EXCLUSIVE: BEN EDWARDS
The Formula 1 commentator and racer tackles the MN readers’ questions head on
Had things happened slightly differently for Ben Edwards in the formative stages of his motorsport journey, he could have been the subject of a grand prix commentator’s words, rather than being the man speaking them himself.
Edwards was an up-and-coming singleseater racer in the late 1980s, with his eyes firmly set on the upper echelons of motor racing. However, like so many, the funding ran dry at a crucial time.
So, instead of putting his foot down, he picked up a microphone. In an obvious parallel to any young hopeful driver’s career, he made the hard yards at the beginning of his broadcasting career to eventually make it to terrestrial TV talking about the sport he loves.
But the racing bug has never truly left Edwards, who is widely regarded as one of the nicest men in the paddock. He has bought a Formula Ford 1600 car and still tackles the occasional race, and has plans to be on the grid for the 50th Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch later this season.
Here, he tells Motorsport News about his plans, and why he has now decided to step away from the microphone.
Question: What and who got you into motorsport?
Ben Roebuck
Via Twitter
Ben Edwards: “It wasn’t in my family, but there were some bits of a connection, I suppose. My brother was always into cars – not motorsport necessarily – but he did buy a grasstrack car, a Ford Anglia. We lived on a little small holding farm, and he would charge around the fields and I used to ride around in it. He is seven years older than me so I would just hang on as a passenger, but I thought it was enormous fun.
“That was an introduction, and I have always loved cars, from an early stage in my life. The motor racing really came from a mixture of things. My dad had a classic car, a Railton, which we took to an event at Brands Hatch. I went along with my brother and I was very attracted by the things that were happening there and the racing school was on so we both bought passenger rides in the Sports 2000 cars. I can’t remember who drove me around, but it was mind-blowing for me.
“Then, another chance thing was that a friend of my aunt, her son was running Formula Ford 1600 cars. We were put in touch and that was how I met Rob Creswell. I volunteered to be a gofer for the team when I was 15, polishing bodywork and things like that, and that is what really got me into the sport.”
MN: That must have been great fun...
BE: “The team was called Rob Creswell Racing Services. I started in 1982 as a gofer and Andy Ackerley won the Champion of Brands title that year with Rob’s team. Then Karl Jones won it with Rob the following year and Chris Ringrose made it a hat-trick in 1984. I was a full mechanic by then, and a few years later Chris returned the compliment by helping me with my Formula First, and he still helps now with my Formula Ford.”
MN: So was moving onto the spanners, was that something you just learned along the way?
BE: “By working with Rob Creswell, yes. It was something I was interested in from a youngster. I always like fiddling with cars. I actually got my first car at the
farm when I was only 13. I had a Mini Traveller and that was when I was able to start doing bits and pieces on it. That was part of my passion growing, but it was Rob who showed me what to do with a racing car. I was on the spanners while I was doing A-levels and I then got a place at university to do Mechanical Engineering – funnily enough, I was on the same course as [future Simtek F1 boss] Nick Wirth and one of [March co-founder] Robin Herd’s sons – but I didn’t last at it.
“By then I had already had a year out between school and uni and I had worked full-time for Rob with the team. I had thoroughly enjoyed myself but when I went to uni I hated it. I left pretty early on and managed to scrape enough money together to get my first race car, which was a pre-’74 Formula Ford car.”
MN: Had you always wanted to be in the cockpit yourself?
BE: “I had always wanted to compete and when I worked for Rob for a long time initially I didn’t work for money, I worked for the opportunity to do a test in a Formula Ford. In 1985 I did five or six races and then a similar number in 1986.”
MN sets the scene: After whetting the appetite in pre-74 Formula Ford, Edwards was one of the trailblazers in Brands Hatch boss John Webb’s new Formula First initiative, a low-cost single-seater with a transversely mounted engine from a Ford Fiesta XR2. It was introduced in 1987.
Question: What were the Formula First cars like to drive? Auto Tradition Via Twitter BE: “I was looking to do the Dunlop Star of Tomorrow Formula Ford 1600 championship in 1987. So I sold my pre-’74 car and then jointly bought a new chassis with a guy I had met through working at the racing school at Brands Hatch. He was a bit of a novice but he wanted to do some racing as well, so we bought a Reynard 84FF. But then, as the end of the 1986 season came around and the Formula First thing came up, Chris Creswell [Rob’s bother] encouraged me toward Formula First. He said I should look at it, but I couldn’t afford the car, even though it was only about £7000 at the time. Chris actually did a deal with me. He said he would buy the car and in return, if I won the championship, I had to pay him the prize money and it would, of course, be his car to sell on at the end of the year. I was bowled over by that – it was a really kind thing to do.
