The BBC and Sky have announced that the F1 coverage will be split between them from 2012, or rather, Sky have announced they’ll be showing all the races and will be throwing meagre scraps of coverage to its poorer cousin, sharing in the same sense that a bully ‘shares’ his victims sandwiches.

Obviously there’s uproar from all of us without a sky box, including Martin Whitmarsh who thinks this breaks a fundamental thing in the concorde agreement (that secret document that has what’s in it discussed so often that by deciphering the last decade of F1 news we can probably assemble the whole thing) as it says F1 should be free-to-air.

I’m sure some people will point at the BBC licence fee as a paradox of this.

But the deeper question is whether this will happen at all? Bernie has announced it by holding a big surprise party of a press release. And if there’s one thing F1 fans know is that if Bernie says something is happening then it probably won’t.

Either there’ll be a massive 6music style uproar (I like a good twibbon) and the BBC will keep it all, or there won’t be and Sky will have their way.

The BBC will say it’s like Wimbledon, no one bothers to watch the other tennis tournaments, and they all basically work towards the world rankings like a championship. Or the FA Cup final, or other Blue Riband (hang on, isn’t that a type of wafer?) events. And in truth there’s probably a point there. Yes, *we* all get up at 3am for the Faraway and Dull Grand Prix, but most don’t, most will be happy with highlights and a spot on BBC Three’s 60 second news.

So what next?

My main concern is that if this does happen then the biggest victim will be the lack of consistency over coverage. Will BBC and Sky share presenters/commentators? Doubtful. So will Brundle, DC, EJ et al jump ship to the higher money, leaving Jakey-Wakey to talk to Jonathon Legard in an empty room (that’s a recurring nightmare of mine, btw). Will BBC coverage slowly degenerate into the days when it was a segment on Grandstand like the old Mexican Grands Prix or will The British Grand Prix become more of an event, like a Wimbledon?

FiveLive will still broadcast all races, so will this become the new de facto coverage to keep that consistency, or will Crofty be moved to fill a Brundle shaped BBC hole, or make his own home at Sky?

As ever there are more questions than answers right now, and if I know one thing about F1 is that the end result won’t be quite what we expect.

Leave your views in the comments, I think this might get messy.

But in the meantime I’m off to get a sky subscription, and to see if there are any jobs going for the new coverage…