Champagne has been sprayed on the F1 rostrums since the 1950 French Grand Prix, becoming one of the sport’s many cherished traditions. In F1 that ritual has had a unique flavour to it ever since circuit speaker Bob Constanduros came up with his now iconic ‘Champaaaaaagne’, the sign for drivers to douse each other in the delicate bubbly substance, and for dignitaries to duck out of the way.
Following four years of Ferrari Trento, an Italian sparkling wine which can’t legally be called champagne, F1’s new landmark LVMH deal means Moet’s champagne is back on the menu, which is music to Constanduros’ ears. “I’m very pleased to be doing a proper ‘champagne’ again,” Constanduros told Motorsport.com, explaining he took inspiration in the 90s from Spanish football commentators and their typical ‘Goooool’ celebration. “I think the longest I ever did was a 28-second champagne, but I don’t have the lung capacity any longer.
“I never accidentally went back to champagne in those years. I knew what it was. Obviously, in the Arab states they can’t use champagne, so instead you say something like: ‘let’s celebrate’. So, you’ve got to remember that. And sometimes in my ear, the producer is saying: ‘Okay, champagne moment’. No, it isn’t!”
As with most things involving Formula 1 in the 80s, it was a certain Bernard Charles Ecclestone who played a part in Constanduros getting the job of F1 circuit speaker during the 1985 season. “I was doing Le Mans at night because my uncle James did commentary, but he liked to go off and have a drink in the evening with his mates, so he handed it over to me and I did it for so many years,” he recalls. “There was a chap called Alec Deffis Whittaker, who was Bernie’s man in charge of that kind of thing and said to Bernie, if you want another commentator, this is the guy to have.
“At the time Anthony Marsh, an old family friend of ours, was doing it, but Bernie didn’t like the way he was financing it by namedropping sponsors. So, I did everything from 1985 onwards other than one or two races that Anthony still did, and then I did all of them all the way through to 2018. Then I had a heart operation, so I missed about three races. And then of course, due to COVID I missed some more.
“Nowadays, I do about 10 out of 24. I still do the others from Biggin Hill. The technology they have there is amazing, and the people are so professional. It’s almost a privilege to be working there. It is the peak of sports broadcasting.”
Bernie Ecclestone presents Bob Constanduros an award for his upcoming 500th GP
Photo by: Sutton Images
Before he became a circuit announcer, Constanduros worked as a freelancer and completed a stint at Autosport, following F1, F2 and touring car racers around Europe in a van. “I was freelance for Autosport and then joined full-time in 1972 and stayed for five years until 1977, when I turned freelance because somebody had to cover the Jaguars in the European Touring Car Championship. I went all over Europe, to the Czech Republic, all over the place. And I loved it.
“The first van I had was a Volkswagen Type 2 that had been used by Australians for travelling around Europe. It had a misfire for ages. One time I was going to have it looked after in Belgium and get a lift with a guy to cover Brno. But he had a problem with his tow car. In the end I had to get a lift to Brussels to get my camper, which still wasn’t cured, then set off in the middle of the night to drive from Brussels to Brno, and I arrived on race day morning.
“After the race, I spent the night in Vienna and then drove to Munich and had the misfire cured in Munich. Eventually got to Paris on Tuesday evening and then went to Le Mans on Wednesday. That was quite a marathon.
“I then bought another minibus which was converted by Toine Hezemans, who was the European Touring Car Champion and had a business converting campers. That was a really good one, it was new. When I eventually sold it, there were quite a few things wrong with it…
“At one point, the roof nearly came off because I’d left it all winter and when I eventually came to open it, the hinges were rusted, and they just went into the roof. I was just on my way to Nurburgring and it was actually the best place to have that problem, because I could go straight to one of those tuners who do bodywork. By the end of the day, it was repaired.
“I had that camper for about 30 years, but I started using it less and less because I had a family and moved out of London as well in 1988, and I just started flying a little bit more. Before that, my wife used to come out to quite a few races. She worked in F2 for Guy Edwards and was looking after the ICI sponsorship. And latterly, she also looked after the Guinness sponsorship on the March that Derek Daly ran. But when we had kids to look after she retired basically from racing. I was concentrating more and more on F1 as the calendar got bigger.”
Ayrton Senna on his way to winning the 1993 European Grand Prix at Donington Park
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Constanduros’ tally of over 700 grands prix means there have been a lot of opportunities for slip-ups, although he has largely managed to stay out of trouble. “It’s quite complicated because sometimes we aren’t awfully certain who is going to be presenting the trophies,” he explains. “In Bahrain, for example, we had two different scenarios with two different lots of names and sometimes they can be very complicated. I know somebody who did the podium at a race and got into a certain amount of trouble because they pronounced the prime minister’s name wrong…”
Having covered nearly every F1 race since 1985, Constanduros is also a veritable treasure trove of anecdotes, working in an era when journalists had much closer relationships with their subject matter, long before the sport was sanitised and public relations took over.
