(Originally compiled by Callie Sullivan, and reproduced with her kind permission here.)
AUSTRALIA
“There are four compounds [of tyre] through the year: hard, medium, soft and supersoft; that’s silver, white, yellow and red – not a very sensible progression. I think you’ve gotta think of it as knife, toast, butter and jam as they get softer through the progression of the rubber.”
“I hope (the Hispanias) are rather faster than they were this morning, because ‘moving chicane’ didn’t even cover it, they were so slow. They were certainly not gonna get fined for being too fast down the pitlane.”
“I’m really not sure what Liuzzi’s doing signing for that team – I just don’t think he should have parked himself in that car.”
“You wouldn’t wanna be run over by a Formula 1 car at twelve miles per hour.”
“We all enjoy watching Kobayashi drive, don’t we? You’re in London in a taxi and even London cabbies talk about Kobayashi.”
“I was just talking about the most experienced man in Formula 1; he is now the most recently retired from qualifying man.”
“[Flat-spotting the tyres] vibrates like crazy, then rattles the fillings out of your teeth and your eyeballs out of the sockets.”
“Take that, the rest of you!”
“The drivers want all the track sending to the dry cleaners to come back pressed and immaculately clean. I like to see a few bumps out there to see the cars moving around.”
(referring to another interviewer waiting to speak to Vettel) “I’m not gonna fight that loud jacket, that’s for sure.” (Then, later, on returning to Vettel) “I’m sure that jacket has dazzled Sebastian by now.”
“It’s like putting two passengers in the car and then trying to go round corners at 190 miles an hour.”
“Barrichello comes in for front end repairs and to fill in the accident claim form.”
“Alonso got a horrible faceful of the car of D’Ambrosio.”
“What a sweet stop that was for Button! He barely seemed to stop turning the wheels!”
“The letterbox is open but there may not be an invitation to pass him there.”
“Sergio Perez now – can he believe it … can we believe it?! – all over the back of the works Ferrari.”
“Perez, who’s only stopped once and the others have felt the need to stop three times. Can the boy walk on water as well?”
David: “(Petrov) didn’t start in karting. He started racing Ladas around an icerink.”
Martin (deliberately mis-hearing due to David’s pronunciation): “Ladders? What, those you climb up and clean your windows with?!”
(Quote submitted by Mike)
“(Vettel’s) just twenty-three years old. What were we like at twenty-three?!”
MALAYSIA
David: “(Trulli) looks good in Lycra.”
Martin: “If you like that sort of thing.”
“It’s impressive to see those two apexes, to think you’re doing 160 miles an hour. That is Formula 1, isn’t it? Nothing else is remotely close to that.”
“OK, Formula 1 superstars, let’s see just how fast you are.”
David: “[You have] a very intimate relationship with your mechanic who’s working away to make sure that those crutch straps and the lap belt are all securely fastened.”
Martin: “Yes, you do have to get yourself fairly well organised before they start doing that lot up.”
“Look at that – that’s a rare sighting: a lesser spotted Hispania.”
“Ask a tyre to support the car, slow it down and turn it and it says, ‘I just can’t do that. Try me again later’.”
“We gave (the Hispanias) a hard time in Australia, because frankly they looked ridiculous.”
“He now deploys his KERS and DRS. That’s the equivalent of 150 extra horsepower down the straight – the same power as a decent family saloon car.”
“Hugging the inside like his favourite granny.”
“I love that feeling of a brand spanking new set of tyres. You just know they’re gonna give you so much grip.”
(Quote submitted by Jamie Wallace)
“Let’s listen … sounded Harry Flatters to me.”
“Now, you know when you first have a new baby or you’re going for a picnic, the clobber you have to put in the car when you’re heading off anywhere? Well, look at what Force India brought to the grid to service the car of Paul di Resta.” (He shows the large amount of tyres.) “They need an option should it suddenly bucket down, and, well, ‘drizzle’ is not a word I would imagine translates in Malaysia because it only rains in stair rods or not at all.”
“All the dry ice looks like a dodgy nightclub, doesn’t it?”
“Michael Schumacher standing here talking to his engineer. I doubt we’re gonna get a response trying to interrupt that because Michael looks as if it’s a lecture at university. I won’t stick the microphone in there because that would be rude, and we’re never rude on the gridwalk.”
“The [start] lights come on. Look but never stare.”
“I don’t think there’d be too many pieces of paper around at McLaren HQ that were working out what they were gonna do if Heidfeld passed them down into Turn 1.”
Ted: “They’re told, I’m told, that the rain will only be brief.”
Martin: “So might the trip to the barriers.”
“I’ve never known [Race Control] say they’re looking at something and then go, ‘Oh, actually, you know what? I think we got the wrong car there,’ or, ‘He was very nice to us, showed us his licence and we let him go’.”
“It’s all turned to custard for D’Ambrosio. Thank goodness I got that one out of the way!”
“(Alonso’s) rear wing is not working. I had my hands on that for our DRS feature. I hope I didn’t break it!”
“I was talking rubbish – not for the first time or for the last time.”
(Watching the replay of Petrov wildly steering back onto the track and taking off across the grass)
Martin: “Ohh! You can’t do that! Look at this thing! He’s just gonna take off! You can’t come back on flat out!”
David: “Mika Hakkinen was named the Flying Finn because of an incident like that.”
Martin: “(Petrov) must be the Rudderless Russian, then. I hope the boy’s back is all right. To land hard enough to punch the steering column out of the steering rack is quite something.”
(First line of the above quote suggested by Justin Lane)
CHINA
“Officially there are sixteen corners – although Turn 15, as far as we’re concerned, doesn’t actually exist.” … (later) “That’s Turn 15, which doesn’t exist.”
(Second quote submitted by Leo Mewse)
“We’re taking a nice aerial view of the somewhat massive paddock. I have to say, I think, somebody pressed the 150% zoom just before they printed off this racetrack.”
“The first two corners turn through virtually 360 degrees. Let’s call it the Magic Roundabout, and the main task for all but one of the drivers today is to stop Zebedee Vettel from springing to his third straight Chinese pole position.”
“He’s turning left into a right hand hairpin.”
“(Alonso) looking at those sector times. Don’t they freak you out when you see fast times – you’re thinking, ‘Oh, I need to get out there!’”
“Four tenths shy in the middle sector – that’s night and day.”
“Who left the choke turned on the McLaren overnight so it flooded?”
(Awaiting the red light start sequence)
“Like bulls, when they see red, they get ready to charge.”
“Welcome to the early stages of a Grand Prix with 150 kilograms of fuel on board. That’s the equivalent of stopping and picking up a couple of passengers in your Formula 1 car.”
“It’s looking like he’s got all the grip of oiled oak on the back straight.”
(Button stops in Red Bull’s pit box)
“It was like, ‘OK, fill ’er up, guv’nor, and clean the screen please. Oh! I’m at the wrong petrol station!’ Jenson’s surely gonna be as red as his new overalls about that faux pas.”
(Alonso lines up to try to overtake Schumacher)
“It’s gonna be rude when it happens, isn’t it? It’s gonna be brutal, but you’ve gotta treat the Silver Baron a bit like the hind legs of a donkey if he’s not ready to give up his position.”
