Between the Lines

Georges Bizet was a French composer of the romantic era. He was born in 1838 and he wrote a famous opera, Carmen, about a Spanish gypsy. Why on earth would you care about that?

The reason is because you hear the first act to the opera 19 times a year, every other Sunday. Listen out for it at Monza this weekend. Soon after Michael Schumacher has completed his camp leap up in the air on the podium and Kimi Raikkonen has downed as much champagne as the bubbles will allow, you'll hear it.

The music is played during all the podium celebrations after every grand prix. As the Prelude to Bizet's Carmen sings out, you'll also hear trackside commentator Bob Constanduros' famous cry: "And now gentlemen, it's the CHAMMMMPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGNNNNNNNNE!"

I once timed the cry at a full two minutes. After this performance, poor Bob can barely speak until the next grand prix.

Before I heard Constanduros' booming moment of celebration, the best circuit commentary I'd ever heard was at a street race at Cagliari in Sardinia.

A one-off Formula Three meeting was held in November 2003. On the Saturday before the race, qualifying was a standard one-hour session. Afterwards a special 'super pole' shoot-out for the top ten was run.

The slowest of the top ten drivers went first and all ten had one lap each. Poland's Robert Kubica was the last guy out and as he crossed the line to record pole position in the dying seconds of the day, the trackside commentator went ballistic.

It sounded like a World War II air raid siren, the sort of noise that blared out through the city to alert people to hide in the Tube.

"PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! position."

I remember standing on the pit wall in tears of laughter. Earlier that summer the F3 boys had been at Zandvoort in laid-back Holland for the blue-riband Marlboro Masters and the difference between the trackside commentary there and Cagliari was like night and day.

The second qualifying session at Zandvoort came to a close and as I was sitting on the high sandy dunes staring at the sea, I had my pen poised to write down the qualifying order and times from the loud speaker system.

The Dutch commentator had different ideas. After he garbled a few unintelligible words, he started talking in English. "Zo, zat waz a beautiful zession. Now let's have some muzic..." Instead of a list of runners, I had to listen to One Love by Bob Marley and The Wailers.

I felt more sorry for the circuit announcer at Mondello Park one year. He had the regrettable job of commentating on the Citroen 2CV 24 Hours and after about the fifth hour was starting to have a lack of things to say.

You had to feel for him. The action on track was woeful. He was getting more desperate as the night wore on and eventually said: "If anyone wants to come up to the commentary box and talk to me that would be great... please!"

He could have done with a handful of discs to play on the loud speakers that night. Incidentally the venue with the best theme tune is Wimbledon Stadium.

When a banger race is about to start at the South London oval, the cars are welcomed onto the track by a song that spent four weeks at number one in 1972 - Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon. The cars look as though they've been previously owned by Spanish gypsies, but it's definitely the other end of the scale to Carmen.