Tony Jardine

Anthony Thomas Jardine (born 5 March 1952) is an English rally driver, motorsport pundit and former Formula One (F1) assistant team manager. He has done broadcasting work as an F1 pit lane reporter for the BBC and as a pundit for ITV in its television coverage of the sport from 1997 to 2005. Jardine has worked with the Brabham, McLaren and Team Lotus teams and run his own sports public relations company. He has competed in rallies on both an amateur and a semi-professional basis.

Early life Jardine was born on 5 March 1952, at Oxford Street Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, England. His family moved to South Africa when he was an infant, before returning to Wirral, Merseyside, when he was nine years old. Jardine and his family returned to England in 1962 upon the death of his father. and majored in art, Jardine began his career as a art teacher for a year at Woodchurch High School in Bebington, and for one year, he was head of the art department at the New English School in Kuwait. He later became a political cartoonist for the Kuwait Times, working in the evenings. While in Kuwait, he took up rally driving for the local Datsun importers in his spare time after an accident in which he crashed his own Formula Ford car meant he was unable to pay for it to be repaired. He was comparatively successful, finishing eighth on the Kuwait International Rally in 1975. He discovered the lack of funding prevented him from getting more involved in racing.

Outside his later Formula One (F1) management career, Jardine has continued to race in rallying on an amateur and semi-professional basis, mainly in the United Kingdom but also overseas. Jardine has competed in four Arctic Rallies and 27 Wales Rally GBs, finishing second in class in 2001. He was a three-time recipient of the journalists' award. He competed in the 2013 Wales Rally GB and the 2016 Wales Rally GB with co-driver Amy Williams, the Winter Olympic gold medallist.

Formula One career Jardine decided to leave his teaching job and moved into F1 by earning a HGV1 truck drivers license.

Jardine then left F1 because he had reached the peak within the sport's administration sector to work for an American promotions company to learn about marketing, Jardine became the director of communications of the classic rally company HERO/ERA in 2019.

Media career In 1982, Jardine began working in broadcasting when the commercial radio service Independent Radio News (IRN) were unable to locate their reporter to cover the drivers' strike at the 1982 South African Grand Prix, so Jardine took up those duties. Jardine started working for the BBC in the 1980s, including standing in for Murray Walker, as main commentator, at the 1985 German Grand Prix when Walker had a clash between the 1985 British motorcycle Grand Prix and the German Grand Prix and was asked by the BBC to cover the motorcycle event. He was also a race commentator for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. , and official F1 season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors' Association. Following the death of James Hunt in 1993, Jonathan Palmer moved to become co-commentator alongside Walker and Jardine became the BBC's full time pit lane reporter. He was the presenter of Opposite Lock on Sky Sports in the 1990s. He covered A1 Grand Prix and has also done broadcasting for the pay-TV broadcaster Sky TV, Sky Sports News previewing each F1 Grand Prix in the Sky studio, Talksport, TalkTV and BeIN Sports, analysing F1 races for Africa and the Middle East. The couple have been married since October 1978.