Martin Brundle's witty and wry comments (as well as the sarcastic and sometimes all-too-brutally honest ones!) have been considered by many to be the highlight of ITV1's coverage of Formula 1 Grand Prix races. From the 2009 season, Martin will be commentating for the BBC coverage. This site lists some of Martin's best quotes.
Any quotes I've missed which you would like to see included can be sent to me here. Please try to give me some clues as to when it happened.
Photo kindly provided by www.sutton-images.com Animated flags from www.3dflags.com
PLEASE NOTE! I don’t have Martin’s ear (or his email address!) and so I cannot forward questions, or requests for photos and autographs, to him.
Martin has his own site at www.martinbrundle.com/
Callie
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Britain
My apologies for having missed the British Grand Prix. I was in hospital after having had emergency surgery and was busy trying not to be dead. I'm now home and hope to be OK for the next race. Callie.
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Turkey
“Turn 8 – that’s the one that’s ripping their necks off.”
“That is a fairground ride he’s having there.”
“Every time the car slides a little bit when your confidence is down, you think you’re gonna have an accident. When your confidence is up, it’s just nothing; you just drive straight through the middle of it and ignore it.”
“Button drives like a chauffeur! He’s so smooth with the car!”
“I raced against both Rosberg and Nakajima’s dads. I was ten years old at the time!”
Jake: “Are you ready to go grab a few people and see who you can find?”
Martin: “Yeah, I’m gonna take Crazy Dave here and head down to the first corner.”
Christian Horner: “I was just talking to one of the Italian commentators. She’s much prettier than you two are!”
Martin: “Yeah, but does she know about oversteer and understeer – and do you care?!”
Christian: “I didn’t understand a word she was saying, but it doesn’t matter!”
Jenson: “A few of the boys have got a ... a pad – we normally call it something else – but I haven’t got one.”
DC: “What do you normally call it?”
Martin: “We’re on the BBC – don’t start all that smutty driver talk! It’s a pillow, isn’t it, that you rest your head on. Sorry – I thought I’d save you from yourself there, DC.”
“What do we think about that? The KERS got him back past. Do we think that’s brilliant driving; is it good racing; is it plastic racing? I can’t make my mind up, to be honest.”
(Massa’s engineer tells him to try to brake less in the final corner)
“That’s amazing! I’ve never heard that before! Sort of a driving lesson from your engineer. It’s very helpful; I wish I’d had that!”
“They must have an iron girder across the front of that McLaren. It just constantly picks up its inside wheel under braking.”
“(Button’s) just a new man, isn’t he? From a guy that’s been struggling with a bad car, making errors, running into people – now it’s all working well, he’s just moved into overdrive.”
(Barrichello retires)
“I can only assume either he’s lost interest in the race – unlikely – or with seventh gear broken there’ll be some bits and pieces making their way around that gearbox.”
“That’s the second apex I’ve seen Jenson Button miss this year!”
“Vettel would rather eat his own fingers than let him pass.”
“Jenson just doesn’t know how to go slow enough, does he?!”
“The drivers are weighed complete with HANS ... not Hans, but HANS device that goes around their neck.”
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Monaco
“I’m really looking forward to commentating on this [but] I’d love to be at the Swimming Pool entrance just to see how hard they’re pushing them there. This is one of the finest sporting theatres in the world, in my view.”
Ted: “Jenson Button passed me to go to the loo.”
Martin: “Well, let’s hope he can get the job done and keep his championship campaign on track.”
“I sent (Rubens) a text to say ‘happy birthday’ this morning; he said, ‘Yeah, I’m like a fine wine; I just get better as I get older’.”
“Half a second slower than Hamilton was going before he binned it in the hedge.”
“There’s an eight metre difference between each car [on the grid]. Obviously that’s based on the average length of a Formula 1 ego.”
“Here’s Bernie here with his arm around ... I think it’s his daughter. Oh, it’s Geri Halliwell, sorry! That’s gonna go down well, isn’t it?!”
“Jenson Button cannot relax, thinking he’s got a rear gunner behind him in his team mate. He’s got his main rival there.”
Jonathan: “One of the great lines of the weekend from Robert Kubica: he said, ‘We have to realise we’re bad’.”
Martin: “The stopwatch never lies.”
Martin: “Senna did that to me once when he was gonna crash: he used me at Monza to slow down.”
Jonathan: “Did you tell him that?”
Martin: “He told me!”
“Buemi wheelbarrowed Piquet off the racetrack.”
“I always remember this moment when I was driving here: when you’re really hot and sweaty and gasping for breath and it’s all manic; and they hang you a board out that says, ‘There’s 50 laps to go’ and you feel like you must be somewhere near the end.”
“It’s like (the Toyotas) are out there to entertain the crowd while the leaders are round the other side [of the track].”
“A Formula 1 car can change gear fifty times faster than you can blink your eye. Let’s see if I can think of some more irrelevant pieces of information.”
“That’s the problem with these zones that look like a Tesco’s car park with kerbs that delineate the racetrack. They’re safer, but the drivers can basically cheat across them.”
