David Croft on Red Bull dominance, Fernando Alonso's happiness, and his secret love of Married at First Sight Australia
"Red Bull are pretty good. Aston Martin have made exceptional gains, and the rest could all do with catching up a bit. Does that sound fair?"
David Croft previews the Australian Grand Prix. (Sky Sports/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
That's the brief with Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft, with one other revelation.
"MAFS is superb."
"I've just done season nine, I'm giving my brain a few weeks to recover before I hit season ten."
"But I'm still… you know that whole Olivia, Domenica, everything that was going on with that."
"That was a big one. What was going on?!"
Monday before the Australian Grand Prix, and Croft, or "Crofty" as he is known to the millions of English-speaking Formula 1 viewers worldwide, is sitting at home.
Behind him a neon sign, unlit, with his catch phrase: it's lights out and away we go!
"I fly tomorrow morning first thing."
On his checklist before he departs for the southern hemisphere?
"Pack my suitcase, chat to my chums in Australia. Right?"
First up, a snappy answer to a quick question.
"Red Bull are pretty good. Aston Martin have made exceptional gains, and the rest could all do with catching up a bit."
Croft can fill hours of pre-season testing or red-flagged races with his impressive knowledge of Formula 1 and his even more impressive ability to pick up and vamp on any topic of conversation.
Before the interview, my concern was that five minutes would not be enough. We have five minutes on the clock, and he has dispatched my opening salvo in seconds. My stomach twists into panic that I haven't pitched broad enough for him to swing at.
Give me three talking points for this season, I asked. A closed question. But we only have limited time!
"Red Bull have got the car that every driver I'm sure would love to be sat in at this moment."
"Apart from Fernando Alonso, who I think is happier than I've ever seen.
It was just a gear shift. Clunk. Well, in Formula 1, more of a bang. The pause in engine noise between the clutch press and the next gear engaging. My worry, for nothing. My stomach relaxes. BANG! We are into gear.
"Fernando Alonso, he is walking with a sprightly gait around the track, around the paddock, in a really good place and loving what's going on.
"He obviously saw potential in Aston Martin.
"Whether that potential has been exceeded so far in the first two races, I'm not quite sure, but he knew something good was coming his way.
"I'm sure Max and Checo knew something good was coming their way too, but I think Mercedes probably knew, certainly from their first day of a shakedown, that their hopes were going to be dashed in the early parts of the year once again."
Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen celebrate a 1-2 finish in Jeddah. (Getty Images/ Red Bull Content Pool)
This is Crofty's skill. To play storyteller on every lap of the Formula 1 championship as it tours around the globe, this year spanning a record twenty-three grands prix.
Red Bull have dominated the opening two races. Locking out the front row for the Bahrain Grand Prix and taking a 1-2 finish.
Incumbent World Champion Max Verstappen was on the back foot in Saudi Arabia with a mechanical failure in qualifying taking him to the rear of the grid.
Teammate Sergio Perez won as Verstappen made his way through the field for another 1-2 finish, the order reversed.
Many would worry that these signs of dominance would hamper the narrative of the sport.
To Croft, "it's fascinating," as he sits back and leans into storyteller mode.
Three minutes in. There was no need to panic. Crofty is warm, receptive, relaxed, and it's time to push the brief.
Fernando Alonso beams on the podium in Jeddah. (Aston Martin)
Fernando Alonso. World Champion. Forty-one years old. His movement between teams seemingly cursed since his days at Renault in the late 2000s.
Is he happier when he's in an underdog position and able to build a team around him than he would be in a world-beater?
That's not a question that we are going to wrap up in the next minute and forty seconds.
"Fernando has claimed in the past that he's had offers to go and join Red Bull, and conversations, but for whatever reason it's not quite happened."
"It didn't happen for him really at Ferrari. He was meant to be winning championships there and it never happened. Could have done, but Abu Dhabi and getting stuck behind Vitaly Petrov will haunt him to the end of his days I'm sure.
