John Watson career 1973-1985

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John Marshall Watson MBE (born 4 May 1946) is a British former racing driver and broadcaster from Northern Ireland, who competed in Formula One from 1973 to 1985.

Watson competed in Formula One for Brabham, Surtees, Lotus, Penske and McLaren, winning five Grands Prix across 12 seasons. He finished third in the 1982 World Drivers' Championship with McLaren. Watson also competed in the World Sportscar Championship, finishing runner-up in 1987 with Jaguar.

Upon his retirement from motor racing, Watson became a commentator for Eurosport from 1989 until 1996. Since 2022, he has served as the lead commentator for GT World Challenge Europe, and also commentated on the 2022 Miami Grand Prix for F1TV.

In 1984 Watson turned to sports car racing, notably partnering Stefan Bellof to victory at the Fuji 1000 km during Bellof's 1984 Championship year. He was also part of the driver lineup for Bob Tullius' Group 44 Jaguar team at the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans driving an IMSA spec Jaguar XJR-5 powered by a 6.0 litre V12 in the IMSA / GTP class. In what was Jaguar's first appearance at Le Mans since 1959, Watson briefly took the lead of the race towards the end of the first hour when the faster Porsche 956s and Lancia LC2s pitted. Driving with American Tony Adamowicz and Frenchman Claude Ballot-Léna, they failed to finish the race due to engine trouble though they were classified in 28th place.

Watson also finished second in the 1987 season alongside Jan Lammers in the TWR Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-8 when they won a total of three championship races (Jarama, Monza and Fuji). Watson competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times over the course of his career between 1973 and 1990, finishing 11th, a career best, in his last start in 1990 driving a Porsche 962C for Richard Lloyd Racing alongside fellow Grand Prix drivers Bruno Giacomelli and Allen Berg.

After retiring from active racing, he worked as a television commentator, ran a race school at Silverstone and managed a racetrack. He also became the first man to ever test a Jordan Formula One car in 1990.

From 1989 to 1996 he worked as a Formula One commentator for Eurosport alongside Andrew Marriott (1989-1990), Richard Nicholls (1990–1992), Allard Kalff (1992–1994) and Ben Edwards (1995–1996). The last Grand Prix Eurosport broadcast live in the UK was the Japanese GP in 1996. The contracts for Formula One live broadcasts were shifted to private TV stations for 1997. In 1997 Watson worked as a Formula One commentator for ESPN.

From 1998 to 2001 he was Charlie Cox's sidekick in commentating on the British Touring Car Championship for the BBC.

During the 2002 F1 season, Watson co-commentated on Sky Sports' Pay Per View F1+ coverage alongside Ben Edwards. However, this was fairly unpopular and it was axed for the 2003 season.

In 2005–2009, Watson worked as an expert commentator for BSkyb during their broadcasts of the A1 Grand Prix series.

In 2010, Watson commentated on some rounds of the FIA GT1 and GT3 Championship as well as the entire 2014 Blancpain GT Series.

Watson currently provides expert commentary on the GT World Challenge Europe alongside regular Blancpain television commentator David Addison.

In 2016, in an academic paper that reported a mathematical modelling study that assessed the relative influence of driver and machine, Watson was ranked the 25th best Formula One driver of all time.

Source: Wikipedia