“(Fisichella) nicked my drive at Jordan, but it was the right decision, frankly. He was coming along and I was over the hill, as Eddie told me on a few occasions!”
“The perfect stop there – cream and almonds.”
Jonathan: “Button and Barrichello and Brawn [have had] 100% reliability.”
Martin: “I was thinking that some time ago but I daren’t say it!”
“The Ferraris had their cake early on in the race and now they’ve gotta suffer for it with the indigestion of those tyres that are not working so well.”
(Alonso cruises around the track alone)
“It’s like when your best friend’s mum won’t let him out to play and you’re all on your own, isn’t it?”
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Spain
Jonathan: “(Brawn) have that Terminator Salvation robot [glaring at everyone in the garage].”
Martin: “I thought it was somebody from the Honda board who’d decided to sell the team over the winter!”
Kovalainen’s engineer (over radio): “Were you held up by the BMW?”
Martin (answering for Heikki): “No.”
Kovalainen (over radio): “A little bit in the last three corners.”
Martin: “You’re having a laugh!”
“The cars that have dropped out have to declare their fuel for tomorrow now. These top ten have to put their race fuel in. I’d rather see them having to declare their fuel as well, and let’s see them running empty, the fastest man at the front. Let’s see the pure performance of the best drivers. You can applaud some kind of apparently stunning performance only to find that actually the guy did about the fifth best job.”
“Hug the inside line like it’s your favourite granny.”
“Look at the tens of thousands of pounds of carbon fibre that’s scattered like confetti at a wedding.”
“I’ll tell you what’s perking all those drivers up is Jenson Button [who’s] been through years of misery, hasn’t he, and now it’s turned around. The fact that Button is suddenly right up there has given a lot of spirit to some of those drivers that are going through a difficult time – and there’s a few of them out there.”
“It’s funny – you can set your car up here and then you get into the Grand Prix on that Turn 3 and it’s like, ‘What is this thing? I don’t know this car. It’s doing something alien and it’s not how I set it up for the race at all’.”
(Massa lets Vettel pass)
Martin: “I wonder if they’re doing what we were talking about earlier on?”
Jonathan: “He’s listened to your advice.”
Martin: “I doubt it!”
(Team radio plays Massa’s engineer telling him they need to save a lap of fuel)
Martin: “A lap is a lot to save in four laps. They needed to do that a lap earlier on, really. I’m gonna get a job as a strategist!”
2009 calendar
12 July Germany
26 July Hungary
23 August Europe (Valencia)
30 August Belgium
13 September Italy
27 September Singapore
4 October Japan
18 October Brazil
1 November Abu Dhabi
Any quotes I've missed which you would like to see included can be sent to me here. Please try to give me some clues as to when it happened.
Photo kindly provided by www.sutton-images.com Animated flags from www.3dflags.com
PLEASE NOTE! I don’t have Martin’s ear (or his email address!) and so I cannot forward questions, or requests for photos and autographs, to him.
Martin has his own site at www.martinbrundle.com/
Callie
Britain
My apologies for having missed the British Grand Prix. I was in hospital after having had emergency surgery and was busy trying not to be dead. I'm now home and hope to be OK for the next race. Callie.
Turkey
“Turn 8 – that’s the one that’s ripping their necks off.”
“That is a fairground ride he’s having there.”
“Every time the car slides a little bit when your confidence is down, you think you’re gonna have an accident. When your confidence is up, it’s just nothing; you just drive straight through the middle of it and ignore it.”
“Button drives like a chauffeur! He’s so smooth with the car!”
“I raced against both Rosberg and Nakajima’s dads. I was ten years old at the time!”
Jake: “Are you ready to go grab a few people and see who you can find?”
Martin: “Yeah, I’m gonna take Crazy Dave here and head down to the first corner.”
Christian Horner: “I was just talking to one of the Italian commentators. She’s much prettier than you two are!”
Martin: “Yeah, but does she know about oversteer and understeer – and do you care?!”
Christian: “I didn’t understand a word she was saying, but it doesn’t matter!”
Jenson: “A few of the boys have got a ... a pad – we normally call it something else – but I haven’t got one.”
DC: “What do you normally call it?”
Martin: “We’re on the BBC – don’t start all that smutty driver talk! It’s a pillow, isn’t it, that you rest your head on. Sorry – I thought I’d save you from yourself there, DC.”
“What do we think about that? The KERS got him back past. Do we think that’s brilliant driving; is it good racing; is it plastic racing? I can’t make my mind up, to be honest.”
(Massa’s engineer tells him to try to brake less in the final corner)
“That’s amazing! I’ve never heard that before! Sort of a driving lesson from your engineer. It’s very helpful; I wish I’d had that!”
“They must have an iron girder across the front of that McLaren. It just constantly picks up its inside wheel under braking.”
“(Button’s) just a new man, isn’t he? From a guy that’s been struggling with a bad car, making errors, running into people – now it’s all working well, he’s just moved into overdrive.”
