#espn23

[danthropologie]

espnf1: IT'S OFFICIAL! 🏁 Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett are teaming up to produce an alternate F1 telecast at three races this year on ESPN 🙌

(full article under the cut)

Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett to host alternate F1 telecasts on ESPN

Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett will host an alternate telecast on ESPN2 during next weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

The debut episode of The Grandstand with Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett will air on June 18 on ESPN2 in the U.S., while regular race coverage of the Canadian Grand Prix will be broadcast on ABC.

Two further editions of the telecast will run at the U.S. Grand Prix on October 22 and the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix on November 18.

The telecasts will be produced in collaboration with Peyton Manning's Omaha Productions, whose critically-acclaimed 'ManningCasts' have proved popular on Monday Night Football.

Ricciardo, an eight-time race winner who is currently Red Bull Racing's third driver, and Arnett, a recent fan of F1 who starred in hit TV series Arrested Development and 30 Rock, will be joined by guests during the race.

For the upcoming episode over the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, Ricciardo will be on location at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal while Arnett will join from a remote location.

"This is going to be a hoot!" Ricciardo said. "As you'd expect Will and I are going to have some fun with the show, but we're hoping it just feels like you're watching F1 with your mates.

"We will have some amazing guests, plenty of laughs and with some luck, bring fans another step closer to the sport I love so much. Buckle up America!"

Arnett added: "The more I learn about Formula One, the more I'm intrigued by it. The opportunity to work with Mika [Hakkinen, two-time F1 champion] on my podcast was fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to doing this show with Daniel. We're going to have fun, and so will the viewers."

(link)

[danthropologie]

the most interesting part of daniels commentary imo was about the cooldown room, especially with lewis and max being so friendly. daniel laughs and says he sees it as lewis trying to get info out of max to bring back to Mercedes by commenting/asking questions while max is still in a good mood/chatty from winning. then daniel says max didn’t give anything away and kept it pretty blasé and that the mind games are standard for the sport—that drivers will do that in cooldown rooms. drivers never usually talk about that stuff so it’s cool—a friendly interaction from the outside but something more.

totally agree!! i feel like the cooldown rooms are always some of the most interesting bits of the weekend anyways, just because the idea of throwing all these different personalities into a tiny room together after an hour and a half of direct competition is FASCINATING from a dynamics point of view. and i think it's pretty obvious that there's a lot of levels and layers to those interactions that we as spectators don't even understand, but to have daniel watch with such glee and then be like 'yeah they were playing fucking mind games like crazyyyy' is just. god, perfect 🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌

[danthropologie]

When nick thimm retweeted the announcement he said and I quote ‘proud of DR for making the most of this year’ which doesss imply that this is a one year thing and that he’s taking the opportunity to do this now as he won’t (bc he’s hopefully racing woo) get it again and it’s another opp to extend his markability in the us.. concluding that racing his defo still his priority 🤞

yes true, that too!!

[danthropologie]

this made me gain a whole new level of respect for sports commentators fs lol. but also poor daniel trying to watch and pull up clips and carry a convo simultaneously

yeah it's definitely a learned skill!! i think it would probably help to have multiple people that know wtf is going on and can cover for each other when need be, which isn't really happening here 😭

[danthropologie]

can the stat guy stay on the whole time 😭😭😭 he’s giving

him, daniel, and patrick dempsey: the true dream team

[danthropologie]

honestly at this point, make patrick dempsey the cohost fuck will arnett

[danthropologie]

I think it’s a very strategic move. Outside of those delays in Aus, we really didn’t see him on race day in Miami or Monaco. We know he’s there, he’s doing the debriefs n stuff but we didn’t get any on screen proof of life.

So I think it’s genius to clearly have him there and available but then we have ALL the screen time of him during the race. And then the telecast is done at the end of the race, he’s back to being available for the post race debriefs.

that's very very true, i like where your head's at. and i suppose with where the rb19 is at at this stage too it's like...he's on the pit wall for the practices, he's in the garage for quali, how much more information could you REALLY glean from the race itself that you couldn't get from a debrief or an onboard afterwards when there's next to no competition 😭

[danthropologie]

I completely agree. Redbull would have signed off on him not being in the garage on those race days. From what I take it he’s doing normal Redbull duties through to Saturday it’s just the race day where he won’t be in the garage.

I also think this will boost his stock for sponsors and stuff which is always good and how much Christian was talking about breaking into the US market at the car launch.

I still think driving next year is his 100% plan. He wouldn’t be acting like he was in Miami and Monaco if that wasn’t the case.

i have to say it IS interesting to me that both he and the team are willing to not have him in the garage for those couple of sundays? obviously, like you've said, this is a great opportunity for him to boost his own stock, both personally and for the team, but at the same time like.....when he's been treating every race weekend like he's a driver without the driving, in every meeting, at every session, pouring over the data with the rest of the team, etc etc etc, and when he's been gunning SO hard to get back in that rbr seat.....idk i just feel like you'd want to soak up every bit of it that you possibly could?? so the fact that he's stepping out of that, even just for a couple races, and taking this opportunity.......again it just signals a certain level of confidence to me 🤷‍♀️