“Is this just one of those moody, lovely slo-mo’s, or are we actually … No, we’re not, we’re just meant to enjoy that bit. Back to the racing!”
“And Rosberg responds to … responds to everything, I would imagine, there’s so much going on!”
“The big advantage of going out in Q1 is you’ve got all these lovely, shiny, grippy new tyres to put on.”
“You don’t know where to look next, there’s so much going on. … We’ve not made half distance yet. I’m not sure I worked this hard when I was a Grand Prix driver! It’s going off everywhere! Wonderful!”
“There’s a long way to go yet to be getting too much of a Chinese burn by rubbing tyres.”
“All the cars seem to be fighting all the other cars. It’s going off all the way down the field.”
“I think Jenson was just a bit of a day late and a dollar short on recognising how hard Lewis was coming at him.”
David: “The only way that engineer’s message could have been any scarier would have been if it had been delivered in the dark.”
Martin (cracking up laughing): “Don’t make me laugh, it makes me cough!”
“Perez, naughty boy. Through the pitlane for bashing other people.”
(David yet again saves Jake from being run over, this time by a passing fork lift truck carrying some huge red crates outside Ferrari’s garage) Martin: “I’m pleased you moved out of the way of those big red boxes with the pasta and parma ham in them.”
(Quote submitted by Euan Macmillan)
TURKEY
David: “Neither Heidfield or Petrov have set a time.”
Martin: “Brave stuff, that Nock Heidfield.”
David: “Heidfeld, sorry, ’scuse me. I keep getting his name wrong!”
“A Formula 1 car travels an awful long way in one and a half seconds.”
Martin: “The rear ride height looks too low, doesn’t it? That must be a horror story through Turn 8. He must turn in there with his eyes closed, I would imagine.”
David: “I’m surprised that he’s not picked that up during Saturday morning practice. Getting your ride heights right, Martin – that’s bread and butter for a racing driver.”
Martin: “It’s almost the first thing you establish, isn’t it: ride heights and general downforce level, then you start working on the car.”
Schumacher’s engineer (over radio): “Magic paddle, Michael. Magic paddle latched.”
Martin: “Whatever the magic paddle was, it worked well in the last sector. What’s that – differential? What does that mean?”
David: “I don’t care! It’s such a fantastic name for it!”
Martin: “Abracadabra button down, Rubens.”
“That’s what you need – a bit of oversteer in the middle of Turn 8 just to wake you up and smell the coffee!”
“The engine is pumped up as hard as it’ll go, and so is the driver in terms of his commitment.”
“Do Formula 1 drivers not have time to shave these days, or can’t they afford shavers?”
“They’re kind of standing there [in Parc Fermé] like, ‘So, what happens next?’ It’s like you’ve arrived a little bit early at a party and you’re standing around waiting for it to kick off.”
David: “Did (Vettel) not come to you after practice and confirm that he’s a fan of the BBC coverage?”
Martin: “Yeah, he loves the BBC coverage. Even offered me some Toblerone!”
“I don’t know why they have a 150 metre marker board – you’d be braking a double-decker bus at a hundred and fifty.”
Martin: “Sorry I took two pieces of your chocolate the other day. Apparently I should have broken it towards you and not away from you.”
Vettel: “Says who?!”
Martin: “Says somebody who sent me a message!”
(Seeing that a German interviewer has again beaten him to the driver he wants to talk to)
“Oh, not Kai Ebel again. He is a pain in the … microphone.”
(Thanks to Gerbrand van der Vooren for the spelling correction.)
“I want a quick word with the F1 Whisperer, Adrian Newey.”
Martin: “J.B. And? How’s it looking?”
Jenson: “Probably as good as Eddie’s shirt today.”
Martin: “Not very, then.”
Jenson: “I quite like it! Better than yours – looks a bit boring.”
Martin: “Yeah, I know but, you know, it makes me look a bit thinner.”
Jenson: “Yeah. You’re gonna need it.”
(Awaiting the red light start sequence)
“We’re waiting for the high five.”
“Massa stays in tenth place, as does Barrichello.”
(This brilliant “huh?!” quote submitted by Alan Conroy)
“Petrov was never gonna make the apex in a month of Sundays.”
David: “It’s almost like (Schumacher) doesn’t know when to give up.”
Martin: “You mean on his career, or on that corner, or on that lap?”
“(Rosberg’s) getting mugged down that straight by anybody and everybody, isn’t he? He’ll be getting out of the way for a tortoise by the end of the race.”
“When was the day when you didn’t bother showing the leaders pitting in Grand Prix racing ’cause there’s too much else going on on the racetrack?! Tremendous!”
“(Kobayashi) loves that little love kiss as he goes past, doesn’t he?! It’s a bit like the M25 when you just have to nudge people out of the way a bit when they won’t move.”
“Alonso is relentless, isn’t he? That boy just won’t give up.”
“You can be an absolute ballet dancer with these tyres – and Jenson is, better than most of them – but at the end of the day they wear out through pure mileage and not just driving style.”
David: “We’re all getting more for our money: we’re getting better racing, we’re getting a longer race and more action. Everyone is a winner!”
Martin: “All for the same price! How do we do it for the money?!”
(Webber shouts through his helmet to Vettel in Parc Fermé) David: “He’s saying something was horrible. Did you catch that?”
Martin: “I did – and I hope the audience didn’t.”
(The language was rather foul!)
“(Vettel) led them a merry dance in the race, and he’s still dancing on the way to the podium.”
“I feel stir-crazy about the race. There’s so much to remember.”
“I can’t watch my Twitter during the race, ’cause I can’t hardly take my eyes off the screen.”
SPAIN
“We saw Vettel in the final lap of this morning opening [the DRS] in the middle of that corner there, and he had it open in the scary Turn 9 at 160 miles an hour.”
“The drivers have been saying that these are the worst tyres they’ve ever driven on. It’s all relative – I think the drivers have become spoiled these days.”
“Rosberg goes fifth on a twenty-six-oh … ‘Oh’ being very much the response to that.”
“I hate this last chicane. Those last two corners used to beautifully terrify me and if you got it right it was sensational, wasn’t it? Now it’s a little Mickey Mouse chicane.”
(The battle continues to educate David how to pronounce Nick’s surname) David: “The most experienced driver in Formula 1 is one of the first of the big scalps, along with Nick Heidfield.”
Martin: “Is that Heidfield in that Remiault?”
David: “Heidfeld, yes indeed, yes.”
(Smack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, Martin – that’ll train him more quickly!)
Martin: “I love the sign on the top [of Vettel’s car in the garage], the KERS warning: it says ‘Keep Clear’ but they may as well leave it on, ’cause that’s the message they’re sending to all the other teams at the moment.”
David: “They don’t need a sign saying ‘Keep Clear’ – they can’t get close enough to read it!”
Martin: “I hate that big green stripe round the outside of Turn 3. It used to be such a challenge, that corner – now you can run wide, gain advantage. If you went out there not so many years ago, you’d better be getting ready for some hospital food at that kind of pace, and now it’s a reason to go faster. I don’t like it.”