"His best days came at Renault, difficult to call Renault the underdogs certainly in '05 and '06, I don’t think they were the underdogs then, but he went back there to Enstone twice after leaving the first time and certainly seemed to enjoy himself."
"I think it's difficult to call Aston Martin the massive underdogs at the moment because of the expenditure that has gone on there.
"They kind of shifted out of that Team Silverstone/Jordan/Racing Point into something a lot bigger now.
"But what is certainly true is that he is loved and adored by his new team, and he loves and adores them in equal measure. And the team standing under the podium giving it the Seven Nation Army thing, that was great to hear that kind of unity.
"When he's loved, when he's appreciated and wanted - and appreciated is the right word there because he puts a huge amount of effort in, then there is no finer driver than Fernando Alonso.
"If I was a team principal he would be first on my list all the time. Because I think he's a proper thinking driver who gets the most out of his car at all times.
"And this has the potential to be utterly brilliant, Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin, but for the time being they're playing second fiddle to Red Bull.
"They're not taking the fight to Red Bull because they're just that little bit behind them. But man, they're a lot closer than a lot of people thought they would be."
Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner on the pit wall at the Saudi Arabian grand prix. (Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
We're rolling now. Driver-team appreciation. Now that's a big topic of discussion.
What about Red Bull? How do they manage the balance between their drivers if it's a head-to-head fight between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez at Red Bull as this season draws on.
"Well you would hope that they'll appreciate both drivers equally, especially at this stage of the season, there's no need for team orders yet."
"What happened to Max in Saudi was unfortunate for him and it was a fine drive to recover from 15th to second to show the potential of that car that he did it. And no one was really surprised that he managed to get all this way to second place by the time he did.
"It's delicate, kid gloves, a bit from Christian Horner, who with Red Bull have put their faith in Max Verstappen and he's returned that faith with a couple of championships, and for the first time since 2013 a constructors championship for them as well.
"So it's difficult to say Red Bull haven't put their faith in him, but he will feel that he's the lead driver and he needs that faith continuing and he needs to have preferential treatment over Sergio Perez. But that shouldn't be the case, not at this stage of the season.
"Only when there is competition from outside of Red Bull and only when it looks like they need to work together to secure the best possible results.
"Otherwise they might lose one championship or both, should any thought be given to team orders there.
"That's me saying it from the outsider's perspective."
"I'm sure Max's management would like to think something different, but I would hope that Christian Horner as a racing man and a former racing driver himself would want team orders to be the last thing that are discussed over a piece of chicken and rice on race day, or whatever the pre-race meal is at Red Bull these days."
Crofty is right.
It's not just optimism or his duty as a voice for the sport.
He has been through the Red Bull dominance with Sebastian Vettel and the Mercedes dominance of the 2010s, which always promised a battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. At least until the point of each season when one driver had a hand on the World Championship Trophy.
Lewis Hamilton ahead of Nico Rosberg during the 2016 Brazilian grand prix. (Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team)
"Exactly," he says.
"But at Mercedes, they had a whole book, the "Rules of Engagement" book that Toto Wolff drew up and gave to the drivers to say, "look, we want you to race, we want you to go head-to-head, it's great for the sport, but we don't want you losing races."
"Now Barcelona 2016, He had to get involved a little bit after that.
"That's what we want at Red Bull. We want to see them go wheel-to-wheel, and I hope that will be the case.
"Because they are going to be the dominant force and they're going to be the dominant force for quite a few races to come."
The Mercedes comparison is quite a reprieve from any rash negativity about Red Bull's dominance.
Hamilton and Rosberg battles did always promise close racing, and it would be quite the season to have Christian Horner's stable duel it out with equal backing from the team.
Ten minutes in, and Crofty is laying out quite the dish from fairly limited ingredients.
Only two races so far!
But one thing that has emerged in the two races is a debate over the strictness and enforcement of sporting penalties.
I thought I could throw something like that at him to get some colour commentary in the final minutes of our chat.
