A steady professional in the broadcast booth
BBC veteran Ben Edwards worked the smaller tracks before making it to the top
Ben Edwards loves the juxtaposition between the countryside setting of the Montreal Grand Prix and its proximity to the city
Every race fan knows Murray Walker, the now-retired Formula One commentator who was so familiar for his work on the BBC F1 broadcasts that we saw here in Canada. But how many know Ben Edwards, who now fills that role?
When the rights for F1 television in Britain were split between the BBC and SKY at the end of 2011, Martin Brundle chose to move on to SKY, leaving the BBC to recruit Edwards. Brundle’s in-the-booth partner, David Coulthard, stayed on and he remains with the BBC, paired with Edwards.
In the U.K., the BBC deal is for 10 live race broadcasts. The rest of the races are covered as time-delayed highlights. Here in Canada, we get every one of the BBC F1 race broadcasts live — second practice, qualifying and the race.
Although we really don’t have much opportunity to compare their performance with the other U.K. team on SKY or with the U.S. broadcast team on the NBC Sports Network, the team of Edwards and Coulthard has to be one of the best in the business.
Unlike the well-loved Walker, who was inclined to become over-enthusiastic and sometimes gaffe-prone, Edwards is usually calm, cool, collected — and correct — keeping us in touch with the developments as they unfold on the track. Coulthard provides the drivers’ point of view and explains the technical points.
Edwards does display bursts of enthusiasm and excitement, but it only adds to his authentic presentation and it is never over the top. In many ways, he reminds me of the longtime NASCAR announcer Allen Bestwick, who also has that competent, well-informed style in the booth, keeping us in the picture without hogging the spotlight.
After his early days, when Edwards did some racing and driver instruction, he took up commentary and made it his forte. In the 1990s, he had a stint of F1 Commentary for Eurosport but, when they lost the U.K. broadcast rights in 1996, Edwards was assigned by Eurosport to cover the CART series over here, paired with Jeremy Shaw.
A few of those “international” broadcasts were seen here in Canada.
After that, he had a long run with the British Touring Car Championship and a year with the FOM’s F1 Digital + TV service. He was at last tapped to take over the F1broadcasts on the BBC in 2012 and has focused on that assignment since.
The BBC sends out a crew of about 30 people to cover each race (the video is provided by FOM), spending about a week away from home for each event.
Edwards considers the Montreal venue to be one of his favourites, noting the juxtaposition between its countryside-style setting and its proximity to the city life of Montreal. He also mentioned Spa and Monza on his list of favourite tracks.
Asked about the prospects for the Montreal race and the rest of the season, he agreed that the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have things under control, but he noted that Ferrari and especially Williams promise good results here.
He is currently high on Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and mentioned the Toro Rosso pair of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz as hot prospects to be future stars. He is still high on Daniel Ricciardo, but he Ricciardo is hampered this year by the underperforming Infiniti Red Bull car.