24 replies to this topic

[bill patterson]

Can anyone give a definitive list of Grand Prix main commentators on British TV with years?

I remember Raymond Baxter, Barrie Gill & Murray with John Bolster, James Hunt, Jackie Stewart, Jonathan Palmer, Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell providing backup

[bill patterson]

Murray, of course, means Murray Walker

[Vitesse2]

Was James Allen a deliberate omission?

[bill patterson]

Yes!

He is receiving enough "threadtime" in the Worst Commentators thread

[Eric McLoughlin]

I think Tony Jardine stood in for Murray on one GP (the 1985 German GP from the new Nurburgring - Murray was commentating on the British Motor Bike GP that week-end).

Michael Carroll and Alan Tyndall used to commentate on GPs for RTE (Irish TV) in the 1980s. Tyndall is from Northern Ireland so would count as a British GP commentator (and he wasn't bad either - I always wish mainland BBC had given hima chance to commentate).

[racer69]

Derek Warwick also filled in for Martin Brundle at Montreal for ITV, 1998 i think it was.

Alan Jones also commentated alongside Murray at the 1993 Australian Grand Prix, and was the third commentator alongside Murray & Jonathan Palmer at the AGP in 1995.

[Rob Ryder]

Last year Jenson Button was in the ITV box during the BAR ban. Was it Spain or Monaco?

[Tim Murray]

I remember ITV covering the occasional race in the '70s. Their coverage of the 1978 Swedish GP had Fred Dinenage as the anchor man, but I can't remember who did the actual commentary.

[Vitesse2]

Mention should also be made of the English-language commentators on Eurosport: Allard Kalff, Ben Edwards and John Watson. I believe Allard moved to RTL's Dutch service?

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
Mention should also be made of the English-language commentators on Eurosport: Allard Kalff, Ben Edwards and John Watson. I believe Allard moved to RTL's Dutch service?

Yes, which means he covers not F1 but A1GP these days.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Rob Ryder
Last year Jenson Button was in the ITV box during the BAR ban. Was it Spain or Monaco?

Which reminds me of Anthony Davidson commentating the historical 2006 Hungary GP....

[dolomite]

Originally posted by Tim Murray
I remember ITV covering the occasional race in the '70s. Their coverage of the 1978 Swedish GP had Fred Dinenage as the anchor man, but I can't remember who did the actual commentary.

Andrew Marriott. He did pretty much all the ITV motorsport commentary at that time.

[FLB]

Originally posted by racer69
Alan Jones also commentated alongside Murray at the 1993 Australian Grand Prix, and was the third commentator alongside Murray & Jonathan Palmer at the AGP in 1995.

Jean Alesi and Micheal Schumacher had a coming together at Adelaide in 1995.

Murray: "What was he (Alesi) thinking?"

AJ: "Well, I'll tell you what he was thinking... 'You're not gonna get past me, you arrogant little kraut!', that's what he was thinking!"



Murray was speechless for a few moments. Mr. Jones has not been invited back since, unfortunately

[Tim Murray]

Originally posted by dolomite

Andrew Marriott. He did pretty much all the ITV motorsport commentary at that time.

Yes indeed. Thanks for jogging my memory.

[bill patterson]

Thanks

Let's just focus on British terrestial channels BBC and ITV

What I am really trying to establish is when did Murray Walker take over from Raymond Baxter who used to be the voice of Grand Prix?

Also, did Murray act as main GP commentator before Raymond Baxter?

[Eric McLoughlin]

I'm not sure how many GPs Murray did in the "Baxter" era but Baxter was still doing them until BBC got cold feet about GP coverage due to the advertising on the cars (1974/75 ish I suppose). Murray got the job full time in 1978 when BBC decided to cover all the GPs each season (although mostly in highlighy form only).

[nigel red5]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin

Michael Carroll and Alan Tyndall used to commentate on GPs for RTE (Irish TV) in the 1980s. Tyndall is from Northern Ireland so would count as a British GP commentator (and he wasn't bad either - I always wish mainland BBC had given hima chance to commentate).

Alan Tyndall also did some F1 commentating work for Eurosport during 1990.

Richard Nichols, he of Max power, and other such motorsporty tv programmes produced by Greenlight tv, was the main anchor & commentator for Eurosport during early 1991 with Wattie, before then in '92 Eurosport really started going for it with big coverage each weekend with the Kalff-Watson dreamteam (one of the best commentary duos ever IMO)

[Squire Straker]

Interesting point about Murray Walker only really taking over in 1978.

[Squire Straker]

Interesting point about Murray taking over in 1978. I must admit that before then I always regarded him as a bike man and mainly motocross at that, Jeff Smith, Dave Bickers and the Lampkins. However when did he start doing the rallycross, 1969/70 ish? I do not recall him commentating on say the F5000s at Oulton Park or the F2s at Thruxton over Easter from 1969 onwards. In fact how many motor racing commentaries did he do before 1978?
Personally my favourite commentator was Jeremy Carrad on Tom Tom with Rex Hays and his model cars. That was improvisation in 1966/67.
SS

[nmansellfan]

Murray did the '69 Italian GP, there's probably a clip of it on Youtube somewhere.

[Collombin]

Originally posted by nmansellfan
Murray did the '69 Italian GP, there's probably a clip of it on Youtube somewhere.

While we're on the subject, there's a bit of Murray's commentary at the end of this race (just after his trousers catch fire) that I've never been able to decipher.

It goes something like "and it's going to be a ????????? to win, it must be, it's over the line together, and it's almost a dead heat"

Anyone know what he said in place of the question marks? I've wondered for years.

[Eric McLoughlin]

From what I recall, he thinks Beloise has won and shouts, "It's Beltoise in the Matra" only for an unidentified voice in the background to shout "Stewart".

I had forgotten that Murrsy covered that race for the Beeb. He obviously did GPs now and then but his stint as main GP commentator really did begin with the commencement of BBC's highlights programme "Grand Prix" which commenced with the 1978 season.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by FLB

Jean Alesi and Micheal Schumacher had a coming together at Adelaide in 1995.

Murray: "What was he (Alesi) thinking?"

AJ: "Well, I'll tell you what he was thinking... 'You're not gonna get past me, you arrogant little kraut!', that's what he was thinking!"



Murray was speechless for a few moments. Mr. Jones has not been invited back since, unfortunately

Yes, somewhat ironic given Mr Walker's frequent pronouncements about the Maginot line when German drivers try to overtake... a slight case of double standards, I felt.

[bill patterson]

He obviously did GPs now and then but his stint as main GP commentator really did begin with the commencement of BBC's highlights programme "Grand Prix" which commenced with the 1978 season.

Thanks, Eric

This ties in with my thinking that Murray was a "junior" commentator to Raymond Baxter until Murray took over with the odd live commentary in the 70s eg. British, Monaco & Itlian Grand Prix and the half hour highlights on BBC2 on Sunday evenings from '78 onwards. Also, Squire Straker's sentiments on "scrambles" and Rallycross are memory joggers

As for the likes of Formula 2 at Easter Monday Thruxton??? Also, racing from Crystal Palace
eg. Formula 2, the Dave Morgan/James Hunt "incident" and Gerry Marshall's Viva against Mike Crabtree's (?) Escort & Martin Thomas's Camaro???

[Geoff E]

Murray started with Scrambling on ITV with Denis Parkinson (on Sundays?).

The sport switched to BBC a couple of years later as Moto®cross and Murray went with it.