David: “Martin, they change tracks, you know? You’ve gotta let go! This is modern Formula 1, 2011, and that’s another area that they can now use and exploit.”
Martin: “Well, let’s just all have straight lines then, shall we, and big green bits towards the outside. Ah, it’s too easy. Anyway …”
“There’s no doubt about it: the little muscle on the back of your leg and your ankle is connected to your head, not your heart, because you wanna go flat but something stops you doing it.”
“If you introduced another set of tyres in the last five minutes only or something … I’d like to see a crescendo, a grand finale to my qualifying.”
David: “Maybe he’d be better going out on another set of tyres so he can have a fresh set that don’t have that flat spot for tomorrow’s race.”
Martin: “That’s a good point. That’s a great idea. Good thinking, Batman.”
(Webber looks glum at the end of Q3)
“Mark Webber looking ecstatic with his pole position. You can smile a bit, Mark – we’re pleased for you.”
(Awaiting the red light start sequence)
“We are waiting now for the famous five.”
“We thought that Red Bull were going to run and hide, and they’re not running anywhere at the moment.”
“You’d think they would have agreed which radio station we’re gonna listen to before the race. He seems a Radio 2 sort of guy to me.”
“D’you think he opened all his Christmas presents on the way down to Turn 1?”
“Has he got any KERS in the world? Boom boom!”
“Unless I’m going a bit stir crazy …”
“He’s gonna be slower than a slow thing, surely?”
(Quote submitted by Andrew Olden)
Martin: “A limping Bull being chased down by … (long pause) … the McLaren.”
David: “I stood back there, ’cause I thought you were gonna come away with, like, ‘… the mighty McLaren’ or something. You disappointed me, Martin!”
Martin: “The words wouldn’t come into my head!”
Martin: “So, suspension failure, driver error, brain fade, brake fade – what do you think that was?”
David: “I’d like to see a replay first, before passing comment.”
Martin: “Not an unreasonable request, I have to say!”
David: “Waved yellow flags – drivers have to slow down.”
Martin: “But you don’t slow down, do you? You don’t slow down. You can do a Mika Hakkinen and put your hand up in the air and go, ‘Yeah, I’m slowing down,’ and keep your foot flat on the floor. … Button’s just done his fastest lap of the race.”
David: “Which could have come from the other sectors around the lap, of course! It’s not illegal to go faster on the lap – just in that zone.”
Martin: “Hamilton’s just done a 32.9 – the fastest of anybody in the middle sector, including Turn 4. They do not lift off. They should, but they don’t.”
“He frightens the Hispania out of the way.”
Vettel (over radio on his slow-down lap): “Yabba dabba doo! Rrring-ding-a-ding-ding!”
Martin: “And thats what we’re talking about!”
Hamilton (over his shoulder on the way to the podium): “You guys should come with us!”
Martin: “I think he meant the girls, not the camera.”
MONACO
“The boy Coulthard, beside me here, and myself were out on track and we were grinning like schoolboys, weren’t we, as the cars came past us.”
“The track is a living thing: it evolves as we lift the dirt, the dust, the diesel and rubbish from a year of this tarmac being used as roads.”
Martin: “A full fat two thousandths of a second slower than Hamilton.”
David: “I wouldn’t like to try and measure that out. How far d’you reckon that is?”
Martin: “Ooh, about the width of your wallet, I reckon.”
“He’s gonna really have to drive the wheels off this thing, and hopefully not knock the wheels off it.”
(And the attempts to teach David to speak properly continue …) David: “We were talking with Nick Heidfield on Friday.”
Martin: “Did you know that ‘feld’ in German is a field?”
David: “That’s why I keep referring to him as ‘Heidfield’. I just call him Nick.”
“Eddie says it’s a racing incident, which is quite difficult to do in qualifying, I would have thought.”
David: “Why would he be standing out of his car just before qualifying?”
Martin: “I don’t know. I know there are fifty-two billion chickens in the world, but I didn’t know the answer to that question.”
“That’s a calendar you need to time that lap rather than a stopwatch.”
(Explaining why Perez’s impact was so severe)
“It’s like jumping off the top of a building: it’s not the fall that hurts, it’s the sudden stop when you get to the bottom, and it’s the same when you crash a racing car, unfortunately.”
(Explaining the sort of questions that Perez may be asked in the medical centre) David: “It’ll be basic things like saying your name quickly and all those sorts of tests just to make sure you’re firing on all cylinders.”
Martin: “Like, ‘Say Nick Heidfeld’s name’ or something like that.”
David: “I fail on that every time!”
(The cars begin queuing in the pitlane awaiting the re-start of Q3)
“Surely the most expensive traffic jam in the world.”
(Gesturing to all the people milling about on the grid)
“Here are a thousand of our new best friends. Somehow they don’t seem to make it to Korea and some of those other races where it’s all a bit lonely on the grid, but everybody wants to be on this grid.”
“You know what really scares me? One day on this gridwalk we’re gonna tread on a wing, a car’s not gonna start a race and we’re gonna get fined millions and millions of pounds.”
Geri Halliwell: “I love the smell of petrol. Is that weird?”
Martin: “It’s the new aftershave I’m using, actually.”
“Thank goodness you don’t get a call centre and an automated message when you radio in with problems in Formula 1.”
“What we do need is for somebody to get their act together and chase after Vettel because he’s leaving them as if they’re beginners.”
“It’s hard enough driving around here when you’re by yourself, let alone buried up the gearbox and looking at the rear wing of another car.”
Martin: “Barrichello makes a beautiful move on his old Ferrari team mate. He will be grinning from ear to ear, won’t he? Good job he’s got a crash helmet on – his jaw would fall off.”
David: “That’s made his whole weekend!”
Martin: “Made his life, hasn’t it?!”
(With thanks to Stuart Masterton for flagging up part of this quote)
David: “McLaren have previously lead 9,999 laps since they entered the World Championship. That now puts them at a thousand laps led since they entered in 1966 … ten thousand laps, excuse me. I can’t count, Martin, in the excitement!”
Martin: “Remember I owe you a thousand pounds, yeah?”
“You’re not really allowed to climb all over the pavement to pass another car.”
(Petrov is slow leaving the pitbox)
“There’s seven in there, son – find one of them.”
(Hamilton blames Massa over the radio for their collision)
“The only bit of the message that was missing was ‘… and I heard him put it into reverse gear as well. It was the definite crunch’!”
(Quote submitted by Paul Treasure)
“There’s no doubt about it: Formula 1 2011 just keeps giving us better and better races.”
“I’m quite impressed at (Alonso) going through Casino Square at about 110 miles an hour one-handed while waving farewell to another driver.”
“And now Alonso’s got a problem: he’s gotta try to attack Vettel and hold Button off. Brilliant! Come on! I’m looking forward to this and we’ve got quite a long way to go yet!”
David: “Are they able to use [DRS] on a Safety Car re-start? I would imagine you’re not allowed to use it.”
Martin: “That’s why I invited you into the commentary box to do my old job, so that you knew these kind of things.”
David: “The dog has just run off with my notes; that’s why I was asking you the question!”