When asked about his standout memories, a few examples immediately spring to mind, both positive and negative. “Donington 1993 was a very memorable weekend for all sorts of reasons,” he remembers. “I nearly bumped into Princess Diana in the control tower. It has a spiral staircase and I was sort of concentrating on my footing, and all of a sudden there was this pair of legs in front of me. I was about to walk straight into somebody, I looked up, and it was Princess Diana.
“Then James Hunt and I were sort of yomping across the grounds to do a presentation at East Midlands Airport. Then I nearly called King Hussein of Jordan ‘Saddam Hussein’. Oof, that was a close call… And then of course we had a fantastic race with Ayrton Senna winning in the rain.”
One year later the mercurial Brazilian would inevitably be at the centre of Constanduros’ worst memory working in the sport. “Obviously, Imola 1994 was bad news,” he continued. “I will always remember the last words Ayrton said to me. I had to go with FOM to try and get a comment from him on the Sunday morning, because of the previous evening [when Roland Ratzenberger was killed in a qualifying accident].
“He came out of the motorhome, looked at me and said: ‘You don’t expect I’m going to give you an interview, do you?’ That was the last thing he ever said to me, so I will always remember that. But I did get to know him quite well and I very much respected him. And I actually recommended Alain Prost for an OBE, an Order of the British Empire. I’ve actually got an invitation to the British Embassy in Paris with his signature on the back.
Keke Rosberg, Williams FW08
Photo by: Motorsport Images
The driver Constanduros got to know best was Keke Rosberg, who became the 1982 world champion with Williams after a fraught season marked by tragedy and politics. Constanduros struck up a friendship while working with the Finn during his early Formula Vee years, and he regales us with another unforgettable story: “He raced in Formula 2 with the ICI March and I used to go and stay with him at Heidelberg in Germany, where he lived. He, Danny Sullivan and [legendary Marlboro marketing executive] Dan Partel kidnapped me one time on the Thursday before a grand prix.
“The next day they had to do a Marlboro promotion at a US Air Force base near Heidelberg. Gunnar Nilsson had rung up to ask if someone could pick him up from the airport. And they said: ‘Well, we can’t do it but if we kidnap Bob, get him drunk and let him sleep on the sofa, then we’ll give him Danny’s Alfa tomorrow and he can drive it to Frankfurt airport and pick up Gunnar.’ And that’s what I did.
“Then I took him back to the campsite and there I found this Lotus Formula 1 driver eating all my currant bread, ogling the topless girl about two campers away…”
To this day Constanduros is known for his booming voice and his infectious passion for racing, which underpins the engaging trackside commentary that has entertained millions of spectators over decades. Transferring this passion onto the crowd while drip-feeding them information is what he feels is his job description.
“So many people who come to a grand prix have never seen one before, so you’ve got to make sure you start at the bottom and build information,” he says when asked what makes a good circuit speaker. “Very often they’re not listening the first time anyway, so you’ve got to say something maybe several times and you’ve got to point things out.
“The other point about circuit commentary as opposed to TV commentary is that it doesn’t matter what you say, somebody somewhere is looking at what you’re talking about. On TV, it’s only what they’re seeing on the pictures whereas at the track somebody somewhere is looking at that action. I don’t have to concentrate on the battle going on for the lead. I can talk about the battle going on further back.
“You have to get excited, raise your voice and try and transmit that passion to your audience. You have to appreciate how fantastic it is, however many times you’ve seen it before, whether it’s cars going three abreast or the timing in F1 these days. Nowadays you’ll have a free practice session where all 20 cars are covered by 1.2 seconds. And I keep asking, where do you find that 1.2 seconds from? Some of us, as journalists, are quite rude about the teams and yet they are full of people doing their best with what they have to be as competitive as they can. That’s so important to remember.”
Commentator box with Bob Constanduros
Photo by: Stefan Ehlen
Constanduros is now well into his 70s, but as with all ‘F1 lifers’ he can’t quite imagine doing much else, although he has reduced his workload in recent years. “At my peak, if you like, I would be doing maybe 10 or 12 different jobs at a grand prix. Not only the commentary, but I’d also be doing some writing and talking for sponsors. I did some stuff for Japanese magazines, Swiss magazines. That’s disappeared to some extent as well. It’s just the way of the world and the way of media, you can’t turn it back,” he ponders.
“The last bit of writing I really did was for the FIA. For many years I hosted post-race and then post-qualifying press conferences, which Tom Clarkson does now, as well as the transcriptions; latterly only the transcriptions. When I stopped last year, I’d been working for the FIA for about 35 years.
“So much has changed, and I haven’t got a mortgage to pay but I still get excited about motorsport. The Bahrain Grand Prix was great stuff and I’ll be sitting on the edge of my seat with a big grin on my face. The excitement will never go away, so I’ll keep on going as long as you can.
“I’ve just got to recognise that perhaps I’m not sharp and if necessary, just recognise that I’ve got to step back. But what they do say is: ‘Well, he still sounds young. He may not look young, but they don’t have to look at him!'”
