RIP, he gave millions a lot of joy. And who can forget perhaps his greatest line of commentary:
'Unless I'm very much mistaken... I AM very much mistaken!!!
Great material for Private Eye’s Coleman Ball column. Some more wonderful examples were:
"We've had cars going off left, right and centre", "do my eyes deceive me, or is
Senna's
Lotus sounding rough?", and "with half of the race gone, there is half of the race still to go".
"There's nothing wrong with the car except it's in fire"
"The lead car is unique except for the car behind it which is identical"
"He can't decide whether to leave his visor half open or half closed".
"There are seven winners of the Monaco Grand Prix on the starting line today and four of them are Michael Schumacher".
"Now we have exactly the same situation as we had as at the beginning of the race only exactly opposite".
He was always hyper. Clive James said of him: “In his quieter moments he sounded like his trousers were on fire”.
A true legend. RIP.