Martin: “You’re not allowed dogs at racetracks, actually – unless they’re here for security purposes. So I do know that regulation.”
Martin: “Funny how the drivers just wanna go and kiss the girls. Oh, and a little hug too.”
David: “I’m sure she appreciated a sweaty hug!”
“The problem is with Lewis, it’s always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it, and you do wonder if he needs a bit of a mindset change on that. He’s been so unlucky all weekend; I think there was some frustration in his driving as well but it can’t always be the other guy’s fault.”
CANADA
“David Coulthard has landed. Obviously you didn’t get my text saying, ‘Bring me a sandwich’.”
“The last thing you wanna do is make [the tyres] like fifty pence pieces. I know a lot of you are not in the UK and don’t know what a fifty pence piece looks like but it’s not round, that’s the main part of the story.”
(Here you go, guys: http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/pics/dec50.html )
“Not a lot of grip on the green bits.”
“These cars sound like a bag of nails in slow corners, don’t they, with this exhaust blowing business going on.”
David: “Right, Martin, tell me if I’ve got time to get into trying to explain what I think Michael might have realised.”
Martin: “Help yourself, son, help yourself.”
David: “Michael’s smart enough to know that that might well give him a better grid position.”
Martin: “Do you really … what, he’s doing two hundred miles an hour and you think he’s thinking about that? Are you sure?”
David: “The guy won seven world championships. He knows how to have a clear head in a race car.”
“That puts us, then, with seven drivers within three tenths of a second – a little more than a flick of your fingers … a click of your thumbs, rather.”
David: “And that looks very steady. Didn’t look very committed to that last turn.”
Martin: “‘Pedestrian’ was the word I was gonna come up with.”
“We’re gonna be as welcome as a toothache on the grid today, I would imagine.”
“The man who leads the championship puts his galoshes on.”
“I’m getting kicked from behind by Spanish TV as usual.”
“That SLS (Safety Car) – a car that, if you drove it on the road, would absolutely terrify you how fast it would go, and the Formula 1 cars are in second gear trying not to bump into the back of it.”
“Is this a case of act in haste, repent at leisure, or get on with it because you’re losing out?”
David: “I’m sorry – I was trying to do a little bit of research whilst you were entertaining our audience, so I didn’t fully catch your point there.”
Martin: “I was really very interesting. I’ll tell you later – you’ll be amazed when you hear it.”
(Eight seconds after Martin asks if they’ll throw a Red Flag, they throw a Red Flag.)
“I should do the Lottery, shouldn’t I? I might be able to win something on that.”
“Ted, are you getting rusty down there yet?”
“Emerson Fittipaldi, the fourth steward, the driver representative this weekend. He’s a cool dude, Emo: been there, seen it, done it, won it, crashed it.”
(Footage of a bird walking about on the track during the Red Flag session) Martin: “D’you know the species?”
David (bluffing): “Yeah, that looks like the red-shouldered blackbird to me.”
“The seagulls – the grey-shouldered seagulls there – they’re loving it, and I bet they haven’t even paid for a seat. Bernie Ecclestone will not be happy with that.”
Martin: “We’ve got Felipe waving.”
David: “No, that’s D’Ambrosio.”
Martin: “Well spotted. You’re very good with your birds and helmet colours. Impressive.”
(Quote suggested by Adrian Musto)
“Some time ago we saw [footage of] that incident where Michael Schumacher ran into the back of you and then tried to come and punch you. That’s how they used to sort it out!”
Martin: “I love a bit of Rihanna.”
David: “Would you like to give us a couple of lines?”
Martin: “No. You’ve heard me singing, only when I’m drunk in karaoke and it’s not good. I sing very well like I dance when I’ve had a few beers, but I haven’t had any beers, so I don’t think I should subject …”
David: “Well, I’m sorry to break this to you live on television: you don’t dance well when you’re drunk, either.”
(Footage of a ship sailing past the circuit) Martin: “Wow, I’ve never seen a track so wet that a boat can come down it!”
David: “That was in dry dock this morning!
“Bad race day for Lewis; bad hair day for Rihanna by the look of it.”
“Jerome D’Ambrosio there. Other brands are available.”
“Somebody tweeting in, asking, ‘Can’t the BBC afford chairs for you up in the commentary box?’ Well, we don’t sit down because Murray Walker used to stand up to commentate, and if it’s good enough for Murray Walker, it’s much more than good enough for David and I.”
“They’ve got twenty-three of the best track water cleaners sitting there doing nothing at the moment.”
“Did you know, David, that RACECAR spells RACECAR backwards?”
“We’ve been stationary for longer than a Grand Prix takes place!”
“We’re in lap 28 of 70 of this race that should be finished by … Wednesday at this rate.”
“I think you should abseil down the outside of the commentary box and go and stand in the middle of that chicane, David, and wave your arms like, ‘Get off the track, Safety Car! We wanna see some action!’”
David: “OK, I can feel it in my water, Martin. The Safety Car is coming in this lap.”
Martin: “Not a pleasant thought.”
“Safety Car has been deployed – our favourite car of the race.”
“That was as sweet as you want. Cream and almonds. Beautiful pitstop.”
“The stewards had better cancel their plane home tonight.”
“Sebastian Vettel finally shows he’s human.”
“We’ve got another investigation going on. Join the queue, boys – there’s gonna be a very long queue at the headmaster’s door.”
“Sebastian Vettel, second placed trophy. So that’s what they look like, is it?”
EUROPE
“I’m a bit fussy on my corners, and there are certainly some around here that don’t count as corners to me.”
“Looked like he was hanging wallpaper with the window open on a windy day.”
“When you see a graphic [against the driver’s name] saying ‘Soft’, ‘Medium’, ‘Hard’, it’s not the driver’s demeanour.”
(In-car footage of Maldonado trying to stay out of the way of others with a failing car.)
“It’s quite eventful for a non-lap, isn’t it?!”
Martin: “I drove [one] last week and I just couldn’t believe how much grip and poise and balance these latest Formula 1 cars have. They’re just supreme to drive.”
David: “They are, but you’re a racer and I guarantee you if someone else is out there going half a tenth quicker than you, you’d be complaining, ‘It’s got no grip, it’s got no balance’!”
Martin: “That’s your job, isn’t it: moan about it until it goes a little bit faster.”
“I love that shot against the wall, that’s just brilliant. I could watch that all day long.”
“A steering wheel [adjustment] going on there. How do they do so much in the cockpit at 190 miles an hour?!”
“That looks a bit day late and a dollar short but he gets away with it.”
“It’s all very happy out there, isn’t it, in the midfield? They’re waving thank-yous to each other. I thought he’d have been quite upset with him, actually(!) … How do they find the time to make hand signals when they’re trying to avoid a 180 mile an hour accident?”
“This is a ‘yee-hah!’ section, isn’t it?”
“We’ve got Maldonado appearing to come from another race track somewhere … the other Valencia circuit.”
(Quote submitted by Brendan van Zyl)
“These engines have no torque. You have to keep coming down the gears. They wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, it feels to me.”
“Bit of a Noah’s Ark finish there at the back of the field – two by two.”
David: “Bit of a limp hug there with Alonso!”
Martin: “You know when you go for the kiss and you’re not sure whether it’s left first or right first? It’s a bit like that [but] you’re wearing three thousand pounds’ worth of carbon fibre crash helmet and a HANS device, isn’t it? It’s not a good hugging zone.”
BRITAIN
“I think they should have one exhaust either side, like a tractor, going straight up. We can have a lovely noise and we’ll get rid of all this blown diffusers and off-throttle stuff; and give them a throttle cable back, and a gear shift. That’s what I wanna see!”
Rosberg’s engineer (over radio): “Tell us how wet the track is.”
Martin: “‘Not very’ is gonna be the answer.”
(Ted suggests that some of the teams are adopting a ‘belt and braces’ attitude)
“Belt, braces and wellington boots for some of them.”
“All we want is the fast drivers at the back of the grid for tomorrow for the best race.”
“Come on, you lot. Who can stop Vettel from being on pole position here at the British Grand Prix?”
“When I saw (Maldonado) in testing earlier on in the year, I thought he looked half a second behind the car at all times.”
“That young lady was waiting and I kind of butted in but I’m really sorry about that, but not sorry enough not to butt in.”
David: “I’m surprised they had a gearbox failure. (Lotus) have bought Red Bull Racing’s gearbox from last year.”
Martin: “Still under guarantee, then, presumably. For that, they should get some money back.”
“It’s sort of hurry up and wait with these tyres at the moment.”
David: “Clearly [Schumacher hitting Kobayashi] wasn’t intentional but it did cause what the stewards could consider to be an avoidable incident.”
Martin: “Well, staying in bed this morning would have made it an avoidable incident.”
David: “(Kobayashi) is actually lucky to just get away with a stop/go penalty.”
Martin: “He’s lucky he doesn’t need to go to the dentist in the morning, with that air gun flapping around.”
(Vettel and Webber have poor pitstops and fall back)
“Sorry, Red Bull, but this is brilliant!”
“Lewis getting pretty fighty there.”
“A new page in the Racing Drivers’ Book of Excuses: ‘I was just bluffing’.”
GERMANY
“Vettel’s one ’ell of a driver but there’s only one ‘l’ in his name.”
Martin: “They’ve gone back to the forward-exiting exhaust which is why they sound like a bag of nails in the slow corners.”
David: “I actually bought a bag of nails the other day, and it didn’t sound at all like a Renault.”
Martin: “What’re you buying nails for? I can’t imagine you nailing anything together.”
“You’d think you could find 1.68, wouldn’t you – drive faster or brake later, but you can’t believe how hard it is to find two tenths of a second in 3.3 miles.”
“It’s pretty much a championship that tries to follow the sun.”
“There’ll be some choice Spanish words inside that cockpit.”
“Vettel has done the fastest race of the lap.”
(Eh?!)
Webber’s engineer (over radio): “Re-set your rotary position, T7.”
David: “The T-rotary will be for … Martin?”
Martin: “I was gonna ask you that because you’ve driven these cars and you know all about Red Bull, so I wouldn’t want to embarrass you by having to tell you what that is.”
“A gravel trap you can drive out of is a rubbish gravel trap.”
(Jenson comments to Lee about how cold it is)
“I had some spicy sausage pasta in McLaren before I came out – I don’t feel cold at all! … Don’t say it, DC, don’t say it!”
HUNGARY
Martin: “Esteban Gutierrez is (Sauber’s) spare driver … spare’s probably not quite the right word. ‘Reserve’, I think, is the official term!”
David: “They do say drivers are like lightbulbs.”
Martin: “One goes out, you put another one in.”
“Who do you think are gonna be the seven drivers probably in front of us at the job centre queue next year, David?”
“I thought I was pretty handy around here – although I don’t remember reading that anywhere!”
“And what can seven times pole sitter, four times a winner here … a man who’s got his steering wheel pointing the wrong way in the penultimate corner …”
“You can light up any lull, Ted, thank you.”
“Is there any more action out there? I feel like an auctioneer on that one, but nobody is bidding.”
(On the weekend it was announced Sky Sports would take over the F1 deal from 2012, Martin’s first words on Sunday were…)
“Sky has closed in and once again we have changeable and challenging conditions for the drivers.”
“(Rosberg) is up into fourth place. So is Schumacher!”
(Thanks to Nix Ellison for flagging up this Murray moment)
“He dipped the right rear tyre onto the shiny green paint and went straight to the scene of the … slight touch with the wall.”
“I don’t think the Titanic’s anchor would have stopped that one – it was too deep into the corner.”
“Rob Smedley should have been a driver – he’s wasted as an engineer.”
“Did you hear the wheel spin on the wet kerb? Terrifying. [I’m] pleased I’m standing up here.”
“To play devil’s advocate – and possibly very thick person …”
“Perez gets a drive-through penalty for overtaking in a manner that didn’t please David Coulthard.”
“We should give a shout-out – I believe it’s called – for Williams and Sam Michael because every Sunday morning they give up twenty minutes for us to give us as much information as they can, ’cause they know about what might unfold, to make us look moderately intelligent on Sunday afternoon to our good friends, you lot around the world.”
“I don’t know whether to be impressed with Sauber or not. ‘Right, let’s run a strategy that might sneak us into ninth or tenth.’ Why don’t they turn up with, ‘Let’s run a strategy that might win us this race’?”
“Zero grip. Looks like a cross-Channel ferry.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ted; we’ll edit that bit out of the show.”
“While a driver’s fighting another, there’s no point diving up the inside and trying to surprise him, because you will surprise him.”
“I’m beginning to wonder whether the Sauber drivers have to pay for their own tyres. They don’t like coming into the pits.”
(Arguing whether Kobayashi should be penalised for impeding overtaking cars) Martin: “He’s going through Turn 12 minding his own business.”
David: “He’s a lap down, getting blue flags, Martin.”
Martin: “I know, but he had to go through the corner. He can’t evaporate. I mean, you could say he shouldn’t have got out of bed this morning. You’re saying he should have lifted lots earlier and just let them all go, yeah?”
David: “The marshall there, waving a blue flag. That’s not a, ‘If you feel like it, get out of the way of the way of the car that’s a lap ahead of you’. It’s an instruction: ‘Move over’.”
David: “(Jenson) said he’s been eating a lot of cake this weekend, it being his two hundredth race.”
Martin: “Seems to have given him a lot of downforce.”
BELGIUM
“Spa – a small name but a great racetrack. Nineteen adventures per lap – ‘corner’ is simply not a good enough word.”
“Before, if you were 18th on the grid, you might be looking to finish 12th. Now you can get right into the points. Mind you, it’s a bit like a lucky dip: everybody goes home with points these days … top ten, anyway.”
David: “You’re not bitter, are you?! You only got points down to sixth position when you were racing.”
Martin: “It’s only if you look at how many seventh places I had that you’d understand why I’m bitter about that!”
“You’ve got ten per cent more power down at the bottom end [of the track] ’cause it’s lower altitude, more air pressure and more power. It’s only about seven horsepower but it still fascinates me that your power changes due to the elevation of the racetrack.”
David: “Well, seven horsepower – you’d rather have it than not.”
Martin: “Yeah, you wouldn’t wanna be run over by a seven horsepower go-cart, would you?”
“(Webber) looks strong, doesn’t he? New contract in his pocket, birthday cards through the post this morning.”
“Let’s watch this – maybe from behind a pillow.”
“Perez needs to think, ‘I’m gonna brake here,’ and then count another three, I reckon, before he finds the right braking point.”
“Massa elbowing his way through.”
“All of a sudden the brake pad goes through the disc, and you go through whatever piece of scenery you happen to be aiming at at the time.”
Rosberg’s engineer (over radio): “So both cars are free to race. We just need a good clean race.”
Martin (in a pantomime sing-song voice): “♪ Michael’s coming to get you! ♪ That’s the sort of message there, isn’t it?!”
(David hums a barely recognisable ominous tune.)
Martin: “That was Jaws, was it?”
David: “I don’t know what it was. I was just getting excited!”
(Thanks to Ruth McPhee and Paul Winterbourne for flagging up Martin’s pantomime audition!)
“D’Ambrosio – the twenty-third Belgian Formula 1 driver. I’m sure you wanted to know that.”
ITALY
“They call them ‘tifosi’ – it’s a word that means ‘fans’, basically. It’s a word I think’s over-used. I want everybody around the world to come up with names for their own fans. What would you call them at Silverstone?”
David: “Incredible, fantastic, the best in the world!”
Martin: “The Silverstonies!”
“I said to Michael Schumacher at breakfast this morning as we were sharing some prunes …”
David: “Restaurant or room service?”
(Thanks to Matt Underwood for the additional line!)
“And as we moved on to muesli this morning, Michael told me that on the racing line there is plenty of grip.”
David: “That must have been an incredible piece of information to realise: there’s more grip on the racing line(!)”
Martin: “Yes, especially if somebody’s spitting bits of muesli at you.”
“It feels like you’re towing a caravan when you can only hit seventeen thousand revs instead of eighteen thousand.”
“Williams have given him a car with four wheels pointing in roughly the same direction.”
“It always comes up and smacks you in the face, doesn’t it, the Parabolica?”
“We’ve got a Noah’s Ark top ten shootout, then: two Red Bulls, two McLarens, two Ferraris, two Mercedes and two Renaults.”
(Quote submitted by Colin Byne)
(As Q3 starts and everybody stays in their garage)
“Qualifying Three starts right now, and as you can see, a long queue at the end of the pitlane. They’re keen to get out; they love this track(!)”
“He was going straight to the scene of several other people’s accidents.”
“Some nice fresh air and a ‘Yee hah!’ inside that helmet.”
David: “Now Jenson has (Hamilton and Schumacher) in his sights. This is gonna be …”
Martin: “… messy!”
“You can’t say Michael’s done anything that warrants him standing outside the headmaster’s office.”
(A replay of nothing very exciting)
“… Kobayashi bounces across the kerbs and … oh. We’ve seen that now, then. That’s good. I’m glad I didn’t miss that.”
David: “We’ve got an incident being investigated involving car number 23, which is no big surprise.”
Martin: “Yeah, guilty of arriving backwards at the first corner and spoiling the race [of several drivers]. Guilty as charged.”
David: “Is that the one under the heading ‘Spoilsport’?”
“I wonder if Lewis will try to sell him a dummy. I don’t think Michael buys dummies any more.”
David: “You say the tyres come out of the blankets at a hundred degrees but I always felt it’s a bit like wearing in a new pair of jeans: you’ve gotta get them on the track; you’ve gotta move the sidewall; you’ve gotta stretch the tyre with the centrifugal forces and lean against them under braking before they really give you the performance.”
Martin: “Well, your jeans tend to be a lot tighter than mine, but I think that’s a great analogy!”
(Seeing Vettel doing his trademark one-finger salute after winning)
“He’s gonna have to put that finger away before I’ll consider him with Senna and Schumacher and Prost and Lauda and Picquet and all those great champions. He’s gonna have to put that away.”
David: “But it’s the young generation. They control computers using that finger. That’s why it’s over-developed!”
Martin: “Oh, that’s what it is, is it? (Replay of Seb doing the gesture after he has crossed the line) There it is again! Mind [your airbox] doesn’t eat it.”
(Quote submitted by Laura Pritchard)
“(Vettel) needs to black out the ‘g’ because Red Bull gives you wins.”
SINGAPORE
“Did you know you can change gear in a Formula 1 car fifty times faster than you can blink your eyes? You do now!”
David: “Thank you very much! I’ll have you on my Trivial Pursuit team.”
Martin: “And Rubens Barrichello has a job that’s not trivial at all, and that’s getting the Williams through into the second part of qualifying.”
“So they’re still on the yellow-marked tyre. I know a lot of you know this, and don’t groan – we do have new viewers coming to Formula 1 all of the time.”
(Martin’s new campaign – to get David to pronounce Vettel’s name properly.)
“Vettel as in ‘kettle’. Jenson Button second … Jenson Button laughs [at] the way I pronounce his name for some reason.”
David: “You never said my name right!” … (later) … “Mark Webber was using more [kerb] than Vettel … or Vettle. (He says it in a mockney accent, not sounding the ‘t’ properly) Where does that make me sound like I’m coming from when I say that?! Just doesn’t sound like I’m coming from the south-west of Scotland!”
David: “It can’t be right to have chicanes like that. That’s not a proper corner.”
Martin: “I don’t know what else they could do apart from knock the Houses of Parliament down or whatever they’ve got there. … Oh, I’m just hearing in my ear it’s a golf club and a cricket club, so they could knock them down, then.”
“We watch Michael Schumacher hop, skip and … leap across the kerbs.”
(Discussing the fact that a five place grid drop isn’t much of a punishment if you’re already last on the grid)
“Well, what can they do? They can’t do anything, can they, really, other than – I dunno – take the keys to his rent-a-car or something.”
“Picquet Corner, just there.”
Rosberg’s engineer (over radio): “So, Mix 1, Torque 8, Harvest 7.”
Martin: “Of course it will!”
Martin: “Just a quickie, ’cause I’ve gotta go as well.”
Jenson: “I don’t wanna keep you!”
Martin: “I’m not looking forward to two hours of commentating – it’s gonna be hard work – let alone driving these things!”
Jenson: “Yeah, it’s tough, isn’t it, Martin, up there in your air conditioned box.”
“There are three city states in the world, two of which have Grands Prix – that’s Monaco and here in spectacular Singapore. The third city state is the Vatican City but we’re not anticipating a Grand Prix there any time soon.”
“When you’re travelling at two hundred miles per hour a few millimetres above the ground, a bump becomes a mountain.”
“Alonso trying to peer over the top of that Ferrari. I always say it’s like laying in the bath and looking out across the taps.”
“Does he need this, David? Does Michael Schumacher need to be flying through the air in the middle of the night and crashing into barriers?”
David: “Michael would tell you he does.”
(Rosberg’s engineer rattles off a long list of driver positions and tyres) Martin: “You’d need a notepad to remember all of that!”
