Did TV direction make the Singapore GP look more boring than it was?

During what looked like a rather uneventful Singapore Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso‘s radio messages were one of the highlights for Formula 1 fans worldwide as he aired his frustrations to his Aston Martin race engineer in the way that has made the Spaniard a fan favourite.

The two-time champion was in disbelief after Lewis Hamilton, struggling with brake problems, finished ahead of him on track after cutting through several corners on the final lap of the race.

“F***ing hell, man,” Alonso said on the radio. “I cannot believe it. I cannot f***ing believe it, I cannot f***ing believe it. I mean, I cannot f***ing believe it. I cannot f***ing believe it.

“Is it safe to drive with no brakes?”

He later added: “This should be f***ing P7. I mean, you cannot drive like if you are alone on track. Yeah, I mean, no respect the red flag yesterday, today, free track for them. I mean, maybe too much.”

Those messages were not broadcast on the world feed, but there was another nugget earlier in the race that did make the cut, not only on TV.

“If you speak to me every lap I will disconnect the radio,” the Spaniard told his engineer Andrew Vizard.

The six-second clip is also on F1’s website, and Alonso’s message also featured on F1’s official social accounts, where the Aston Martin star gave a poignant reply.

“With pole position secured for the private radio broadcast, time to fine-tune the main coverage and bring all the on-track excitement to the fans,” Alonso wrote on X (Twitter).

It might just be a comment on social media, but Alonso has a point, and his reply highlights an issue that was very evident during the 62 laps of the Singapore race.

While the Marina Bay event faced criticism for the lack of action, Alonso’s comment about fine-tuning the main coverage and bring all the on-track excitement to the fans was spot on.

On his way to an eventual seventh place, the Aston driver overtook Isack Hadjar for eighth place on lap 5 at Turn 13, a place where no one would think overtaking is possible. Judging by his reaction in seeing Alonso on the inside, Hadjar didn’t think so either.

That move was not broadcast on live TV.

On lap 45, Alonso overtook Oliver Bearman for P10 at Turn 7, before the Haas driver attempted to re-pass the Aston, the duo barely making it side-by-side at Turn 9 before Alonso emerged ahead.

That was also not broadcast on live TV.

Two laps later, Alonso, on fresher tyres, overtook Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson on the same lap. Again, the TV director missed that.

Sainz, meanwhile, recovered from 18th on the grid to 10th by the chequered flag.

On track, he passed Lance Stroll, Gabriel Bortoleto, Franco Colapinto, Yuki Tsunoda and Hadjar, who let Sainz by in an attempt to then use his DRS to re-take the position, a move that didn’t pay off.

None of those moves were broadcast on live TV.

Also not broadcast on television was Hamilton spending the final two laps of the race cutting through corners as he struggled with his brakes.

Neither was Alonso erasing a gap of over 40 seconds to finish less than half a second behind the Ferrari.

If viewers missed all that, they could be forgiven for thinking Singapore was a processional race – another one-stop tyre economy run under glaring floodlights.

Instead, most viewers can now probably identify and name Sainz’s, Charles Leclerc’s and Lando Norris’ girlfriends.

For a series so obsessed with spectacle, F1 has become surprisingly bad at showing it.

Granted, it’s naïve to think that the racing is all that matters to F1, particularly now that it focuses on attracting a new, younger, more casual audience that might welcome finding out that a certain celebrity is at a team’s garage or that a driver’s partner is also a model.

With that in mind, you have to sympathise with the TV director and their team.

If you’ve ever watched this video of the 2018 German Grand Prix from the TV director’s point of view, you know their job is incredibly challenging.

Add to that the pressure of having to find time to show celebrities or families some 20 times during a race, and you understand how some of the on-track action is often missed.

F1’s core audience is increasingly composed of new fans – especially younger people, women, and those from emerging markets – but it remains anchored by a large, committed base of highly engaged, long-term followers who want to see the racing above all.

In that sense, one of the problems often lies not with the racing itself but with how it’s presented.

Formula 1’s world feed, directed by FOM, is the same for every broadcaster. Its editors decide which cars to follow, which onboard cameras to cut to, and when to show replays. The intent is to balance storylines, leaders, and midfield battles.

While human interest adds emotion and accessibility, it often comes at the expense of the racing itself.

In moderation, the glimpses of celebrities or families can humanise the series. Used excessively, they make F1 feel more like a lifestyle show than a live competition.

Increasingly, the direction feels like it’s chasing narrative rather than racing, focusing almost exclusively on the frontrunners, team radio snippets often taken out of context, or aesthetic shots of people in the garages instead of live wheel-to-wheel fights.

In Singapore, that approach was exposed.

The effect is not just frustrating for viewers. It also actively shapes their perception about the race, which can appear sterile not because nothing is happening, but because nothing interesting is being shown.

And it is in F1’s best interest to find a better balance.

The television feed is the lens through which most fans experience F1. When the cameras miss passes or battles, it not only fails the drivers and fans, but also itself.

It creates the illusion that modern F1 is more tame than it actually is. Alonso’s and Sainz’s surges in Singapore, for instance, were remarkable, but without the pictures, they barely existed.