(Please note – all quotes for 2012-17 are from races only.)
AUSTRALIA
“You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to beat this young man [Vettel].”
“You’ve got a lot of drivers starting their first Grand Prix. They will be… tardy getting themselves sorted out at the back. The saving grace is there’s slightly less of them this year.”
“You can see Mark Webber […] just getting mugged from every direction, basically.”
“Woah! That was heading into a wedge that was forever going to close.”
“That was Maldonado getting distracted, I think, by everything that was going on in front of him.”
“Adrian Sutil in a Force India seriously compromising Red Bull’s race now. I didn’t expect to be saying that.”
Lewis Hamilton: “Should let me know if my pace is good.”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, you’re doing a great job. Current pace is good enough. Current pace is good enough.”
Martin: “”Good enough for what?” is the question.”
Andy Latham: “OK Checo, we think almost all other cars are on three stops as well. Almost all other cars on the same strategy.”
[…]
Martin: “That’s a message of “we can’t help you now.”
Tony Ross: “Sutil is still holding the leaders up.”
[…]
Martin: “I didn’t see it as he was holding up the leaders to be honest, it was more like Vettel was holding up the Ferraris!”
(Vettel with a brilliant move on Sutil)
“Imagine how good Vettel will be when he can actually overtake and all those things he apparently can’t do. That was from 30 metres back. It was awesome!”
“That was awful, wasn’t it, for Massa? It was neither one thing nor the other.”
“Rosberg: exit stage left.”
“What impressed me far more in that situation was Alonso recognised all of that. Didn’t turn in, just gave him the space. He could see in his mirror that Hamilton was out of control. He just waits, look. […] I’ve done both: I’ve turned in and had the unnecessary accident, and another time, you just spot it and then pick up the pieces, exactly as he did.”
“Ted’s absolutely right: where is the Red Bull pace that we talked about, that we… feared coming into this race?”
(no audio on a Raikkonen radio graphic)
“Even on Kimi Raikkonen’s pit radio, he still doesn’t say anything.”
“What an anonymous afternoon Romain Grosjean’s had.”
“I looked away at the timing screen and back and it was over. It was a blur!”
Peter Bonnigton: “OK Lewis, let’s pick up the pace, let’s pick up the pace, let’s convert to a B, plan B.”
Martin: “That’ll go well. Go down well(.)”
Martin: “Two Force Indias ahead of two Red Bulls.”
Crofty: “Just as we predicted(!)”
Martin: “Yes!”
“Sutil getting the blue lights there, which is not correct.”
Crofty: “From time to time, Martin, we’re supplied with information in the commentary box that can give us a great clue as to how a race might pan out and @virtualstatman has given us this: that the last five Grands Prix held after a papal conclave, two of them have been won by a team called Lotus and one of them have [sic] been won by a team called by Renault which is of course now the Enstone outfit which is called Lotus. Would you say that with the papal conclave being held recently, Kimi Raikkonen might have some divine inspiration for this race?”
Martin: “Yes… that would definitely make it into the top tenuous chart, that one, wouldn’t it?”
“Martin [Whitmarsh], a question from one of your ex-drivers…”
“Raikkonen’s driven 15, 17 miles further [on these tyres], which is a lot around this racetrack.”
“Sutil, now he’s got out of the traffic, has sort of got a little bit of his pace back, now he’s stopped being mugged left, right, and centre.”
(Alonso nearly crashes into Pic)
Andrea Stella: “OK, Kimi come la nostra per.”
[…]
Martin: “Did he say casanostra will sort them out?”
“Raikkonen has just put manners on Alonso to say “forget it, you’re not getting anywhere near me”.”
MALAYSIA
Crofty: “Nicole Sherzinger, wondering why we always start at 4 o’clock, because it always seems to rain here in Malaysia.”
Martin: “Like many other people.”
“Isn’t it nice to see Mark Webber having a decent start?”
(Alonso’s front wing gets stuck under his car, after the team bizarrely choose not to pit him)
“That’s third on your scariest list: first one’s a stuck throttle, second one’s brake failure, third one is your front wing going underneath your own car.”
(onboard with Alonso, start replay)
“We’ll see his teammate come over and put the frighteners on him, but you need to get up very early in the morning to beat Fernando Alonso, presumably with the lights off as well.”
“He’s four tenths quicker than Webber in the middle sector. It’s time to bring Mark Webber in. More than time.”
Ted: “Lewis Hamilton’s had a bit of memory fade and has gone to McLaren! They waved him through, they still like him, but it’s not his garage, get on with it, Lewis – Jenson’s coming in!”
Martin: “They ought to have stopped there and had a word with him!”
(Vergne and Pic crash in the pits)
“They met in the middle: one’s arriving, the other one’s departing.”
“Bye bye Lewis, see you in a few years’ time!”
“Webber’s in front of Vettel, so they were right and I was wrong.”
“It was just growling at him every time he touches the throttle.”
“Without that wobbly pit stop of Lewis Hamilton’s…”
“It’s the right pits this time for Lewis Hamilton.”
(Force India have had pit stop issues all day)
“So clearly, something is going on with the spindle, or not going on, in this case.”
(again, another team radio graphic which fails to play)
“Speechless, was Felipe Massa.”
Sebastian Vettel: “Mark is too slow, get him out of the way.”
[…]
Martin: “I can see Mark Webber recording that radio message and it’d be his ringtone for a couple of weeks.”
“The world championship leader is having a dismal afternoon.”
“Perez starting to come back at Raikkonen now that he’s finished his little cross-country adventure.”
“Niki Lauda of Mercedes was one of those asking for the tyres to be changed but I think he hit reverse on that a bit as the weekend unfolded and I suspect he’s fully engaged in reverse.”
“They’ve got plenty of tyres available to them, and they appear to need them.”
Crofty: (making a rather rubbish analogy about strategies) “The biscuit barrel is not just full of custard creams.”
Martin: “Jammie Dodgers, I prefer.”
“Vettel’s disappeared off the computer I’m looking at at the moment. Doesn’t exist somewhere.”
“That’s the perkiest we’ve heard him [Button] all year, isn’t it, without any doubt.”
(Rosberg pits)
“Poetry, that was.”
“You can’t see over the pit wall – clearly – you’re sitting on your backside on the ground, basically. And you can just hear the engines going past at 18,000 revs and… you feel like you’ve been suspended in time, even though it’s only 2 and a bit seconds.”
“What a race!!”
“No quarter asked, no quarter given. I’m doing the podium interviews today and I’m looking forward to that.”
“If you want two great drivers in your team, you’ve got to put up with this sort of thing, you’ve got to manage it.”
(ironic, really…)
“This could be the end of a beautiful relationship that never quite developed in the first place.”
(Maldonado retires in a colourful gravel trap)
“Looks like he’s gone off in the Smarties corner, doesn’t it?”
Nico Rosberg: “I can go so much faster. Just let me drive past.”
Ross Brawn: “Negative, Nico. