Murray Walker

Walker was born at 214 Reddings Lane in Hall Green, Birmingham, England, on 10 October 1923. His father, Graham Walker, was a despatch rider and works motorcyclist for the Norton Motorcycle Company who participated in the Isle of Man TT. In 1925 the family moved to Wolverhampton when Graham became the Competition Manager for Sunbeam; they later moved to Coventry in 1928 when Graham worked as the Sales and Competition Director for Rudge-Whitworth.

Walker attended Highgate School, where he gained a Distinction in Divinity and rose to the rank of Company Sergeant Major of the School Corps. He was at a trials event with his father in Austria when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. He was later conscripted and graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Scots Greys on 16 April 1944. The salute at his commissioning parade was taken by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Walker commanded a Sherman tank and participated in the Battle of the Reichswald with the 4th Armoured Brigade, leaving the Army in 1946 as a captain.

Following the war, Walker briefly took up motorcycle racing, competing against, among others, a young John Surtees. After limited success he switched to motorcycle trials, taking a gold at the International Six Days Trial and a first-class award at the Scottish Six Days Trial. He subsequently worked in advertising for Dunlop, Aspro, McCann Erickson, and the Masius agency — whose clients included British Rail, Vauxhall, and Mars — and did not retire from advertising until 1982, long after he had gained fame as a commentator.

Walker made his first public broadcast at Shelsley Walsh hillclimb in 1948, and his first radio broadcast was at the 1949 British Grand Prix for the BBC, alongside the tennis commentator Max Robertson. His first regular broadcasting work was radio coverage of the Isle of Man TT alongside his father. Walker and his father were a father-and-son sports commentary pair within the BBC from 1949 to 1962; after his father's death in 1962 he became the BBC's chief motorcycling commentator.

He covered the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967, motocross during the 1960s, and rallycross in the 1970s and early 1980s. Walker covered the British Touring Car Championship for the BBC between 1969 and 1971 and also 1988 and 1997, and the Macau Grand Prix for Hong Kong TV on nine occasions. He joined the Channel 7 commentary team for the Bathurst 1000 Australian touring car race in 1997 and 1998. He did occasional Formula One commentaries during the 1970s before going full-time for the 1978 season. As the BBC began to broadcast additional forms of motor racing, he commentated on Formula 3, Formula Ford, and truck racing.

From the 1980 Monaco Grand Prix to the 1993 Canadian Grand Prix, Walker struck up a popular double act with 1976 World Champion James Hunt. Initially they did not get on, but the pair eventually became good friends and worked together for more than a decade at the BBC. Walker provided animated descriptions of the action while Hunt brought expert knowledge and inside information from the pit lane, typically from his former team McLaren. Hunt died from a heart attack two days after the 1993 Canadian Grand Prix, aged 45.

After Hunt's death, former F1 driver and BBC pit lane reporter Jonathan Palmer joined Walker in the commentary box until the end of 1996, though Jackie Stewart and Alan Jones also contributed during 1993.

When UK television rights transferred to ITV in 1997, Walker followed. His co-commentator from the 1997 season until his retirement was former F1 driver Martin Brundle. Walker announced his retirement from Formula One commentary in December 2000. He broke his hip at the 2000 Goodwood Festival of Speed, and at the 2000 German Grand Prix erroneously reported that Rubens Barrichello had crashed when it was actually his teammate Michael Schumacher. His final full-time Formula One television commentary was the 2001 United States Grand Prix, where he was awarded an original brick from "The Brickyard" by track president Tony George.

Walker was retained by ITV in a part-time role and presented the Murray Walker race review for Orange after each Grand Prix during 2002. His autobiography, Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken, was published in late 2002. He competed in the Targa Tasmania tarmac rally as navigator to driver Colin Bond in a Toyota Camry Sportivo in May 2003, finishing second in their class and 44th overall; he navigated former Grand Prix competitor Chris Amon in a Toyota Camry Sportivo at Targa New Zealand five months later, finishing eighth in their class and 114th outright.

In October 2005, he was announced as the BBC's voice of the new Grand Prix Masters series. In March 2006, the Honda Racing F1 Team announced Walker as its team ambassador for half of the 2006 season's 18 Grands Prix. He performed commentary for the Australian Grand Prix for Network Ten in 2006 and 2007, and voiced the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercars race in Adelaide.

Walker became a freelance website columnist for BBC's recovered Formula One coverage in 2009. A television documentary, Life in the Fast Lane, about his career was broadcast on BBC Two on 5 June 2011. In 2015 he presented Formula 1 Rewind for BBC Two alongside Suzi Perry. In June 2013, aged 89, Walker was diagnosed with lymphoma; he did not need chemotherapy by July 2013. He withdrew from Channel 4's commentary for the 2018 British Grand Prix due to ill health.

Walker chose to stand while commentating, allowing him to speak louder. He was uncritical of drivers who had made errors, preferring to leave that judgement to his co-commentators. He prepared meticulously for every piece of commentary work, researching facts and statistics on every driver and race track and rewriting them before each event. George Tamayo described Walker as having an "encyclopedic" knowledge of Grand Prix racing. He was voted "the greatest sports commentator of all time" in a poll conducted by British sports fans in late 2009.

Despite his love of cars, Walker never took a driving test; his army tank driving licence was accepted as sufficient for a civilian licence. He married his wife Elizabeth at Edmonton Registry Office on 22 January 1960; the couple had no children. Walker was diagnosed with the early stages of lymphatic system cancer in 2013. He died on 13 March 2021 at Allenbrook Nursing Home, Fordingbridge, aged 97, due to frailty of old age. He was memorialised by the Williams team at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, with a sticker on the car's halo bearing the quote "And I've got to stop, because I've got a lump in my throat" — spoken during the 1996 Japanese Grand Prix when Damon Hill secured the Drivers' Championship. Walker requested no funeral or memorial service in his will.

Walker was appointed an OBE in the 1996 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and motor sports. He received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Bournemouth University in November 1997, and an honorary doctorate from Middlesex University in July 2005. He won the Royal Television Society Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and was named recipient of the BAFTA Special Award for Contribution to Television in 2002. He was named winner of the Gregor Grant Award from Autosport in 1993. On 28 June 2008, Walker was presented with a "Star" on the Walk of Stars on Broad Street, Birmingham. The Murray Walker Award was established by Motorsport UK in 2023 and is awarded in recognition of "outstanding excellence in broadcast journalism."

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