‘You’ve got to go’: David Croft lets fly at West Ham board live on Sky F1’s Mexico City broadcast
Friday practice in Mexico City delivered the usual mix of tyre talk and long-run averages. It also delivered David Croft firing a broadside at his football club’s hierarchy in the middle of Sky Sports F1’s coverage.
Between lap times and sector deltas, the long-time Sky commentator — and long-suffering West Ham fan — turned his mic on the Hammers’ board after their 2-1 defeat to Leeds United on Friday night. The rant wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t short.
“I like stats in Formula 1,” Croft began, “and I’ll give you a stat… It’s 3.1 per cent of our total game time — that’s how long West Ham have been ahead in the Premier League this season. Twenty-five minutes and six seconds. The next worst is Fulham on 13.3 per cent — that is how bad West Ham are.”
Then came the motor racing metaphor only Crofty could conjure in the thin air of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. “We’re not sleepwalking to relegation, we are hurtling at 225mph down the Mexico City straight towards relegation.”
West Ham’s form has been grim — one win in nine and 19th in the table — and the away end at Elland Road made their feelings known with chants aimed upstairs. Croft, on air and in full flow, did the same.
“Now something has to change and change fast,” he said. “Not just the playing staff, which needs a complete overhaul, not just the manager, who needs to be playing to what he’s got at the moment, but the top with the board as well. David Sullivan, Karren Brady — your time’s up. You’ve got to go.”
He didn’t stop there. “If this was a series of The Apprentice, Karren Brady, you’d have been fired after episode one. And David Sullivan, it seems like you’re running my club — our club — as a vanity project. Stop doing it. Get out now while you can and while West Ham still have a chance of staying up.”
It’s not unusual for Croft to weave a slice of pop culture or football into his F1 patter, but this was notably punchy even by his standards. Clips of the monologue ricocheted around social media within minutes, with plenty of West Ham fans applauding the shot across the bows and a few others wondering if the Mexico City pit straight was the right place for it.
All of this unfolded as an intriguing title race bubbled in the background. Max Verstappen has stormed back into contention and arrived in Mexico 40 points behind Oscar Piastri, with Lando Norris a further step ahead of him in the fight — 26 points clear of Verstappen — according to the current 2025 standings. On track, there’s enough jeopardy to keep Croft busy without the East End soap opera.
Still, you couldn’t accuse Sky’s lead voice of phoning it in. In a season that’s asked a lot of the commentary box — three-horse championship scrap, new narratives every weekend — Croft added a curveball of his own. It was raw, it was partisan, and it was unmistakably him.
For those keeping to F1 matters: practice wrapped with the usual heavy fuel runs and qualifying sims, teams wrestling with the thin air and slippery surface that always make Mexico a handful. Strategy will be a guess-and-check exercise until Sunday, tyre temps are right on the edge, and everyone’s watching the long-legged cars down that massive main straight.
For those keeping score in the other fight Croft cares about, his message was simple enough to cut through the engine noise. And with Sky back on air for qualifying and the race, you suspect the West Ham subplot won’t be entirely parked in parc fermé.
