Ted Kravitz
From Frikipedia
Prior to 2001, Ted Kravitz was some sort of jobbing work experience kid assigned to ITV's F1 coverage. The brother of rock legend Lenny, Ted was in charge of making the tea and plucking Jim Rosenthal's nostril hair, and was getting rather disillusioned with the whole media career idea he had decided on in the pub one day.
Then, everything changed. Murray Walker ran out of batteries and needed replacing and, for reasons best left unwritten, the ITV oligarchs decided to promote the pit-lane reporter, James Allen to a role as main commentator, leaving a vacant post as "the boring guy who talks about fuel loads a lot".
Ted was the only applicant to apply, and was still only third choice for the post. He persevered through a second round of interviews and beat off competition from a 100 year old corpse and a chicken that could count grains of rice in squawks.
His Job
To report from the pit lane at Grands Prix on the top teams strategy, bringing up to date informaton about fuel mixes, tyre choices and team orders that the main commentators cannot hope to find out without him, to aid the viewing publics understanding of the race.
What he actually does
Spent 2003-2006 sitting in the Honda pit garage gently fluffing Jenson's dad whilst filling ITV viewers in on a number of pointless facts about Jenson's race. What type of fuel he was using, what he had for breakfast, what make of hire car he was using to get to the circuit of a morning, that sort of thing.
Has now switched to Tyler's garage for 2007, and is doing pretty much the same thing.
Will occasionally stick his head out for a Ferrari pit stop and talk in an anodyne manner about how the pitstop is going, usually without access to facts like the choice of tyre, time of the stop, or how much fuel is going in, reducing the commentary to "In comes the Ferrari...they're changing the tyres....oh, they're refuelling....and off he goes. Good stop."
Thanks, Ted.
Typical Ted Moment
Martin: And we've got some news from the pits, Ted?
Ted: Yes Martin, dramatic stuff! Ferrari have just hung a board out for Raikkonen that says "SLOW" on it. What on earth could that mean?
Martin: They probably want him to go a bit slower. He's 45 seconds in the lead with 5 laps to go after all.
Ted: Yes, but he could have a problem. Imagine that!
Martin: Hmm, I think it's just standard procedure to back off and save the engine. We see it every race, after all...
Ted: But maybe he's...
James: I'm going to have to stop you there Ted, back to the race.