“I put my order in reasonably early for a FFirst car once I had sold the Reynard. I had some backing from Bill Sisley and from Legal Services which was one of Rick Shortle’s backers. There was help from John Webb and Andy Ackerley. Plus a wonderful chap I met when instructing, a chartered surveyor called Martin Dutt who just loved having an involvement.” MN: The cars did look like they had some wayward handling…
BE: I enjoyed it but they weren’t easy. They were tail happy because of the way the engine was mounted. They could be a bit wallowy. When the back started to go it went quite quickly. But it had a good turnin, which I enjoyed, and I was quite happy with oversteer on the car. It did actually suit me quite well and what I found, when I went on to Formula Vauxhall Lotus was that a car with slicks and wings was a very different thing. I think I had developed my driving style in Formula First, but when I went into Vauxhall Lotus, my style didn’t work at all and it took a while for me to get my head around that. Formula First was good, and it was a great year in 1987 because I won the title.”
MN: That was a great achievement because, although you wouldn’t have known it at the time, it was a heck of a crop of drivers in that first year of FFirst…
BE: “There were guys like Eugene O’Brien, Raphael del Sarte, Kelvin Burt, Chris Goodwin – there were some good drivers in there. It was tough, and Eugene was particularly hard to race with. He was my biggest rival and we had a very hard level of competition and it got a bit rough at times. But I did come out on top and it was a big deal.
“Winning that title certainly did give me big aspirations then. When I got into racing initially, it was because I loved racing and I was enjoying myself but there was no thought to become a professional driver. But once I had won a title, your hopes become raised.”
MN: You then went on to Formula Vauxhall and the Formula Opel Euroseries, but you didn’t have the deepest pockets to do that, either…
BE: “Again, I was very lucky and I did manage to raise a sponsor from my home village. A guy had seen some press cuttings of me winning in Formula First and he had seen me working on my race car and got involved. He ran a property development company called Blue
Lamp and he backed me, putting a distinctive colour scheme on the car, so I had a reasonable budget which enabled me to step up.
“Going to Vauxhall Lotus was a big jump. John Webb wanted me to do Formula Ford 2000. Vauxhall Lotus was new at the time [1988] and it was quite a big step and I did the Opel Euroseries too. I started with the Racefax team and then switched to Swindon Motorsport in the second part of the year and then in 1989 I ran with Dragon Motorsport. They were running Mika Hakkinen in British Formula 3 that year and I was doing Vauxhall Lotus. In 1990, I did a few races running the car myself with a mechanic but by then, I had run out of money and it just didn’t come together for a bunch of reasons. So 1991 was a quiet year and then my last full year of racing was in 1992 when I won the Caterham
Vauxhall championship.”
Question: What was your best race win? Was it in Caterham Vauxhall or Formula First? Did you ever manage Eau Rouge flat in the Caterham?
David Walton
BE: “It is funny you ask that question because one of the most important victories to me was when I managed to win at Spa in 1993 in a Caterham.
That was a huge weekend for me, but I don’t think I was flat through Eau Rouge…but I was in the Vauxhall
Lotus though, I remember that!
“I was only doing that round in 1993 as a one-off. It was a big deal, especially as when I had done the Opel Euroseries at Spa a few years before, the first part of qualifying had been wet and I was on the second row. Second qualifying was dry and I was absolutely nowhere and didn’t have a great race. So, to go back and to do it in a Caterham and win at such an amazing place. That was one of my best, I think.”
Question: How did you get to be a motorsport commentator?
Dyfan Evans
Via Facebook
BE: “The first time I commentated was in 1987. I had won the Formula First championship and the rules meant that you were then prevented from taking part in the Winter Series too. I knew the BBC were going to be covering those winter races, and so I wrote to them and said that I was the champion but I would be on the sidelines and would they like me to provide some expert insight? I ended up commentating with Tiff Needell – it felt a bit ironic that I was the expert in that scenario!
“That got me into it a bit, but I had also helped [resident Brands Hatch track commentator] Brian Jones. He was the one who really encouraged me to, rather than be the expert, go down the actual commentary route. He was very supportive, and at some Brands Hatch Grand Prix track meetings, he put me out in the box at Westfield. It all started from that. That was in the late 1980s.
