Anthony Jardine (born 5 March 1952 in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

) is an English motorsport pundit, former driver and former

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

assistant team manager. He is currently contracted to

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

as a presenter and pundit on their coverage of F1 as well as providing studio-based F1 expert analysis for BeIn Sports Qatar.

Motorsport career

Jardine began his career as a teacher, and for a time he was Head of Art at the New English School in

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

. His motorsport career started in single seater racing cars. He was competing in a Palliser Formula Ford car in 1973 while living in Birkenhead. Whilst in Kuwait he took up rally driving for the local

Datsun Datsun (, ) was an automobile brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986, but relaunche ...

importers in his spare time. He was comparatively successful, finishing eighth on the Kuwait International Rally in 1975. Outside his later

management career, Jardine has continued to race in rallying on an amateur and semi-professional basis, mainly in the UK but also overseas. Jardine has competed in four Arctic Rallies and ten Network Q Rally GBs, finishing second in class in 2001 and winning the journalists' award three times. He also tested a Tyrrell 026 at Donington Park in 1998. Jardine has taken part in

Rally GB Wales Rally GB was the most recent iteration of the United Kingdom's premier international motor rally, which ran under various names since the first event held in 1932. It was consistently a round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) calen ...

every year since returning to the UK, and in 2013 competed in a Mitsubishi Lancer with co-driver

Amy Williams Amy Joy Williams, (born 29 September 1982) is a British former skeleton racer and Olympic gold medallist. Originally a runner, she began training in skeleton in 2002 after trying the sport on a push-start track at the University of Bath. Altho ...

Formula One career

Jardine then moved into

(F1), getting a job working for Goodyear's Grand Prix Team, driving trucks and fitting tyres at races. His next role was with the Brabham F1 team, where he worked with

Niki Lauda Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in Formula ...

and designer

Gordon Murray Ian Gordon Murray (born 18 June 1946 in Durban, Union of South Africa), is a South African-born British designer of Formula One racing cars and the McLaren F1 road car. He is the founder and CEO of Gordon Murray Automotive. Early life Born t ...

. After Brabham he moved to McLaren in , where Jardine was an Assistant Team Manager when the team drivers were

Alain Prost Alain Marie Pascal Prost (; born 24 February 1955) is a French retired racing driver and Formula One team owner. A four-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, from 1987 until 2001 he held the record for most Grand Prix victories until Micha ...

and John Watson. Jardine then left F1 to work for an American promotions company, but within eighteen months he was back in F1 working for Lotus; colleagues here included Nigel Mansell,

Elio de Angelis Elio de Angelis (26 March 1958 – 15 May 1986) was an Italian racing driver who participated in Formula One between and , racing for the Shadow, Lotus and Brabham teams. He was killed in an accident while testing the Brabham BT55 at the Pau ...

and

Ayrton Senna Ayrton Senna da Silva (; 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in , , and . Senna is one of three Formula One drivers from Brazil to win the World Championship and ...

. In 1985 he formed his own sports PR company, Jardine Communications Ltd, in which future ITV co-presenter

Louise Goodman Louise Goodman is a British reporter and presenter who worked on ITV's Formula One coverage until it ceased at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. She now co-presents ITV's coverage of the British Touring Car Championship. Her late partner was Joh ...

worked. In 2012, Jardine International was taken over by the HPS Group, becoming HPS Jardine.

Media career

Jardine started working for the BBC in the 1980s, including standing in for

Murray Walker Graeme Murray Walker (10 October 1923 – 13 March 2021) was an English motorsport commentator and journalist. He provided television commentary of live Formula One coverage for the BBC between 1976 and 1996, and for ITV between 1997 and 20 ...

, as main commentator, at the

1985 German Grand Prix The 1985 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Nürburgring on 4 August 1985. It was the ninth race of the 1985 Formula One season. This was the first German Grand Prix that was held on the new GP-Strecke section of the tra ...

. He presented the

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs ...

and

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

official Formula One season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors Association. After the death of

James Hunt James Simon Wallis Hunt (29 August 1947 – 15 June 1993) ''Autocourse Grand Prix Archive'', 14 October 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007. was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in . After retiring from racing in ...

in 1993,

Jonathan Palmer Jonathan Charles Palmer (born 7 November 1956) is a British businessman and former Formula One racing driver. Before opting for a career in motor racing, Palmer trained as a physician at London's Guys Hospital. He also worked as a junior phys ...

moved to become co-commentator alongside Walker and Jardine became the BBC's full time pitlane reporter. When the Formula 1 coverage switched to

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

in 1997, he became one of their main pundits, a role he fulfilled until 2005. He has also been a key presenter for ITV's coverage of the

Goodwood Festival of Speed The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual motorsports festival featuring modern and historic motor racing vehicles taking part in a hill climb and other events, held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England, in late June or ...

from 2006. In 2006 he moved to

as a studio expert on GP Masters,

A1 GP A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) was a "single-make" open-wheel auto racing series that ran from 2005 until 2009. It was unique in its field in that competitors solely represented their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most for ...

and the

Race of Champions The Race of Champions (ROC) is an international motorsport event held at the end/start of each year, featuring some of the world's best racing and rally drivers. It is the only competition in the world where stars from Formula One, World Ral ...

, in 2010 he became a studio contributor for

Sky Sports News Sky Sports News (SSN) is a British paid television sports news channel run by Sky, a division of Comcast. History Since 1992, Sky Sports had broadcast sports news, initially a brief ''Football Update'' and later this was expanded into a ...

and talkSPORT. He also provides expert analysis for BeIn Sports' F1 coverage from their Doha studios.

Personal life

He also does a considerable amount of after-dinner speaking for clients including Toyota, Heineken and Toshiba. In 2007, Jardine's wife Jeanette was badly injured in a car crash, in which she was an innocent bystander. She had to have her right arm amputated. The couple have been married since 1978.

References

External links

Injured wife
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jardine, Tony 1952 births British sports journalists Formula One journalists and reporters Living people Motorsport announcers McLaren people British rally drivers