Formula One? There’s an app for that…

ESPN and Formula1.com have both released feature-rich apps ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, the delayed but much-anticipated start to this year’s Formula One season. Both take different approaches to increasing viewer interaction.

Few sports lend themselves to dual-screen viewing as well as motor sport, and Formula1.com’s app makes the most of its exclusive access to the live timing system, which streams realtime data directly from Formula One Management’s Technical Facility at the race track. Basically, it displays the same timing and status information that is supplied to the teams and commentary positions from every session of the Grand Prix weekend, including lap and sector times, speeds, flags, air and track temperatures, rainfall and more.

An additional push notification service (currently only available on Apple iOS) alerts users when a Grand Prix session is about to begin, as well as session results, essential news, championship standings and more.

In the absence of live timing, ESPNF1, meanwhile, concentrates on the editorial value add in its app. Available now for iPhone and ‘coming soon’ for Android and Nokia, feature content includes Driver Profiles, Q&As, and opinion-based articles from ESPNF1 writers; as well as race commentary, updates, circuit profiles and so on. Again, a forthcoming push service will provide alerts on upcoming key events.