“My first television opportunity was with Eurosport in 1991. Steve Slater [who worked for Eurosport] had been at Brands Hatch and had done some commentary work with Brian and I had been having a chat with Steve about how to get into the TV world. Steve gave me a
“Winning FFirst fired my driving ambitions” Ben Edwards
contact. He had been doing quite a lot of stuff for Eurosport but they had moved their base to Paris and they would fly the commentators out there to do the work. Steve didn’t want to do that and he put me in touch with them. It took a while to get it going but it eventually started happening.”
MN: So what was your first gig for Eurosport?
BE: “The first thing I did for them was the World Sportscar Championship from the Nurburgring, although I did it from Paris. I did bits and pieces for them over the next couple of years and then, when they started doing Indycar coverage, it wasn’t quite working in my view. They were using the American commentary a bit but then they had to fill in some gaps [during the US advertising breaks]. I pushed to get more involved in that.
“That got my foot in the door really, doing the Indycar stuff. One of the keys was a race in 1994 for Indycar in Australia. There was a huge delay because the weather was closing in and the race didn’t get going for ages and I had to waffle on to fill the gap, but apparently John Watson [fellow Eurosport commentator and ex-F1 driver] thought I had done quite a good job. At the end of that year, Allard Kalff had been doing the Formula 1 commentary with Wattie up to that point, but I got a call from the boss at Eurosport saying they were going to change things around a bit. Allard was off to do Dutch TV and they wanted me to step up to Formula 1.”
MN: So you made it to Formula 1 eight years after winning your first motor racing championship….
BE: “Yes, I suppose, but it was not quite in the way I had planned it!”
MN: Eurosport must have been a great place to learn your craft.
BE: “It was a brilliant place to learn because you were just thrown in at the deep end. You just had to get on with it. I commentated on everything motor racing-wise: two wheels, three wheels, four wheels and even ice skating.”
MN: Pardon?
BE: “It happened once, because if you were there on site at Eurosport and somebody couldn’t make it or didn’t show up, you just got thrown in. It was figure skating, and I had no idea about the words or terminology…that was a challenge.
“I did the RAC Rally for them,
I did rallycross, all sorts. All types of motorsport. It was a brilliant way to learn.”
Question: If you were to be a grand prix driver now, which race would you like to win the most? Would it be for the track alone or what surrounds the event, such as the history of that race, weekend as a whole or even the country it’s in?
Francis
Via Twitter
BE: “That is a very good question and I think it is very hard to narrow it down into just one. As I have mentioned, Spa has always meant a lot to me so I think winning a Formula 1 race in Belgium would be pretty awesome. It varies, because each event in Formula 1 has something special about it, I have to say.”
MN: Not Monaco?
BE: “Monaco is a fabulous place and has all the history, but I have never really raced on street circuits so I would probably be pretty useless!”
Question: Who was your favourite co-commentator you worked with?
Who would you like to have worked alongside but never did?
Emma Strawford
Via Twitter
BE: “I have worked with some really good co-commentators across the years. Everyone is slightly different and they are all fun. I have done a lot with John Watson over the years. I did F1 with him, then FIA GT, A1GP together. That has always been a really good relationship with Wattie and I really thank him. When I got into F1, he introduced me to so many people in the paddock – which you might think, ‘well of course he would’but actually in the world of F1, people quite often don’t do that. He was very welcoming and wanted me to connect with people and wanted me to become a part of that paddock to get a real understanding of it. So I think Wattie would be my most significant co-commentator really because it was when I started out and when I started doing the big time.
“I have had some other great ones. Working with Jeremy Shaw on Indycar was fabulous too. He was very different, he wasn’t an ex-racer, but the fact that he could keep a lap chart while he was commentating, I was always amazed by that. He was always very knowledgeable and up to speed with everything, I loved working with him.
“And, also, working with David Coulthard over the past decade has been a real pleasure too.”
MN: And is there anybody you haven’t worked with who you would like to?
BE: “When I was working with Wattie, I have briefly worked with Martin Brundle. He was in the booth a couple of times in 1995: he was still competing, but he was sharing the Ligier drive [with Aguri Suzuki]. That was when he first started commentating, but we never actually ended up commentating together. I would have enjoyed working with Martin, I think it would have gone well, but it never actually happened.”
