I’ve just seen on the news that Murray Walker for so long the voice of motor sport on British television has died.

I remember his distinctive voice commentating on Motocross (formerly known as motorcycle scrambling) in the 1960s on the BBC’s Grandstand; itself sadly long gone.

It was as a commentator on Formula 1, though, for which he was best known, for both the BBC and ITV in a stint lasting over twenty years. After his retirement the sport somehow never felt the same. Shockingly, that commentating retirement was itself twenty years ago.

He was one of those few characters associated with a particular sport whose fame and personality allowed them to transcend it.

Graeme Murray Walker: 10/10/1923 – 13/3/2021. So it goes.

One of motor racing’s greats, Niki Lauda, has died.

Though he only won the F1 World Championship three times, his talent was acknowleged as being of the highest quality.

His courage in coming back from a horrific accident in which he almost died at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring to race again only 40 days later was incredible. Arguably though, his withdrawal from the final Grand Prix that year in Japan, where the weather conditions were appalling, took even more courage as that year’s World Championship was on the line. As a result his great friend and rival James Hunt won the Championship – by one point. Lauda’s team, Ferrari, was not best pleased.

It marks Lauda’s resolve that he made that decision and still came back to win the World Championship the next year – and again seven years later.

Andreas Nikolaus (Niki) Lauda: 22/2/1949 – 20/5/2019. So it goes.

I was sorry to hear yesterday of the death of John Surtees, the only man to win a World Championship both on motor bikes and in F1 Cars.

John Surtees: 11/2/1934 – 10/3/2017. So it goes.