The voice of Formula One, David Croft, takes you behind the scenes at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix

David Croft is the voice of Formula One – and, to many people, as synonymous with the sport as Max Verstappen or Oscar Piastri. What does a day in the life of Crofty look like? We go behind the scenes.

A couple of minutes before the final practice session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix the sound of Skindred, the Welsh heavy metal band, can be heard from the Sky Sports commentary box, which looks down at the pitlane.

David Croft – known to most viewers as “Crofty” – Sky’s lead Formula 1 commentator, jokes that the band are like a pre-workout. Karun Chandhok, the former F1 driver turned broadcaster, looks on, used to his colleague’s unorthodox warm-up.

I have been invited into the small box in the TV compound at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, accessible via golf buggy, to observe how a session works.

“We are like detectives,” Croft says as we peer down at the Red Bull garage, where mechanics are putting the finishing touches to Yuki Tsunoda’s car, which he had crashed the night before.

With a cold can of Sprite in hand and having just recorded a video for a fan who had recently passed their driving test, Croft is ready to welcome viewers to Sky’s coverage of the session.

David Croft is more than just the voice of F1. Source: Instagram

“Our audience will be made up of passionate F1 fans who go into great depths to enhance their knowledge,” Croft says.

“We don’t want to patronise them, but also we don’t want to leave people out in the cold, we’re inviting the world to come and see Formula 1. I don’t want it to be the best-kept secret. I want it to be a sport that everyone loves.”

Croft and Chandhok narrate the session. They are in view for only one small segment near the start of the coverage, the rest of the time they face an array of screens – nine in total – that detail everything from the tyre compounds each driver is using, to their track position and the timing boards. Chandhok offers a driver’s perspective, as Martin Brundle also often does. Croft sees himself as the bridge between their expertise and the viewer.

“He’s [Brundle] the expert, he’s the analyst, he’s the man that’s gone and driven cars and raced in these cars, and I’m the broadcaster, the journalist, who’s not afraid to go, ‘Right, what do you mean by that?’”

Croft’s first F1 race was Bahrain 2006 and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was his 376th. “Formula 1 wasn’t necessarily on my radar until someone suggested I audition. It was in a bar in Vegas that they made that suggestion, as all good stories should start,” he says, laughing.

Jennifer Lopez appears on the world feed, dressed in a baby pink catsuit, giving Croft the opportunity for what he admits is a dodgy joke.

“I’m surprised she’s here at the moment, I thought she was Waiting for Tonight.”

Lopez attracts plenty of attention in the paddock, but so too does Croft, his own prominence increased by the recent growth of the sport. He even has his own catchphrase.

“I’m seeing sell-out crowds more and more . . . and people wanting photos, autographs and wanting a chat. That’s actually quite flattering,” he says. “We’re really privileged that people invite us into their living rooms to be the voice of their sport, and then they feel that they know us enough that they actually want to come and see us and shout, ‘Lights out and away we go.’ ”

As the session progresses, Sky takes advertising breaks while Croft and Chandhok continue commentating on the coverage for the world feed. Anything of relevance that is missed – in this case a radio message from the Haas driver Ollie Bearman – is then replayed on the Sky feed after the break.

Croft has handwritten notes, in blue and red pens, that are split into teams and drivers on a double-sided piece of A4, as well as a third sheet with a track map, labelled by corner. Among the buttons in front of him is one labelled *cough*, to prevent that being heard on air. He rarely misses a race, three of the 24 last season the most he has ever been absent for in a year, although he was not entirely away from the action.

“Last year was the first time I missed three [races]. I’ve missed one before, when my eldest son was born and Murray Walker stood in for me, which was quite a thrill,” he says.

F1 commentator David Croft and Drive to Survive star Guenther Steiner. Picture: Kelly Barnes

“My wife, Laura, and I watched Azerbaijan [Baku] together, and she fell asleep on the sofa. I woke her up because I was commentating when there was the accident with Sergio [Perez] and Carlos [Sainz]. I went into full Crofty commentator mode, which she wasn’t too happy about.”

Fans keen to hear more of Croft and Brundle are likely to do so in this summer’s F1 movie, set to be released in June. Lewis Hamilton, working as one of the producers, endorsed them. “He [Hamilton] said, ‘If you want to make it authentic commentary, you need Martin and Crofty.’ I really appreciated that.

“Martin and I, we’ve done five or six sessions, including filming in a commentary box. Hopefully it sounds authentic because they did allow Martin and I to veer off script and call it how we’d call it, which is great.”

Croft is not universally liked, though, and there are negatives to the growing platform he has. In Thursday’s press conference he asked Max Verstappen, the world champion, about his future after comments from Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s senior adviser, that there was “great concern” over whether he would stay at the team.

“Max brushed it off,” Croft recalls.

“I kind of expected that he would do, so I just said, ‘So Helmut’s got the wrong end of the stick?’ and then he said, ‘Just focus on commentating,’ and I think he was joking, to be honest.

Max Verstappen has an at-times slightly frosty relationship with Croft. Picture: Getty

“Max and I have a really good relationship, I’ve known him from the outset. We’ve never rowed about anything – he’s never come to me and gone, ‘I don’t like what you said.’

“[But] some of the Max fans pick up on that and then blame me for the question. That’s my job – people just choose to attack me. Fine. You can attack me as much as you want. I’ll be there at the next press conference, and it’s not going to put me off asking the question. You’ve got to have the skin of a rhino.”

As he reflects on his most memorable races, Abu Dhabi 2021 unsurprisingly springs to mind – not for the result but for the sheer challenge of narrating such a remarkable conclusion.

“Being in the thick of it . . . entrusted to deliver a commentary that everyone could follow. I’m not expecting it, because ten laps from the end Lewis was cruising to an eighth world title,” Croft says. “We must have handled it well, we won a Bafta for it.

“I’ve got to deliver a line at the end that I know is going to be replayed over and over again. All those Murray clips that we listen to, there will be a few of mine in that as well, which I still find really weird. I just love this job and I don’t take it for granted or see myself as some big superstar. I’m just the voice for people on a Sunday afternoon.”

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/formula-one/article/david-croft-formula-1-interview-lnshx5j8b