Ted Kravitz: "I want to make everyone feel like F1 insiders"

For regular F1 watchers, Kravitz is now a firm fixture, and a popular one at that. His priority, of feeding live and useful info to the main commentators during practice, qualifying and the race, remains at the core of what he does.

"That's what you will be judged on by your audience," says Kravitz. But the extra features he films over race weekends, and most notably the Ted's Notebook show, has elevated his profile.

The informal downloads to camera in bustling pits as busy teams pack up around him are now an F1 staple.

Despite being there simply to say what he sees, Kravitz has on occasion stoked the hornet's nest by expressing a take on F1 matters that hasn't been appreciated by all.

Most famously, Red Bull briefly boycotted Sky Sports F1 on the back of Kravitz stating that Lewis Hamilton had been "robbed" of an eighth world title at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which in his book he describes as "perhaps the most significant and important moment of my time in F1".

What was it like to become the centre of the story? "Much less dramatic than everybody imagines," he says.

"Sky Sports F1 backed me up, because I hadn't actually said anything that was a rogue view or hadn't been said many times before by other people. But it had been clipped up, circulated and seen by people within Red Bull. It reignited the Abu Dhabi controversy a year after it happened."

The brief boycott took place "in the middle of the 2022 Mexican GP weekend when Red Bull had been answering questions about their accepted breach agreement with the cost cap", recalls Kravitz.

"It had been noted by people not by me that it was a useful distraction from that. All the questions that [team principal] Christian Horner got on the Sunday were about 'we're not going to talk to Sky, because we're not happy about something Ted said' rather than the breach agreement."

Upsetting teams, drivers and fans is part of the territory. You need a thick skin. "I had pretty good teachers and role models in this regard," says Kravitz, citing Walker and Allen.

"As long as you are honest with your audience and you clear your mind of any kind of influence, whether it's from teams or groups of fans, that's the only way to do it. The moment your thinking is clouded by the thought 'am I satisfying everybody?', you will barely be able to function. I hope there is not too much criticism. Murray dealt with a lot worse."

Kravitz is already looking forward to the 2026 season and what promises to be a more complicated racing spectacle, with cars built to new technical regulations.

He's excited by the prospect, rather than nervous: "As Murray said to me, F1 always finds a way of reinventing itself every year, whether it's new rules, new drivers, new teams. It always finds a way to be fresh."