Early career Allen started his Formula One career with the
Brabham team in 1990. In 1991, he worked with future TV colleagues
Mark Blundell and
Martin Brundle. He was news editor at
Autosport from 1992 to 1994, and in parallel worked as Formula One pit lane reporter for American network
ESPN from 1993 to 1996.
ITV With
Nigel Mansell's move to the
Champ Car World Series in 1993, Allen was hired by
ITV in 1994 to help present coverage of the season. When ITV gained the rights to broadcast the Formula One championship in , he worked with Chrysalis TV CEO Neil Duncanson to win the production contract and joined the ITV Sport team as pit lane reporter. With
Murray Walker unable to commentate at the
2000 French Grand Prix, Allen took over as one of the main commentators alongside
Martin Brundle. Walker wound down his career the next year by missing five races (Brazil, Europe, France, Germany, and Japan), all of which Allen covered. ITV had considered trying a number of guest commentators to decide who would be best suited to replace Walker but instead opted to keep Allen on board full-time. He took over permanently after the
2001 United States Grand Prix and commentated on every subsequent Grand Prix while the sport was broadcast on ITV, winning a number of Royal Television Society and BAFTA Awards. The
2007 Canadian Grand Prix was Allen's 100th as a commentator and he did 129 in total in the role. His last commentary for ITV was the
2008 Brazilian Grand Prix when ITV's F1 broadcast contract ended. The race was watched by over 11 million people in the United Kingdom. Allen also wrote "James Allen's Analysis" for the ITV website.
BBC Between 2012 and 2015, Allen was the BBC's Formula One correspondent and lead commentator for
BBC Radio 5 Live. He edited his own Formula One website providing insight and analysis of the sport and managed a digital media business, working with sponsors and brands in Formula One that leveraged the site. He made an appearance on
Celebrity Mastermind, answering questions on
Roald Dahl books. He won the competition, with a score of 23 points.
Writing Allen has written four books, the first of which was his
ghost-written autobiography of
Nigel Mansell published by
HarperCollins. He has also written two books on
Michael Schumacher:
Quest for Redemption (also published in paperback as
Driven to Extremes) and
The Edge of Greatness. In July 2023, he published
Ferrari: From Inside and Outside with ACC Art Books. Allen has been the Formula One correspondent of the
Financial Times since 1999. In this capacity in April 2011, he wrote the first story revealing the plan to create a new all-electric racing series that became known as
Formula E.
Formula One Management Allen was one of the official
Formula One Management World Feed interviewers for post-qualifying and post-race, beginning this role at the
2009 British Grand Prix. He also moderated the official
FIA press conference sessions with drivers and team principals during Formula One race weekends from 2009 to 2018. From 2013 to 2020, he served as the moderator of the annual FIA Sport Conference and has become one of the principal moderators of thought leadership events around motorsport. Allen created the thought leadership video podcast strand
#ThinkingForward in 2020, which ran on all editions of Motorsport.com in fifteen languages. Allen spoke to leaders from across motorsport about topics like sustainability, diversity, and inclusion and future technologies, aimed at giving enthusiasts an understanding of the future direction of the sport. In 2024 he launched a new podcast
James Allen on F1 on the Autosport channel, featuring interviews with people who shape the sport with studio analysis from journalists from Autosport and outside. In May 2024 he interviewed Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, the owners of F1. In 2019, Allen appeared in the 2019 Formula E film
And We Go Green, directed by Fisher Stevens. That same year, he was the executive producer on the feature film
Motorsport Heroes written and directed by Manish Pandey, writer of the acclaimed movie
Senna. Allen was featured as one of the principal narrative voices in the hit
Netflix 2021 documentary film
Schumacher, directed by Michael Wech. He was billed as Schumacher's biographer. In 2023, he played a similar role in the Mansell documentary
Williams & Mansell: Red 5 made by Wiser Films for
Sky. ==Awards==