Updated for the 2011 Season, the official F1 timing application is one of those must-have applications for a niche group – the smartphone users who are also Formula 1 fans. Last year’s review (here) covers all the relevant ground, but with Symbian^3 handsets now available, can you still keep up to date with the hectic pace, fastest sectors and lap times during a race weekend?

The short answer is 'yes you can', but with one caveat, at least for me. Like many applications for Symbian^3 devices, the developers have targeted the N8, and ticked that in the compatibility chart. And they’ve not marked up the other devices such as the E7.

Yet again I find myself looking for an option in the Ovi Store to say “ignore compatibility, I want to try this”, just as you get on a manual installation with a SISx file (such as Mobipocket, where I’m still using the N95 version as my main book reader).

This is an example when an application is far more useful than a good web browser – while people at home, watching on TV, can all bring up the full timing screen on their desktop, it’s when you get to the track, when you’re stuck at work and want to follow a practice session behind your IT firewall, that’s when this becomes a wonderfully useful application.

And that’s before you get to the circuit on race day.

It’s still recommended, and I’m away to mail the developers to sort out the E7 and C6-01 app store tagging issues!

-- Ewan Spence, Apr 2011.