Grapevine: Voice of Formula One Prepares to Go, Go, Go

His trousers are still metaphorically smouldering, but not for much longer. Murray Walker, the excitable "Voice of Formula One" to much of the English-speaking world, lays down his microphone after Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix and half a century of commentating.

Australian writer Clive James once famously described the 78-year-old television commentator as a man broadcasting as if his trousers were on fire.

"It's Go, Go, Go," he usually intones when the start lights flicker out and he will do so one last time at Indianapolis this weekend, an occasion which will be muted by the recent terror and tragedy on America's east coast.

Life goes on for Formula One but millions of Britons will find their Sunday afternoons sound very different in the future. Most will miss him, but not all. Even if most of the spectators at Indianapolis have never heard him, any more than audiences in Latin America and continental Europe, his farewell marks a break with Formula One's past.

Walker is a character in a sport that needs colour to thrive, a genuine enthusiast who remains as fascinated as ever by what he sees.

Glaring Murrayisms

Generations have grown up with his "Murrayisms" - "prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong" and which stand out like crashed gears and the squeal of rubber in a hi-tech world. "Unless I'm very much mistaken...and yes I am very much mistaken," is a familiar one.

Walker has an encyclopedic knowledge of Formula One but inevitably the Murrayisms stand out:

"And now excuse me while I interrupt myself.

"The first four cars are both on the same tyres.

"Tambay's hopes, which were absolutely nil before, are absolutely zero now.

"I imagine that the conditions in those cars today are totally unimaginable.

"There's nothing wrong with the car except it's on fire.

"I've just stopped my startwatch."

Autosport magazine, in a tribute last year when he announced his retirement, said Walker had "done possibly more to popularise motor racing in Britain than anyone else. Hunt, Mansell and Hill included".

Real Enthusiasm

"Everyone inside F1 loves him. And that is because he loves the sport. His enthusiasm is so real," former team owner Ken Tyrrell, who died earlier this year, once said of him. The words could equally well have been said of Tyrrell or of McLaren's veteran team coordinator Jo Ramirez, who is also retiring this season after four decades in Formula One.

Formula One is changing, with the major manufacturers at the forefront, and the departure of Walker and Ramirez marks another break with the less commercial past. Tyrrell ran a 'family' team, running it from his Surrey timber yard and producing cars that nonetheless won three World Championships.

Mexican-born Ramirez has been around Grands Prix since arriving in 1961 with Mexican racer Ricardo Rodriguez. He has worked for a variety of teams, including Tyrrell, before joining McLaren in 1983.

Walker was immersed in motor racing from his earliest years as the son of Graham Walker, a motorcycle champion who was as big a name in his day as men like Nigel Mansell in modern Formula One. All were enthusiasts, passionate about motor sport in all its forms and present in good times and bad.

Walker's own comment on impending retirement was typical: "A sad ending, albeit a happy one."