(Barrichello retires)
“I can only assume either he’s lost interest in the race – unlikely – or with seventh gear broken there’ll be some bits and pieces making their way around that gearbox.”
“That’s the second apex I’ve seen Jenson Button miss this year!”
“Vettel would rather eat his own fingers than let him pass.”
“Jenson just doesn’t know how to go slow enough, does he?!”
“The drivers are weighed complete with HANS ... not Hans, but HANS device that goes around their neck.”
Monaco
“I’m really looking forward to commentating on this [but] I’d love to be at the Swimming Pool entrance just to see how hard they’re pushing them there. This is one of the finest sporting theatres in the world, in my view.”
Ted: “Jenson Button passed me to go to the loo.”
Martin: “Well, let’s hope he can get the job done and keep his championship campaign on track.”
“I sent (Rubens) a text to say ‘happy birthday’ this morning; he said, ‘Yeah, I’m like a fine wine; I just get better as I get older’.”
“Half a second slower than Hamilton was going before he binned it in the hedge.”
“There’s an eight metre difference between each car [on the grid]. Obviously that’s based on the average length of a Formula 1 ego.”
“Here’s Bernie here with his arm around ... I think it’s his daughter. Oh, it’s Geri Halliwell, sorry! That’s gonna go down well, isn’t it?!”
“Jenson Button cannot relax, thinking he’s got a rear gunner behind him in his team mate. He’s got his main rival there.”
Jonathan: “One of the great lines of the weekend from Robert Kubica: he said, ‘We have to realise we’re bad’.”
Martin: “The stopwatch never lies.”
Martin: “Senna did that to me once when he was gonna crash: he used me at Monza to slow down.”
Jonathan: “Did you tell him that?”
Martin: “He told me!”
“Buemi wheelbarrowed Piquet off the racetrack.”
“I always remember this moment when I was driving here: when you’re really hot and sweaty and gasping for breath and it’s all manic; and they hang you a board out that says, ‘There’s 50 laps to go’ and you feel like you must be somewhere near the end.”
“It’s like (the Toyotas) are out there to entertain the crowd while the leaders are round the other side [of the track].”
“A Formula 1 car can change gear fifty times faster than you can blink your eye. Let’s see if I can think of some more irrelevant pieces of information.”
“That’s the problem with these zones that look like a Tesco’s car park with kerbs that delineate the racetrack. They’re safer, but the drivers can basically cheat across them.”
“(Fisichella) nicked my drive at Jordan, but it was the right decision, frankly. He was coming along and I was over the hill, as Eddie told me on a few occasions!”
“The perfect stop there – cream and almonds.”
Jonathan: “Button and Barrichello and Brawn [have had] 100% reliability.”
Martin: “I was thinking that some time ago but I daren’t say it!”
“The Ferraris had their cake early on in the race and now they’ve gotta suffer for it with the indigestion of those tyres that are not working so well.”
(Alonso cruises around the track alone)
“It’s like when your best friend’s mum won’t let him out to play and you’re all on your own, isn’t it?”
Spain
Jonathan: “(Brawn) have that Terminator Salvation robot [glaring at everyone in the garage].”
Martin: “I thought it was somebody from the Honda board who’d decided to sell the team over the winter!”
Kovalainen’s engineer (over radio): “Were you held up by the BMW?”
Martin (answering for Heikki): “No.”
Kovalainen (over radio): “A little bit in the last three corners.”
Martin: “You’re having a laugh!”
“The cars that have dropped out have to declare their fuel for tomorrow now. These top ten have to put their race fuel in. I’d rather see them having to declare their fuel as well, and let’s see them running empty, the fastest man at the front. Let’s see the pure performance of the best drivers. You can applaud some kind of apparently stunning performance only to find that actually the guy did about the fifth best job.”
“Hug the inside line like it’s your favourite granny.”
“Look at the tens of thousands of pounds of carbon fibre that’s scattered like confetti at a wedding.”
“I’ll tell you what’s perking all those drivers up is Jenson Button [who’s] been through years of misery, hasn’t he, and now it’s turned around. The fact that Button is suddenly right up there has given a lot of spirit to some of those drivers that are going through a difficult time – and there’s a few of them out there.”
“It’s funny – you can set your car up here and then you get into the Grand Prix on that Turn 3 and it’s like, ‘What is this thing? I don’t know this car. It’s doing something alien and it’s not how I set it up for the race at all’.”
(Massa lets Vettel pass)
Martin: “I wonder if they’re doing what we were talking about earlier on?”
Jonathan: “He’s listened to your advice.”
Martin: “I doubt it!”
(Team radio plays Massa’s engineer telling him they need to save a lap of fuel)
Martin: “A lap is a lot to save in four laps. They needed to do that a lap earlier on, really. I’m gonna get a job as a strategist!”
2009 calendar
12 July Germany
26 July Hungary
23 August Europe (Valencia)
30 August Belgium
13 September Italy
27 September Singapore
4 October Japan
18 October Brazil
1 November Abu Dhabi