Should there be limits on penalties? Maybe a time limit where it has to be sorted within 10 laps and play on? How rugby plays the advantage. How football uses VAR.
"There's two ways of looking at it."
"It's either bad for the sport and you don't want the race to be decided after the event, or you want to get it right.
"And the whole point of having the remote operations centre is to get things right."
I'm quite surprised by his directness here.
Sky Sports, in their panel segments, delve deep in debate around the issues with competing opinions from their range of hosts.
Crofty is moderator, stepping out of the booth as play-by-play man to play it straight as bombs are lobbed by those around him.
But here he is analytical and direct. Cool, calm, but precise.
Of course! You want rules to be followed and you want penalties to be issued correctly. It’s simple when he lays it out like this.
"Maybe drivers need a bit more help in finding where their grid box is."
"We don't want to see five second penalties given every race for that.
"But in terms of the pit stop, did the jack touch? Yes it did.
"Another team brought up evidence that it did touch and that the rules were, if you touch, that was considered working on the car.
"Aston Martin won a right of review, not an appeal, a right of review with new evidence.
"I think the right decision was made eventually."
Croft zeroes in on the individual penalties and interpretations of the rules. No need to overblow it. No need for hypotheticals. No need to throw out the rule book.
"It's not football, and it's not rugby, and it's not cricket, it is a different sport entirely."
"I would rather the right decision is made, even if it's made after the event.
"And the reason why it wasn't reviewed during the course of the race was because the other team waited until the last possible moment to get that appeal in because they thought, "if we do it straight away then that gives Aston Martin time to make up 10 seconds."
"So you can understand why there's nothing wrong with that at all.
"[Making a decision in] 10 laps, it's interesting, it's worth a discussion, but I'd rather see the right result made and the right decisions made."
Now Crofty is back in the booth. Well, it's hard to tell.
He's at the track, visualising these pit stops.
The camera following the path of the rear jack, framing up the rear of the Aston Martin in the Jeddah pit lane.
The pit crew leaning over the car as if they are ready to perform open-heart surgery as soon the anaesthetic kicks in.
The timer in the bottom left corner of the screen counting the seconds lost in pit lane.
I can see it, and I can see him seeing it.
"What I don't understand is why the crew have to be so near the car within that five seconds."
"[So close] they could be touching it anyway. Just stand back and then do it!
"If it's the same for everyone, you’re not going to lose any time retrospectively on this one.
"Give yourself a bit of a buffer, a bit of a margin.
"And I'm sure from the pit wall at Aston Martin, the call to the crew is "don't touch the car, don't touch the car!"
"They know that you run the risk of picking up a penalty.
"These pit stops where you are serving a penalty are always going to be slower anyway because at a normal pit stop the car comes in and you're on it with the guns before the car is stopped.
"You're not doing that, you're doing it from a static start, and they're always going to be a little bit slower."
Sergio Perez wins the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. (Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
Oh, the Australian grand prix is in a few days. That's what this junket is about, after all. Shall we throw in a question about that.
Croft will commentate F1 sessions. Fox Sports will beam out almost 40 hours of live coverage from Albert Park to Fox and Kayo subscribers. F1 TV Pro will launch in Australia for the first time, giving Foxtel customers the choice to watch the onboard feed from any driver.
Formula 1 will be joined by Supercars, as well as Formula 2 and Formula 3. There will be a record crowd.
Crofty loves it, he says. He's riding in a Supercar for the first time around the track on Thursday. He can't wait to see the fans on the Melbourne Walk.
Where will I be? Following Formula 2 and Formula 3 as they make their debut in Albert Park.
"That's brilliant."
"F2 and F3 first time down under. We've been starved of overtaking a bit in Albert Park over the years and they should definitely give us some of that.
"And that means we also get more Aussie drivers, which is even better. The future's bright for Australian drivers, I love this,” he says.
Jack Doohan is moving up through the Alpine Academy. He's so busy with F1 commitments that he is near impossible to tie down in the Formula 2 paddock.
