Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management (FOM) organisation has confirmed that an HD feed will be available to all of the sport's host television broadcasters, meaning SuperSport viewers will get to watch all the action this year in (beautiful! glorious!) high definition.
This is good news for DStv subscribers with large television screens, who have been forced to watch severely pixelated racing up until now.
This means that F1 has now been added to SuperSport's stable of HD coverage which includes the Six Nations (select matches), Super 15 (the majority), Champions League, EPL, Tour de France, MotoGP, PGA Tour golf, Wimbledon, Roland Garros, Australian Open tennis, European Tour golf, Tri-Nations rugby, FA Cup, Rugby World Cup, La Liga, Champions League cricket, IPL, athletics, PSL (select matches), Currie Cup (select matches) and year-end rugby tours.
F1 qualifying and practice sessions will continue to be broadcast in SD (Standard Definition) due to "capacity constraints" (our understanding is that those constraints are largely due to the massive file size of HD shows and the bandwidth costs of downloading them).
Broadcast details will be released shortly. In the meantime, here is the full F1 2011 calendar:
March 13, Bahrain Grand Prix, Sakhir
March 27, Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne
April 10, Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang
April 17, Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai
May 8, Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul
May 22, Spanish Grand Prix, Barcelona
May 29, Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo
June 12, Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal
June 26, European Grand Prix, Valencia
July 10, British Grand Prix, Silverstone
July 24, German Grand Prix, Nürburgring
July 31, Hungarian Grand Prix, Hungaroring
August 28, Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps
September 11, Italian Grand Prix, Monza
September 25, Singapore Grand Prix, Marina Bay
October 9, Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka
October 16, Korean Grand Prix, Yeongam
October 30, Indian Grand Prix, New Delhi
November 13, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Yas Marina
November 27, Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos