Posted by Master of the obvious! King of the cliché! Everybody seems to have an opinion about the new BBC F1 commentator Jonathan Legard, and unfortunately for him it’s largely not good.
Many have criticised his over-descriptive 5-Live Radio style during races, his tendency to talk over the much-loved Brundle and his generic ‘sport commentator’ voice. Aside from such technicalities, Legard doesn’t really seem to enhance the commentary in any meaningful way. You can trust Eddie Jordan to say something outrageous, but totally inaccurate, DC to completely contradict EJ using his extensive driver knowledge, Martin Brundle to be typically lucid and brilliant, Jake Humphrey to simplify everything for the F1-newbies/idiots/part-timers, Ted Kravitz to be in the pit lane, Lee McKenzie to flirt with the drivers and get some inside gossip, and Murray Walker to be, well, the legend that he is. But what does Legard add?
Legard: BBC veteran
Legard does seem to be all about the facts, both in his blog and on the TV. Yet in taking such a stance he seems to miss the very point of his job. Us F1 fans can go to Wikipedia any day for our facts, albeit slightly dodgy ones, but as a commentator he is meant to be there to take those facts and turn them into something more than mere numbers and statistics.
So what makes a good Formula 1 commentator? Is it humour? Accuracy? Sarcasm? Insider knowledge? Charisma? Put simply: is anyone ever going to live up to commentator-god that is Murray Walker?
Elsewhere in the media, Legard treats us to more of his trademark obviousness: “I could never be Murray Walker. I’m Jonathan Legard, I’ve got to be myself. It’s the same in radio, the same in life. Be yourself. You stand or fall by it.” You’re Jonathon Legard? No way!? So glad you cleared up that up for us.
Murray Walker, aka Muddly Talker
The great ‘Commentator Crisis’ is a serious issue in F1. Since the sport’s inception there have been hundreds of drivers, and yet only a handful of commentators. It wasn’t until the 1970s that extensive television coverage of races even began. Murray Walker has been commentating in some form for what seems like centuries, well, 61 years to be precise.
In the early 80s we saw him paired with the superbly candid and controversial James Hunt, who was replaced by Jonathon Palmer in 1993 after Hunt tragically died of a heart attack. Palmer was replaced by Brundle in 1997 during the move to ITV, and James Allen was phased in to replace Walker from about 2000. Allen received a lot of poor reviews during his tenure in the commentary box, but here at Badger we’ll happily put his excellent blog over Legard’s lame one any day.
And just before you thought we’d actually go a whole article without mentioning Jenson Button… let us not forget the stunning job he did commentating at the 2005 Monaco grand prix! After being handed a two-race ban for fuel irregularities of some sort, ITV had the common sense to get him in the commentary box, and he didn’t disappoint. So all this rubbish about letting Legard ‘settle in’ just doesn’t ring true. If Button can do it with absolutely no broadcasting experience then why should we give Legard any slack?
What is clear from all this, however, is that genuinely good commentary is a highly prized commodity in the world of F1. Although perhaps not to the Italians, who apparently couldn’t care less about commentary. During a grand prix they mute the TV, and proceed to make up their own incomprehensible version of a ‘commentary’, accompanied by large angry gestures when Ferrari get in a pickle, and then often leave in protest when Ferrari don’t look like they’re going to win.
There seems to be a general feeling that maybe we shouldn’t judge the man too soon, and at least give him a few more races to prove himself. But hey, they said that about Piquet and the guy doesn’t seem to have improved much. It’s a shame that the BBC haven’t followed Flavio Briatore’s lead and given Legard two races to improve or he’ll be out of F1.
The Badger hereby puts Jonathon Legard on commentator-probation for the foreseeable future.
After today’s Malaysian GP, I’ve finally lost tolerance to Legard’s F1 commentary. I’ve been watching F1 for around 17 years, experiencing various commentators (Murray Walker, Ben Edwards [Eurosport], James Allen). I was patient for the whole of last year, as it’s fair to give people a fair chance to find their place. But it’s become so apparent to me that Legard is just not suitable as a motorsport commentator. Actually, I find it bizarre that BBC employ him as the lead commentator for the pinnacle of motorsport – Formula 1.
A lot of people seem to complain about his phrases and language. This never really seemed a big issue to me. The real problem is the dynamic, pace, intensity, knowledge etc.
He clearly lacks the knowledge of the sport. This is indicated several times over the race weekend with unusual comments and mistakes. For example, in Q2 in Malaysia, with 7 minutes remaining, Mark Webber went P1. Legard announced with a great climax, something like “can he do it, CAN HE DO IT? YESS! HE’S DONE IT!”. But I mean, with 7 minutes left, and it also being Q2, there was really no significance to Webber’s lap, apart from it looking like putting him into Q3, as expected.
There is far too much dynamic; the gap between loud and quiet is too great. It should be pretty level from start to finish, obviously with some increase with big incidents. Legard has a terrible tendency to do some quiet mumbling, with silences in between bits of sentences. In the Malaysian GP when Alonso’s engine was about to blow, Legard was mumbling something as Alonso was blowing up along the straight. Even as Alonso pulled off the track, Legard was still mumbling, and his sentence sloped into a sharp change of dynamic as he finally acknowledged the significance of Alonso’s retirement.
After the F1, I discovered the BTCC over on ITV, incidentally with Ben Edwards as the lead commentator. It makes such a difference having a good commentator. The good commentators sell the show as much as the action, and Ben Edwards does it better than any other 4-wheel commentators around. But it was just funny to watch BBC’s F1 experience, and then switch over to the BTCC in the cold countryside of Thruxton, and have a much better delivery of the commentary. It’s the wrong way around.
If you haven’t already heard it check out Ben Edwards’ commentary on Montoya’s Champ Car win from back in 2000. It’ll be on YouTube (Montoya Andretti Michigan will probably bring it up).
Just watched it. It was brilliant..
Just so you know, the BBC approached Ben Edwards last year, and he turned the offer down. On the basis that he said he’d struggle to find things to talk about for 90mins and prefers doing short sprint races.
That’s weird, he was brilliant doing Champ Car back in the Zanardi/Montoya days and their races were F1 length.
The red button is a decent option, but it means missing out on Martin, and his great ear for a problem. I have to echo Shirley Fredericks views in the sense that I swear i can hear Legard unzipping his trousers whenever Hamilton is on screen. He should leave it to Martin to dish out the superlatives (or not) and concentrate on actual commentating, rather than ram down our throats how brilliant Lewis was when overtaking a stationary Williams at the start.
I’m afraid I’ve taken to red button commentary this season, even though it means I miss listening to Martin Brundle I just can’t take another of Legard’s commentaries – he is without a doubt the weak link in the BBC’s team…
Today I was forced to listen to his commentary as we were out and I couldn’t watch the race live and I very nearly just turned the sound off
It’s the shouting that gets through to me. It’s all so false and far from passionate. At the end of the Malaysian GP he suddenly launched into BARKING mode and one could almost hear his blood vessels bursting. As a commentator he should possess the ability to speak with more control and, talking about control, he needs to display more respect towards Martin Brundle as his interruptions are downright rude.
During this race Martin was discussing a particular driver’s form whilst the car was on screen and the car went wide. Martin picked up on this and before he had got three words out Legard jumped in shouting over Martin to make the same point.
Why does he do this? If he behaves this way on TV I dread to think about how he behaves in social circles outside TV.
Manners maketh Man and he ‘ain’t got any!
He had his chance when everyone was saying he was new to the role and needed time but here we are after a year has passed and he is no better.
“Just so you know, the BBC approached Ben Edwards last year, and he turned the offer down”
I understood Legard was just hired straight away.
Anyway, I had to listen to JL for Malaysia because it was a repeat (no idea whether they repeat Crofty because as soon as I pressed the red button I got Sports News and had to turn off the TV before the idiots gave me the result).
He did a woeful job.
First 30 mins, no real problems apart from his usual irritating style.
But then, it all turned pear shaped. He just ran out of things to say. There were 2 times when I thought (or prayed) he had fallen off his chair and collapsed in a heap because he did literally did not know what to say. It was just dead air for about 20 seconds a time.
And then when he could think of something, it was just stilted sentence fragments. He mumbled on like some sort of elderly dementia patient. I nearly fell asleep he made it so dull.
And then the hilarious thing was that he realised it was the end of the race (or someone used a cattle prod on him) and started yelling down the microphone.
The guy’s a complete tool. How can nobody at the BBC realise he is just a poor poor commentator? Martin Brundle must think what has he done to deserve to have to work with such an idiot.
Another thing i read somewhere is that Brundle refuses to work with Croft for some reason. Though, i can’t verify that as fact since i read it on a forum and some people have a habit of making things up!
Would make some sense though.