"Oh we like Jack. Jack's a top lad."
We're on fire now. High gear.
"He shares my obsession with Married at First Sight Australia as well. So there's nothing wrong with that."
BANG!
David Croft, Sky Sports F1 commentator, is a secret MAFS fan on the other side of the globe.
"MAFS is superb."
"In testing we were talking away, and obviously we've got a lot of time to talk in testing.
"Jack Doohan came into the commentary box and I said that Valtteri Bottas looked a bit like Jackson from MAFS.
"He's got the Jackson look going on with the 'tache and the hair and everything. And Jack went "he does a little bit. I watch that too."
Jackson Lonie and Olivia Frazer from Married at First Sight season nine. (Nine)
"I've tried to share this obsession with other Australian friends of mine who have absolutely laughed me out of the park on this one, but it filled a gap in the winter when there was no F1 going on."
We're twenty minutes in. Completely off the rails.
Two squares, one purple, one black, sit silently at the top of the Zoom window as PR representatives from Fox Sports and Sky Sports watch on.
No penalty? Play on!
Crofty, I'm actually in a meeting room at Channel Nine's headquarters in Sydney. The people who come up with that stuff are probably just a few floors upstairs.
"Honestly, I would love to talk to some of those brains about, and if you have got the experts up there, how they put these couples together."
"Because at first sight they have nothing in common and it was never going to work,” he laughs.
We're approaching delirium. I have forgotten that it's almost midnight in the UK and Crofty is preparing for a day of international travel.
He is leaning forward to look up MAFS cast members as I scour the invite list for the Australian Grand Prix red carpet gala. Could we line this up so Crofty could meet some of the MAFS personalities as soon as he arrives in Melbourne?
"I've just done season nine, I'm giving my brain a few weeks to recover before I hit season ten."
"But I'm still… you know that whole Olivia, Domenica, everything that was going on with that."
"That was a big one. What was going on?!"
Jack Millar and Domenica Calarco during Married at First Sight. (Nine)
That was last year's season when bride Olivia Frazer sent around a lewd photo from fellow bride Domenica Calarco's old OnlyFans account.
"The last couple of episodes of that, wow. What was going on?!"
"I'm a massive fan and I'm getting married next year, but I've already seen my bride so I can't go on the show."
Any wedding inspiration?
"Absolutely not!" says Crofty.
"I'm not taking any wedding inspiration from a series where none of them actually stay together in the end."
Maybe do the opposite of what they do?
"Correct. That's exactly what I need to do."
David Croft answers fan questions from Bahrain ahead of the 2022 season. (Sky Sports)
Maybe MAFS is a bit like Formula 1. The rumblings in the paddock like the conflict between couples bubbling away at home.
The grid bursting to life at the start of a grand prix like any good MAFS dinner party and roaring to a crescendo by the chequered flag.
Found it. Crofty has locked back on to the drama of season nine.
"But Brent was with Tamara."
"And Tamara wanted to have too many chats with Mitch, who was with Ella.
"That was the big turnaround. Shocked? Shocked.
"I nearly fell off my chair with that one!"
Okay Crofty, what's more shocking. That, or Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg coming together on the opening lap of Barcelona 2016?
"I tell you what… I will be less shocked if Max Verstappen and Segio Perez and Red Bull don't win the Grand Prix this weekend, than I was about Brent and Tamara!"
It’s winding up now, and I've found the Glamour on the Grid guest list.
It’s the annual 600-guest red carpet party on the start line to launch the Australian Grand Prix.
Now this is a rapid-fire round.
Melbourne Cup jockeys, Paralympians, world number one surfers. Unfortunately, people on here have a bit more relevant sporting notoriety.
"I so want to have a chat with one of the cast members," says Crofty.
There will be plenty to chat about when he joins the Fox Sports team during a Supercars session, as is the plan for the grand prix.
Watch in 4K Ultra HD on Foxtel or stream on Kayo Sports.
