I'm going to be brave, because I've always felt in the minority;
I don't like Ben Edwards' commentary.
I have just never warmed to it.
No, I've never warmed to it either. Always a bit screechy for my liking.
Legard was (and I can't believe I'm about to type this) worse than Allen, mainly because he didn't seem to have any affinity for Formula 1. He just did it in a Catchphrase stye (say what you see, it's good, but it isn't right). I understand that it's easier to sit at home and criticise a commentator than it is to commentate, but Legard too often let us into his own view of the sport. I remember this exchange:
Legard: And his rear wing is broken
Brundle: [incredulous pause] It's the front wing that's gone
Legard: Front wing, rear wing, whatever, his wing's broken.
Allen would never have made a mistake like that, not because he's any brighter than Legard, but because he has a much greater empathy for the sport. It's much more in his psyche, his way of thinking. It's more natural to him because he understands the terminology, understands the cars, and the drivers.
[I'm going to take a small pause now, because what I'm about to write will appear to contradict what I've just written]
Where Allen was unforgivably awful was that in live-time he was completely unable to read a race. Even though
Autosport magazine's genius Mark Hughes was quietly in the background, Allen consistently found himself misidentifying cars around pitstops, and failing to understand the significance of passing manouvres on track. So two cars that were battling would pit a couple of laps apart. When one came back out on track, he'd frequently (and I mean at least once per race) mentally re-pair the battling cars. So, for example, Schumacher and Alonso would be scrapping for the lead, with Schumacher in front, Alonso would pit, and rejoin in front of Massa. Allen would get overexcited about this being a pass for the lead, when it was clear to anyone who was actually watching the race that Schumacher was 30s down the road.
He would get it wrong the other way around too, ignoring a pass that was actually an effective lead change.
My other big bugbear with him was that he was inconsistent with his reading of times, and he would often overinterpret things. So he'd say that one car was going faster in response to a time that another one had set, yet the two cars were only around 200m away from each other on-track.
So, in summary: Legard had no love for the sport, and was the worst. Allen loves the sport, but has no ability to read the race, and was therefore terrible.
And let's not forget that Allen was commentating in the pre-DRS, low-life tyre age. Imagine how he must have felt watching the races in 2011!
Why can't Murray Walker just come back?
