After 52 years delighting in the excitement of motor sports, Murray Walkeris coming in for a long pit stop. Justin Hynes talks to the broadcastinglegend about it all - and about his just-published autobiography.
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MURRAYISMS! They're legend, a greater repository of commentatory blunder than even the previously unsurpassable Coleman-balls could lay claim too.
But then it must be considered that Murray Walker has had a hell of a long time to perfect the art of the superbly ill-chosen descriptive mal mot. And they are great fun. A wonderful collections of slips of tongue, non sequiturs and just plain nonsense.
But it's unfortunate that Walker is the apparent host of an unending series of sporting glitch websites and soundbite reservoirs. For his ability to mix metaphor and mangle his mother tongue was manifest simply due to his unending and genuinely unstoppable passion for motorsport. He became, until his retirement from Formula One commentary last year, inseparable from it.
His crimes of comment disguised a vastly knowledgeable, hugely respected Formula One insider, who had the ear of fellow media, drivers and powerbrokers alike and, if mitigation was needed, those crimes were committed under the influence of adrenaline and not inability.
After 52 years of working at grands prix, after a lifetime dedicated to automotive power, Walker hung up his headphones at the end of last season. Since retirement Walker has concentrated on penning his autobiography, Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken, and acting as doyen of the pundits.
So why break with tradition? What does he think of the slew of rule changes to be introduced by the FIA for the 2003 season?
"I think that the changes they made were very well thought out," he says.
"I'm overjoyed that they didn't bring in the stupid weight restrictions for success or the changing of the drivers between the teams, which would have changed the sport from to a promotional device. I'm simply delighted with the changes made to qualification and to the point system and I think they will definitely spice things up.
"I'd have given my eye teeth to have a qualifying session like this new one when I was broadcasting. I don't necessarily think it will upset the balance of power too much in terms of Ferrari or McLaren or Williams but it will provide a great session on Saturday."
While he admits that the changes were necessary to deal with the ever-constant evolution of Formula One he will not agree that the past season was dull or demanded radical change.
"I get very impatient with people suggesting that Ferrari winning all the time is boring," he says. "I think they are just reaping the rewards of a lot of hard work, of dragging the team back from the abyss and building something very special. And Michael Schumacher is undoubtedly one of the very great drivers. In years to come people will talk about him in the same breathless way that I talk about Fangio and Moss. He is a true great and people don't seem to realise that they are experience what is a golden age, in terms of being able to see such a driver racing."
Walker is also sure that the current period of Ferrari dominance would have come to a natural conclusion even if changes had not been made to the rules.
"It's always been the case in Formula One with McLaren utterly dominant in 1988 and again in 1998, Williams through the early 1990s. These things are cyclical. It always happens and always it does not last."
Some would say the damage of Ferrari dominance has already been done however. Schumacher's winning of the driver's title at Magny Cours, the 11th round of the 17-race series, saw television viewing figures nosedive and a constant stream of doomsaying press has since accompanies each Schumacher victory or Ferrari one-two.
Again Walker sees the decline in telervision figures as a temporary blip that will be corrected in time.
"Upwards of 100,000 people turn up every two weeks to see the races at the circuits and while TV figures have dropped, there is still a vast audience continuing to tune in.
"The problem is that these days everybody seems to want to instant gratification and people continually talk about wheel to wheel racing and how prevalent it was in the 'old' days," he adds. "People wax lyrical about the great days of the 1930s and the Auto Unions and Mercedes. Well, I remember watching the Auto Unions in 1937 and, while they were amazing to watch, they were so far ahead of anyone else it was silly. Racing it was not.
"What a lot of people don't understand is that above all Formula One is a team sport and is not just about the drivers. It is also an enormously complex sport where what you see on screen is only half of what's going on."
One potential absentee from the teams in Formula One next season is Eddie Irvine. The Irishman, who failed to land a new contract with Jaguar recently, has only one real option left in the paddock - a drive with F1 alma mater Jordan - and that is by no means cut and dried since he and Takuma Sato are locked in a sponsorship-led tussle for the Irish team's second seat. If Irvine loses out, Walker will be sad to see the flamboyant Irishman go.
"One of the things that Formula One desperately needs is characters," he says. "Drivers these days are so politically correct, so concerned about toeing the party line that the personality element of of the sport is hardly very exciting or dramatic. Eddie is one two people in the paddock - the other is Juan Pablo Montoya - who speak their minds, often to the embarrassment of their employers. And, you know, by and large what Eddie has to say is good, commonsense, practical advice. If he's goes it will be regrettable."
Walker also believes that Irvine is still capable of delivering results and should not be discarded. "I've never bought into the notion that Eddie hasn't got what it takes anymore, that he's over the hill. I still believe he has the pace and the passion to do it. He just hasn't had the car over the last three years. When he did have the car he damn nearly won the world championship."
All the talk has been of the gossip and current travails gripping Formula One. What for Murray Walker were the sport's salad days.
"My golden age was the 1980s," he says. "Then we had Prost, Piquet, Mansell, Senna - all champions, all racing each other. It was wonderful. For my money that was the best period Formula One has ever had."
But he also looks further back, to a time when Formula One was not enmeshed with corporate sponsorship or the high pressure commercial concerns of motor manufacturer involvement.
Although he insists that it is nonsense to view past eras with rose-tinted glasses and that the racing in times past is no better or worse than modern F1, he admits to missing the personal touch in the sport.
"One of my regrets about modern Formula One is that it's not as personal as it was," he says. "That sense of camraderie, friendship and fun has gone."