DC joins Brundle is the F1 Comm Box. Legard is out at the BBC.

Two blogs within an hour of each other? What on Earth is going on?

Well the news that Jonathan Legard is gone from the F1 Commentary Box is one that deserves a fresh blog. Now I don’t dislike Legard but I will admit that it just wasn’t working with him and Martin Brundle and one had to go – and considering how great Brundle is – it had to be Legard. I wish him all the best and he is a fine play-by-play guy but for whatever reason with the BBC on F1 it wasn’t working. So onwards and upwards for both Legard and the BBC F1 coverage.

So today after Legard confirmed he was off first thing it meant that speculation would abound as to whether or not David Coulthard would step up into the Martin Brundle role, with the aforementioned Brundle stepping up to play-to-play and we didn’t have long to wait for the answer. The BBC sent out a Press Release at around 10AM GMT that indeed it would be Brundle and Coulthard for the 2011 season. Brundle has only a year left on his contract but if this partnership is a success then you can expect the BBC to pay the going rate and for this to be the partnership well into the next decade.

Having two ex-drivers in the Commentary Box has unnerved some people but it shouldn’t be a problem. Steve Cram is a fine athletics play-by-play guy and everyone loves Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special. In fact when it comes to cricket the commentary is mostly done by ex-players and it works well. I know F1 is faster but we’ve seen and heard Brundle slip into play-by-play mode on more than one occasion on both the BBC and when he was with ITV and he seemed perfectly adept at it.

Brundle will still do his grid walks, which are an important part of the coverage in my opinion and DC will still do pre and post race with Jake and Eddie in the pit lane. Both workloads will grow but they are embracing the new challenge. I for one am excited about the new pairing in the Commentary Box and we’ll see how it shakes out. I have every faith that Brundle will carry on being a World Class broadcasters and if he and DC bounce off each other the way that I think they can then all will be right within the BBC F1 world.

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