Jonathan Legard, listening to him is like having teeth extracted, he is so boring, that I’d rather it was back on ITV and we had to put up with adverts. He really has to go, Martin Brundle is brilliant and the ITV team worked really well, this doesn’t. I’ve decided not to watch anymore because of Legard and i also know a lot of others who have decided to give it a miss in future.
In my opinion nobody will be as good as murray. but this leggard bloke has got to go. How about trying the commentator who did robot wars I think his name was Jonathan pearce.
He’s the BBC’s second choice football commentator and he’ll be number one when John Motson retires. I can’t see him jacking that in to do F1.
What gets me most irritated is the BBC couldn’t care less. I’ve written to them times asking for comment given there is not, to date a single positive review of his commmentating ability, Every single response has been along the lines of “your taste is not the same as everyone else”.. I mean, seriously?!
After nearly 10 years of F1, I’ve actually had to stop watching. Until the BBC finally starts listening to the fans, or in the more likely chance of some other Broacaster obtaining the rights to the sport, I simply cannot bear to listen to him anymore.
What was Lagard going on about when he kept saying that drivers were “riding the curves” in the Monaco Grand Prix? Surely he meant “kerbs”! it must be contageous as Martin Brundle then said that “Bridgestone had bought” certain tyres. I thought the word was “brought” or did they buy them off someone else?
I hope that the BBC are taking note of the number of people who are listening to the 5 live commentary via the red-button, or via the online webplayer. David Croft and Anthony Davidson are a great lineup, especially when compared with Legard. Croft can add excitement without being “in your face”, he speeds up like a horse racing commentator instead of getting louder and gruffer like a football commentator which just does not suit F1. He also seems to know an awful lot more about the sport than Legard, but then that’s not difficult.
Basically Croft will say a whole paragraph of insightful and naturally exciting comments, and meanwhile Legard has said a drivers name, very loud, and got it wrong.
A very experienced commentator told me that the problem on tv was knowing when to shut up. You do not need to fill dead time by describing what the viewer can see, or worse still, hyping it up to try and make it exciting.
For some reason all british commentary seems to have developed from Peter O’Sullivan and his frenetic horse racing style. I have lately taken to watching F1 on the german satellite channel to avoid the Legard irritation, but I really hate having to miss the great observations of Brundle. Brundle on his own would be a vast improvement.
Just like to thank you all for making me feel at home. I thought it was just me that couldn’t stand Legard’s commentating!
The guy is an oaf who believes he knows everything and it gets my back up to be honest.
Brundle is brilliant and I’d love to see him teamed with Ted Kravitz in the commentary box.
Get rid of Eddy Jordan too – can’t stand listening to his rudeness.
I am totally racked off with him – has he got something against Schumacher ? The guy has come back after 3 years, he’s won the title 7 times – give him a break. I spend most of my time now screaming at the Tv for him to shut up and commentate and stop making snide remarks. Give it a rest Jonno !!!!
Jesus, this post is more than a year old and some people are still giving out about poor old Jonathan Legard.
He’s still using all his usual Legardisms, getting excited about replays and so on and so forth.
But he’s here to stay folks so get used to it.
“What can this man do” from “Up the hill” from “Round the final turn” from “Is this going to be good enough?” from “No it isn’t…..”
LMAO!
,Spud,- are you another sad example of ‘Man-Love’?-you actually LIKE
legarsd?!!-this guy is the most inept, clueless, BBC ‘place-man’ ‘theyv’e’ had the nerve to foist on us unfortunate F1 fans in years-by comparison, James Allen was perfect (given his puseudo-Murray histrionics-at least he aquiesset to Martin’s superior knowledged!-read Badger’s blogs for the past two years!-I’ve enjoyed F1 since James Hunt and Murray commentated-now I’ve lost hope-blew out the Canadian Grand Prix because of=f that moron=final blog from me!
!
Dear petrolhead,
I believe that I may have been one of the first, if not the first to complain about Mr Legard and his dreadful, repetitive commentary. (On F1 Badger anyway, can’t be too sure about any other sites…)
Here is a link to the article if you don’t believe me.
http://www.f1badger.com/2009/05/badgerometer-spain/
And almost a year and a month to the day, there has been this article written about the subject and 226-ish comments made about the man, and his atrocious commentating style.
I, for one, still cannot bear the sound of his cliches and interrupting and the getting excited about a replay of something that happened 20minutes ago etc. etc.
But my ears have grown accustomed to all of this and I am able to syphen out Mr. Legard somehow.