David: “I think he’s trained in shorthand.”
(Martin wonders whether anyone finds it harder to come up and overtake a driver who is also a good friend) Martin: “I ran my best mate Blundell off the road once and it didn’t stop me at the time.”
David: “I was just gonna say that the way you dealt with it was you never had any friends!”
Martin: “Thanks mate … and I’ve just discarded one I thought I had as well.”
“Twinkle-toes himself, Jenson Button, up there in second.”
“The single digit salute – the thrill goes on, and on … and on.”
(To Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren) “How are you gonna catch Red Bull; can you catch Red Bull; please catch Red Bull!”
JAPAN
David: “We saw last year there was a big incident between Felipe Massa and … um, who else was involved in that?”
Martin: “Tonio Liuzzi.”
David: “There was the start line incident with, er …”
Martin: “Petrov.”
David: “Petrov, thank you very much. And my next line I’m thinking of?”
“We’re delighted to tell you we have no idea who’s going to be on pole.”
“[The DRS zone] is measured as they come out of 130R corner and then, some time later that day, way through the final turns 16, 17 and 18 and then down the hill, they can finally activate it.”
(As everyone pits and it looks like they may not come out for the last part of Q3)
“I know a lot of you got up very early this morning to watch this, and we’re not really giving you a show, are we?” (Then, as cars finally start exiting the pitlane) “Thank goodness for that! They have invested in a new set of tyres – hang the expense.”
“Where were McLaren? Why wasn’t Hamilton out early enough to get across the line? How can I work that out standing up here and they didn’t down there?”
(During the Grid Walk, Martin approaches the choir which will sing the national anthem and asks one of the choristers if she speaks English. She replies in Japanese.) Martin: “OK, well, good luck with your singing, yes? How much longer?” (Again she replies in Japanese.) Martin: “OK, thank you very much.” (Walking away) “So, Jake’ll know what that means.”
(Jake had taken Japanese lessons earlier in the show.)
[Thanks to Irfane Kazi and Jonathan Rapley for requesting this quote.]
“He’s got a car that’s as happy going backwards as it is forwards, with that lack of downforce.”
“I’m seeing a tweet here and it says, ‘If Schumacher made the move Vettel did, everybody would be complaining’. Discuss.”
“That looked like the first lap of the day when you’re still trying to get the sleepies out of your eyes.”
David: “… and then a second or so behind them, you’ve got the Massa/Hamilton battle.”
Martin: “Yeah, and that looks like it’s about to be Round 7, doesn’t it, of that particular fight for this year.”
David: “Only Round 7?!”
“Local god, Kamui Kobayashi.”
“All of a sudden he seems like he’s got seven reverse gears instead of seven forward ones.”
(As Jenson and Seb sit backstage at the end of the race and ‘discuss’ the start when Seb almost ran Jenson off the road) David: “Sorry if I sounded like Muttley in my microphone, giggling away, but I just like that line from Jenson: ‘That’s how we’re racing, then’!” Martin: “Ooh! Bit of friction! We’re expecting them all to be bouncing round and chest [bumping]!” (Quote submitted by Jonathan Rapley)
KOREA
“If you could do a university study, ‘Design us the worst possible pit-in and pit-out at a Formula 1 track,’ I think this is what they would come up with.”
“Bruno Senna, twenty-eight years old today and very keen to get in … the pitlane.”
“It’s only half a second, but it’s the end of the world, isn’t it? It is now – it’s the end of qualifying, anyway.”
David: “Remarkably, when I went down to the gym at 9.30 last night, the only man in there was Michael Schumacher, so pushing the fitness.”
Martin: “Stealing the water out of the gym again, were you?”
“That’s when we get tears and people spitting the dummy.”
“Here we’ve got Fernando Alonso’s car. I think I can handle not being ignored by him today. Michael, time for a quick word? I don’t even know why I asked that.”
David: “He’s using tons of … well, not tons – he’s using hundreds of pounds of downforce being right up behind the gearbox of that Ferrari.”
Martin: “Probably feels like a ton as you turn into this corner and nothing happens.”
David: “I was getting carried away with my expressions.”
Martin: “I’ve told you a million times – don’t exaggerate in commentary.”
“Looks like they might throw a steering arm on that and pop the Russian back in. He’s rushin’ nowhere at the moment.”
David: “Instead of using the analogy ‘going like a scalded cat’, could you say he’s ‘gone off like a coiled spring’ ’cause I just don’t like the image of a cat being scalded?”
Martin: “Yep. Say what you like. I don’t care.”
(Vettel’s engineer radios that he needs to look after his tyres)
“That’s Rocky saying, ‘Stop doing one minute forty point sixes! Stop enjoying yourself’!”
“Once again Webber will have the seemingly useless DRS available to him.”
Alonso (over radio): “Oh, I give up. I give up.”
Martin: “What?! I think that’s a ‘If you ever leave me behind Massa again, this is the price you’re going to pay’. I think that’s what that message is, personally.”
“There’s the man who’s given up, hunting down Jenson Button.”
(During the weigh-in)
“Sixty four kilos with all his kit on?! He weighs nothing!”
[64 kilos = 10 stone 1 lb, or 141 pounds]
INDIA
“Who’s vindaloo and who’s korma, d’you think?”
“There’s Timo Glock, or Tim O’Glock as he was known when he drove for Jordan.”
(Quote submitted by Alex Baker)
“Michael Schumacher, who is blowing you a kiss. Not sure that was for us up here in the commentary box.”
“Time passing very quickly as it always does, and increasingly so.”
(Driving over one of the strangely nicknamed kerbs, Massa breaks his suspension) David: “That’s what happens if you hit that orange ‘baguette’!”
Martin: “Well, that was a full loaf of bread, wasn’t it?”
“Listen to that Renault engine singing its heart out in seventh gear.”
“Defending heavily against fresh air was Jenson.”
(Hamilton and Massa collide side by side)
“That’ll be the ‘one at a time’ section I talked about Lewis knowing a lot better than me.”
(Race Control announces a stewards’ enquiry into the above clash)
“OK, ref, what do you think’s gonna happen here? We’re gonna see it again before you have to blow your whistle.”
(Petrov has told Martin how to pronounce his name)
“… so that’s what I’ll call him ’cause I thought he probably should know.”
“Mark Webber all on his lonesome down the back straight.”
“As soon as you’re onto the grainy sand, you’re all at sea.”
“Vettel’s just done the fastest lap of the race on the hard tyres – that’s how much he doesn’t like them.”
“What’s not a fair competition is when somebody puts Sebastian Vettel in the car at the moment, because they just can’t see which way he went. He’s got it all covered: he doesn’t fluff the starts, doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t trip over traffic … (Seb climbs on top of his car in Parc Fermé and salutes the crowd) … doesn’t fall off the front of his car.”
(Vettel does Martin’s favourite one-fingered salute) Martin (ironically): “That’s what we’re talking about.”
Martin: “Vettel as in ‘kettle’.”
David (smugly): “I think it’s ‘Fettel’, actually, if you’re pronouncing it the German way.”
(As the top three get together in the waiting room)
“Come on, tell us something, boys.”
