Martin Brundle's Friends - Ben Edwards

It's perhaps stretching the definition of "Martin Brundle's friends" slightly to include the man who will replace him behind the BBC microphone, but that's what I'm going to do to introduce this potted history of the versatile and experienced Ben Edwards, who becomes the BBC's third voice of F1 in four years.



I've heard it said that Ben Edwards is a poor man's Murray Walker; I would say that that's both unfair and inaccurate. He got his start in motor racing as a mechanic in 1982 in Formula Ford, but then moved behind the wheel himself, enjoying modest success in Formula First and Caterham racing. He also competed in the Euro Vauxhall Lotus series, where he shared grids with David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen. He then took a job as a racing instructor, then began doing track commentary at the circuits he was instructing at, and then managed to get himself a minor commentating job with the BBC.

In the early 90s, Eurosport gained rights to show live Formula One and hired Edwards, where he struck up a long-running and genial relationship with five-time race winner John Watson. They commentated on F1 until 1996. After the expiry of that contract, Edwards began commentating on the American CART series with some success, and with that experience was a strong candidate to replace Murray Walker at ITV before they decided to promote James Allen from within. He's subsequently commentated on almost every other major racing series at some time or another, and had another bite at F1 in 2002 when he was the lead commentator for BernieVision. He and his wife currently run a motorsports company that specialises in running championships, including British GT for a couple of years.

This time last year, it appeared as though Martin Brundle had completed the process of replacing Murray Walker as the voice of Formula One. Now he's back in the analyst's chair (yes, yes, I know he stands up to commentate like Murray did) and on a channel with an exponentially smaller British audience. This is Edwards's chance to prove his ability to a mass audience at last. Is he up to it? Only time will tell.

BEN'S WEB PRESENCE

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/benedwardstv

Martin Brundle's Friends - David Croft

David Croft (not to be confused with the other David Croft) is the man who will be the voice of Formula One on Sky, and will likely be responsible for releasing carefully-planned doses of Martin Brundle into our living rooms. Here is a potted summary of his career.



When he's not taking part in ill-advised photoshoots that make him look http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflike a Top Gear reject, Croft is from a similar career background to Jonathan Legard, a BBC journalist who had plenty of experience covering a wide range of sports before landing the F1 gig. He's covered the Olympics, darts, cricket, golf and football for the BBC, as well as freelance jobs in boxing and (allegedly) parkour. He also has a mildly amusing page on his agent's website:

http://www.harveyvoices.co.uk/profile/view/david_croft

As a commentator? I've not had cause to listen to F1 on the radio too ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giften; but on the occasions that I have, I've been able to follow how the race is going and he's not made me want to throw the radio out of the car. Someone on Youtube made a rather uncharitable (but still valid) comparison between Legard and Croft at Turkey in 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikasr6UkqY8

So on the face of it, there's no reason why he can't be a success for Sky - except there's the issue of the medium. Inasmuch as commentary of any kind can be easy (it's not), radio commentary is relatively easy because if you're stuck for anything to say, you just pretend you're on Catchphrase and say what you see, and you're giving out useful information. Telly you can't necessarily do that; there's a lot more interpretation than description - and while Martin will be doing the lion's share of interpretation, there's still plenty of room for the main man to editorialise.

The other factor that might come into play is the danger of catching Sky-itis. Anyone who watches Sky regularly knows that they have a simple rule - you can say that individuals, or teams, aren't doing so well and have made mistakes; but the quality of the event as a whole must be talked up at all costs. Every SKY SUPER SUNDAY football match is a FANTASTIC AFFAIR or a GREAT BATTLE or even a COMhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifPELLING ARM-WRESTLE (because otherwise, according to the Sky mindset, the viewer might be tempted to think "why am I paying large amounts of subscription fees to watch this dross?"). By comparison, the BBC feels free to say "actually, that race was a bit dull", because we're not paying for it (yes, O pedants, technically we are, but not in the same way). Brundle I'm sure will not succumb to Sky-itis; he knows that he's achieved the position he has due in some part to saying when things are wrong and poor, and it'll fatally compromise him to start toeing a party line now. Without such a public profile, Croft may feel the pressure to conform. I hope not.

DAVID'S WEB PRESENCE

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/croftyf1