If you haven’t gathered by now, I don’t like Legard one bit. His voice is annoying, his knowledge of the sport is less than impressive and the long protracted silences add nothing to the programme.
If the option is there I’d much rather listen to Anthony Davidson and David Croft. I actually think they should have the TV slot, but thats just my opinion.
I’d love noting more than Legard to be replaced, but that plainly isn’t going to happen any time soon so as I’ve said, we all, including me, will just have to put up with it…… or hit the red button……. or watch on Setanta.
Yours sincerely,
Spud.
During Canadian quali, he got excited when all the drivers got out for q3 and “were lighting up green on the live timing screens”. It was everyone’s first lap, so it was clearly going to be green (i.e. personal best of the session) but he still made it sound as though everyone had magically found a second per lap.
His uselessness used to amuse me, now it just annoys me. If only I had a red button to press!
Never has one person (Legard) ruined so much for so many for so long……Suggest he goes ‘up the hill’, ‘ over the curves (kerbs)’ – etc etc and as far away as possible from F1 commentating – soon – please. I didn’t know how Martin could put up with him over a year ago: now I don’t understand how Martin is still sane and holding it all together in his usual professional, knowledgeable and succint manner. How long does Leghead have to practise to get it all so badly wrong ? Incidentally, I’ve noticed a few times that Jake hands over to ‘Martin Brundle…..and Jonathan Legard. also, it may be my imagination but I think Ted Kravitz can barely hold back the laughter in his voice at the constant Legardisms. I really hope they know something we don’t. i.e is Legard going?? Oh well, just wishful thinking I guess.
Legard is a Laggard. Absolutely unbelivable race in canada and he managed to ruin it completely with his false emotion. Totally useless input. Can only state the obvious. Has no real insight into the sport or ablilty to provide “comment”.
I actually think he’s alright, he doesn’t get on my nerves like that idiot James Allen.
I would love to hear you keyboard warriors have a go!
You must have very strong nerves Matt! Lets face it – any of us ‘keyboard warriors’ could’nt do any worse than Legard – could anyone be worse?! Good to hear Legard has at least one champion – though it must be lonely out there…..Have a good day all.
But there you go. Sorry Matt – but yet again another so-called champion can only bring himself to say Legard is merely “alright”. Hardly a ringing endorsement!
Yep i’ve totally gone beyond the last straw , having to watch with sound off.
Ahh,Gail-I’m madly in love with you!-you are consistant in your revulsion for the Moron ‘Laggard’-did they create this thing out of clay (or shit-see ‘Dogma’!!) I wonder how many TV fans of F1 have given it up as a (very) bad job! The sad thing is, they have excellent talent wasting their time ‘in the wings’-I’m thinking of Ted and DC-send this spluttering, out of sync cretin back to Soccer!!
Friends!
I have found the best and more enjoyable way to watch our sport. It’s called the RED BUTTON !
Now I know this is not a new concept but I have used it the last two races and I must say I am thrilled with commentators via the red button. Now I happen to love the trio of DC, EJ and Jake so when I know they will be on and all the way up to the start of the race (even Martins start/finnish walk) I love to watch. After that its over to the other boys. They are funny, KNOW F1 and best of all Completly UNBIASED. No more ‘Lewis Hamilton this, and Lewis Hamilton that’. Just fun, knowledgable commentary.
Best thing to MUTE out Leggard with his Hamilton man crush and dog racing, ear pearcing, bathering commentery.
Enjoy the races everyone, I know I will!
jonathan legard is dire. do they have commentating classes in the bbc? when you watch something as alive and fast as f1 it’s got to be present tense – not superfluous stats going back to the year dot when racing drivers didnt even wear seat belts. most of bbc sports commentary is dire. stuart barnes did it to kill any joy in world cup rugby commentary (maybe that was when itv did it),football, lineker and mates were like a spoof fast show sketch of 4 blokes in a pub talking rubbish. the bbc pay squillions to these incompetents and in a time of financial restraint kick the lot out and hand the mikes back to the quiet experts of old
Jonathan Legard has just put me off from watching the German Grand Prix, when is the BBC going to replace this muppet, he’s wittering about Massa being bad in the raian and it’s not raining plus he’s missing whats happening on the track.
T
Jonathan Legard has just put me off from watching the German Grand Prix, when is the BBC going to replace this muppet, he’s wittering about Massa being bad in the rain and it’s not even raining plus he’s missing whats happening on the track.
Thank you BBC for ruining the race.