MN sets the scene: Edwards was a mainstay of the ITV coverage of the British Touring Car Championship from 2002 until 2010, combining the tin-top series with other work in
Formula 1 and elsewhere.
Question: The British Touring Car Championship commentators over the 22 years that I was involved were without doubt a fantastic collection of superb contributors. What do you think gave Charlie Cox the edge on the rest of you?
Ian Harrison [former Triple
Eight Racing boss and fan of all things Australian, including
Charlie Cox, clearly]
Via Facebook
MN: You don’t have to answer, this one is tongue in cheek, Ben!
BE: “Ha ha! Charlie had that Australian ability to come up with phrases and terms which I really admire. It is something I can never do. It is a bit like working with Mark
Webber, which is always fun. Mark comes up with some fantastic phrases, terms and sentences that, as a British guy, I just wouldn’t be able to come up with that sort of thing. I really enjoy that entertaining style of commentary, but it is just not part of me. I do what I do in the best way I can, but I do appreciate their ability to use phrases.
“I am always a little bit anxious about trying to be funny because I think quite often you can make certain people laugh, but you can also wind other people up so I am always a bit cautious.”
Question: If you could relive and commentate any race again which one would it be and why?
Barry Denby
Via Twitter
BE: “Oh, gosh, that is quite difficult.” MN: Let’s put this another way: has there been a race where you think you’ve done the perfect commentary?
BE: “I am always very self-critical. I always come away thinking that maybe I could have done a bit better. There have been a few races where I have come away feeling very fulfilled by what’s happened on-track.
“The odd thing about commentating is actually that sometimes, if it is a dull race and you can fill the gaps smoothly or without people wondering ‘what is he talking about?’then that, in many ways, is the bigger challenge. When it is a really good race, then it is much easier to commentate because all you are doing it just reporting on what you see. When nothing much is happening but you want to keep the audience interested, involved and entertained, that is harder.
“So that means that the race I have found most satisfying, and I can’t think of one now, wouldn’t have been a key race in terms of excitement but it would have been a race afterwards where I felt I gave it my all and hopefully I was able to keep the viewer engaged.
“There are some key races that do stick in my head. One example is the British Touring Car Championship finale in
2009 when Colin Turkington won his first title. That was a fantastic battle with Jason Plato, Fabrizio Giovanardi and everyone.”
MN: A championship showdown like that must be very stressful for you, with all the permutations and things that can happen at any given moment. It must all be down to homework…
BE: “You have to do the homework.
It can take a while, but you have to work out what any given scenario means for the bigger picture. It can be very complicated, but you have to put the groundwork in. You need to have a plan. That 2009 year was a really fun BTCC season and it was one of the first times that we could patch through to the driver in the cockpit on the slowing-down lap with radio commentary. That was really special, because he had only just realised himself that he had won it.
“There were some pretty special races from the USA too. There is one that they love playing out which is a CART finish between Juan Pablo Montoya and Michael Andretti at Michigan in 2000 where my voice goes squeaky at the end because they cross the line virtually together. And when Mark Blundell won that race in Portland in 1997, that was another key one and it came a week or two after he had just missed out on winning a race because he ran out of fuel.”
Question: If you could change one thing about current F1 what would it be? (Actually, you can change more than one thing if you want!)
David Harbey
Via Twitter
BE: “I would certainly like to see how the idea of the sprint races are going to work. I am not 100% sure about them, like I think the F1 bosses aren’t either.
“What would I change? I think the one thing that I am a little concerned about is just how many races they are trying to put on the calendar. I know that for a fan it is lovely to have as many as possible, but I do think that going to 23 or maybe more is just a little too many.
“When you go from the BTCC, which is 10 events and never seems like quite enough, and then you go to F1 which is 20-plus and it seems to many. When I started doing F1 it was about 16 races, which seems right to me. That means it is busy, but there is still time to reflect and then build up to each event. With all the back-to-back races now, it seems they all roll into one another. You tend to lose the sense of occasion a little bit.”
Which has been the favourite category you’ve commentated on and why? CMC Media
Via Twitter
BE: “I have done so many. But Formula 1 is the top of the motorsport ladder and I am proud to have got there. I am happy about the fact that I did it for a long period of time and I saw some great races: the championship decided in 2012 was one of the best ones for me.
“I used to love commentating on the Andros Trophy Ice Racing series, which I did for Eurosport. It was just so different and I had never seen anything like that. I would come across all sorts of weird and
“I always wanted to work with Martin Brundle” Ben Edwards