“I’ve enjoyed the event. I’ll be happy to get out of this commentary box, I have to say – I’ve not enjoyed this one.”
ABU DHABI
(As David arrives rather breathlessly)
“It’s a Coulthard in my commentary box! Did you miss the bus or something?”
“Oh, the power of that finger! Isn’t that a wonderful feeling when you’re sitting in the cockpit and you just lazily put a finger out and go, ‘Start my engine’.”
“I’m really worried that Pirelli are getting their act together. These tyres will do twenty-five, thirty laps. They’re becoming so good and so durable. I want the bubblegum tyres back. I want lots of shocks and surprises.”
“He’s decided he likes the racetrack this time rather than the run-off areas.”
“These tyres are gonna last forever tomorrow. They’ll be using them in Brazil in two weeks’ time, they’ve got so much durability.”
“That’s the trouble with these supermarket car park run-offs. … Have I mentioned this before?!”
Martin: “When I took you round in the two-seater, you said it was the second most scary thing you’d ever done in your life, sitting behind me. I can’t remember what the most scary thing was now.”
David: “That was the other time you took me round a racetrack. I just need you to take me out a third time and it’ll form a podium of my scary moments.”
“A racing driver’s job is to shorten the track and make it as straight a line as he can get away with.”
“Into Turn 1 … (the car goes very wide) … Turn 1 and a half …”
“Will we see something other than Vettel on pole position in a Red Bull? Please, let’s see something other than that!”
“A hundred years ago, this was known as the Pirate Coast on the trade route to India, and there are a few bandits here on the grid today.”
Martin: “Does this come off if you win the race, the Movember [moustache]?”
Jenson: “No.”
Martin: “Oh, you’re really liking it, are you, the flavour saver?”
(Jenson grins closely into the camera) Martin: “I thought he was gonna kiss the camera there. I was gonna be ill.”
“Sebastian Vettel emailing his mum to tell her he’s OK.”
“Pirelli give a minimum pressure, which most of the teams politely ignore.”
Jenson’s engineer (over radio): “(Webber) is out of the picture.”
Martin: “‘Out of the picture’?! Long way to go yet!”
“He’s got the slowest car in a straight line. He can barely get out of his own way.”
(Sebastian watches from the pits)
“The world’s fastest spectator looks on.”
“The gap is 4.4 to the man – I’ve said it so many times and I’ll never give up saying – he never gives up.”
BRAZIL
“Michael Schumacher turns left into the right-hander.”
(Quote submitted by Thijs de Wert)
“Three-quarters of this lap is spent with the throttle pedal welded to the floor.”
“This corner comes up and mugs you as you’re recovering from the previous one.”
“That long left-hand climb – the neck-wrecker.”
Martin: “Another corner that used to be terrifying. Now it’s just somewhere they take a rest and check the twenty-seven dials on their steering wheel.”
David: “I’m getting the impression that this track used to scare you!”
Martin: “It did use to scare me a lot!”
“How can you be sure it’s Felipe Massa in there, anyway? You can’t even see him and we don’t recognise his crash helmet. They could put anybody in there!”
(Martin talks about Schumacher while David’s not paying attention) Martin: “… in his last drive in 2006, in his first career as it were, he was mighty.”
David: “Right, thank you for giving me that clue as to who you were talking about, because I was actually reading some notes!”
Martin: “Michael Schumacher. German guy. Drives a silver car. That one.”
“Well, we think it’s Felipe Massa in that gold helmet, don’t we, but we haven’t got absolute proof. You could put it on out the back and put anybody in, couldn’t you?!”
David: “How can you go a second faster than your team mate around this track? It’s the second shortest lap in the calendar!”
Martin: “It’s a lot easier to go a second slower, isn’t it?”
David: “Very casual message there to his racing driver: ‘Rear tyres are still a bit low, mate’. I wonder if the young German understands the more English, or British, reference there?”
Martin: “They all speak better English than we do, don’t they?”
“How does he do that?! How does he get so far ahead in five miles?!”
“Right, I’ve got a deal for you: let’s never mention the word ‘rain’ again until water starts coming out of the sky. I’m fed up talking about rain this weekend that just doesn’t seem to turn up!”
(Several laps later, we see a pitwall screen predicting the weather) Martin: “Right, that’s a four-letter word we’re not using, right? ‘R-A-I-N’, we’re not gonna say that.”
David: “The only problem is I have a speech impediment, so ‘precipitation’ is quite difficult for me to say!”
(Throwing to Ted Kravitz in the pitlane)
“And Lenny is down at McLaren.”
David: “Somehow when that radio sparks open and you start listening to the engineer, it does take away a little bit of concentration.”
Martin: “But you don’t slow down on the road when you’re listening to Cliff Richard, do you?”
“Pretty much all year, Red Bull have been slower than a slow thing down the straights.”
“I used to breathe a sigh of relief if I ever got through Turn 3 without being on opposite lock and frightening myself silly.”
“That’ll compromise him a little bit in the twisties in the middle.”
(Radar shows that rain is expected) Martin: “We want the precipitation now, don’t we? We need it for the race.”
David: “Mr. Angry from Norfolk’s now loosening up on the wet potential!”
“It’s the most pathetic feeling, isn’t it, when your neck goes and you can’t do anything with it. You don’t wanna touch the brake pedal or the throttle pedal, and you really don’t wanna turn the steering wheel, but somehow you hang on.”
(Hamilton’s engineer radios that, like Vettel, his car has a gearbox problem) Martin: “Well, they’re all the fashion today, aren’t they?”
David: “Yeah, it never rains but it pours. Sorry, Martin, I mentioned rain again!”
(In relation to the failing gearbox)
“So, Lewis Hamilton then, also nursing a box of cogs that don’t really fancy seventy-one laps of the Interlagos circuit.”
(Quote suggested by ‘Kim’)
(Onboard footage – and sound – of Hamilton’s car grinding to a halt as the gearbox fails)
“That sounds expensive.”
(Quote suggested by David Maclean)
(Another shot of a pitwall screen)
“‘Dry weather’! That’s funny – we’re not gonna get any rain(!)”
(Webber gives a rather subdued radio response to his victory)
“That’s what he’s not talking about, it seems.”
“There’s more people in the paddock than there are at some Grands Prix, aren’t there?!”
“I think it really has turned to custard for D’Ambrosio, hasn’t it?”
Jake: “Eddie still hasn’t told you you’re not driving for him in ’97, has he?”
Martin: “Let’s not go there.”
“You make your own luck, especially in a single-seater. There’s nobody else to blame.”
The following is an announcement from late 2011 from Callie Sullivan, who provided the quotes between 2002 and 2011. I have kept it here for posterity – it is not referring to this site!
An announcement: As Martin has now declared that he is going to commentate for Sky Sports next year, I have to say very reluctantly that it’s likely that this has been my last set of entries for Martin Brundle’s Racing Lines. I don’t currently subscribe to Sky and that isn’t likely to change in the near future. But do watch this space in case plans change!
It’s been a fantastic ten years running the site and enjoying Martin’s commentary – thank you for visiting, and thank you to Martin for being so consistently entertaining.
Love and hugs, Callie x