What's tougher, keeping on top of Final Score, or hosting five hours of uninterrupted Super Bowl?
They're the two toughest jobs, because there's so little warning in both. For Score you can write an opening link - basically, "Welcome!" - and then you have no idea what the stories are going to be. It's like an express train, heading straight towards a wall, and it's your job to get there first and knock the wall down. In the Super Bowl, the technical challenge is immense - you only get a few seconds warning before each American advert break.
And there are a lot of American advert breaks...
There are, but I'm kind of proud that the BBC are bold enough to say, here's a sport totally designed around adverts - let's go for it and go back to the studio for analysis every time.
Was it a difficult transition from children's TV?
People think I've been around for five minutes. "Who's this bloke off kids' telly doing the Super Bowl?" But coming from CBBC is a great grounding, it's like being a pilot and getting your air miles, you spend hours and days doing live telly and it's the right place to make your mistakes. Sport was always where I wanted to end up, and when I was first asked to do Football Focus I felt comfortable. But the world is littered with kids' presenters doing low-rent reality TV shows. I was lucky; I knew the right people at the right time.
When did you find out that you would present the F1 coverage?
I heard the BBC had won the bidding in the summer, and my ears pricked - I wanted to run into the office wearing a Ferrari cap and McLaren jacket to show what a fan I was. It was tough not to plead on my knees, but thankfully they thought of me. I know there are some F1 fans who have questioned whether a children's TV presenter should be doing this, but that's a bit like saying Lewis Hamilton shouldn't be racing in F1 because he once raced in GP2. I've done the ground work and I've done my time getting ready for it.
F1 has had some famous names in front of the camera: do you feel a lot of pressure to get it right?
The way to get this right is for me not to think for one moment that people are tuning in to see Jake Humphrey present F1. The only person doing that will be my wife. If people don't even notice I'm there I've done my job right, like a referee. I'm there to get us from A to B.
Will the BBC be quietly supporting Lewis?
Coverage was very Lewis-heavy last year, which was fair enough because he was gunning for the championship. But there are so many interesting drivers. Take Sebastian Vettel, a young German who loves Fawlty Towers, racing for a funky young team in Red Bull, who may well be winning championships soon. Yet he could probably walk down Oxford Street and not be stopped. Lewis is important for Britain, but it's more important to give everyone parity at the start of a new season.
What can we expect from the sport this year?
We're going to see a few teams you wouldn't expect to see at the front of the grid, but also big gaps between the best and the worst. It's an interesting time thanks to the rule changes, and there will be good stories.
• The 2009 F1 season is live and exclusive on BBC
