technical stuff much better than Kravitz. Sometimes he does piss me off though, like: He bashed McLaren at the launch because of their lower nose - then McLaren took pole in Australia He claimed Ferrari's pull rod front suspension was flawed, but when Ferrari became competitive he stopped talking about it He continues to say Ferrari's front wing endplates are too simple and therefore not good enough (even though Red Bull's FW endplates are even simpler). My favourite is when he said on Ferrari's old radiator exit: "Not only did the bodywork affect the airflow there detrimentally, that problem was exacerbated because they are also using the rear of the sidepod as a radiator-air exit. Radiator air is hot and slow - exactly what you don't need somewhere you want fast airflow." A few weeks later in Autosport magazine he praised Williams for doing exactly that. Only the teams really know what's going on and even they sometimes get things wrong. Pat Fry said before the Australian GP was Red Bull will be on pole by half a second.
I think that it is far too easy to expect miracles from people 'in the know', so-to-speak. It is quite wrong to expect any expert to give any more than his or her expert opinion; and as we all know, anyone's opinion will be wrong from time to time (except mine of course). What I like about Anderson is that he has always been willing to speak his mind and actually give an opinion – despite risking criticism when wrong – rather than hedging his bets and waffling without committing himself. Do the public prefer someone who puts his neck on the line, or someone who plays safe? Well, I know what I prefer…
It's more the impression that he's willing to give an opinion which is put across as factual, when having been out of the game so long it becomes clear sometimes (even to me) that he's guessing badly. I don't like to write-off people completely, so I'll keep a note of his predictions and add them here, so we can see how accurate they are... If he gets them all right, I'll willingly call him the Oracle and bow to his feet Think he said it would be a one stopper tomorrow (which is fair enough I suppose), I'll see who he fancies for the race tomorrow. If it isn't Vettel or Alonso I'll be surprised!
I do not know what he said, as I did not see the TV coverage. However, if it looks like a dry race, I think two stops will be slightly quicker, especially for quick thinking teams who can spot the gaps in traffic at the critical moment (this probably excludes McLaren's 'slow and stodgy' Sam Michael, for instance). I would have expected Anderson to know this, and am surprised if, as you say, he suggested one stop. That said, I think a one-stopper is quite viable; so expect the likes of Perez (amongst a few others) to try it!
I agree entirely, I prefer somebody like Anderson rather than Damon Hill who has had to **** out a lot of microphones recently!
You think you are as knowledgable as Gary Anderson? You are in a fantasy world. You need some psychological help.
I like how Anderson operates. Its like he is still working for a team but for the BBC. The technical insight is great. Basic but better than the high tech sky pad
Well considering he said the McLaren upgrades looked crap I guess it's not that hard to beat him? You wouldn't be Gary Anderson by any chance?
I think Sky's covergae may as well be renamed The Lewis Hamilton Channel, everytime they went to the pitlane, Ted just kept mentioning Hamilton.
I feel very alien to Sky. Never been a fan of Ted Kravitz either. People don't realise that James Allen was the best pit lane commentator. I find Gary Anderson a whole lot more informative, telling us what will happen and not what IS happening, which is the job Ben Edwards and David Coulthard do better than David Croft and Martin Brundle. It's a shame because Brundle and Edwards would have been an amazing partnership. But he's stuck with David Croft now and Coulthard does a great job nowadays anyway which makes Brundle's loss from the Beeb commentary box less than what we feared. But yeah the best of them all is Ben Edwards. Where was he the last 10 years? Watched the highlights on BBC and his commentary was so refreshing and so far away from "Crofty's" musings. He's up there with the very very best commentators. Edwards has forgotten more about f1 than Croft has ever learnt.
Dont get the fuss about Anderson. He makes educated guesses and passes them off as fact. Such as his criticism of the McLaren this weekend. I like his technical knowledge, and i guess its not his fault but as the expert he's asked questions that nobody can accurately answer, especially without inside knowledge.
So you prefer Ted Kravitz, who spends his whole time performing x-rated acts for the mclaren heirarchy.
