As a UK terrestrial viewer (and licence fee payer) , I would have to say that I thought the red button options were pretty limited to be honest. its not Picture in Picture stuff, its 2 pictures that aren't big enough stuff. Not really very useful. The leader board is info you would get on the main picture anyway and the highlights feature is sure to make you miss some live action while you watch it!!!
The extra coverage at the end of the GP however and race week-end features and re-runs are all excellent.
Red Button gives us: • "Classic" Grand Prix highlights from the past runnings of each race; • A discussion "forum" after the race where the race is discussed; • On-board shots (haven't seen the onboards personally); • Highlights; • Leader board; • Alternative commentary (radio commentary instead of the tv commentary); • Coverage of FP1, FP2 (FP3?) which aren't on regular TV
The stuff which isn't live loops after it's finished. It's not a pay-per-view thing, you just have to have digital TV (cable/sat/freeview doesn't matter). They use it for News and other sports throughout the day.
If there's a car to crash in your neighbourhood, Who you gonna call? Yuji Ide!
Lots of cool stuff under the red button, although the in car footage was pretty small and blurry, and I never found the leaderboard.
The highlights of past Australian GP's were nice. Good to see Mansell's exploding tyre again, and Schumi's championship winning shove on Damon. Puts Vettel's post race apology in perspective, he'll never be the new Schumacher with that sort of behaviour.
And all of the practice sessions, and lots of extra discussions.
Strangely, the commentary options included CBeebies which is the BBC toddlers channel.
"Other than the car behind and the driver who might get a bit startled with the sudden explosion in front, it really isn't a major safety issue from that point of view,"
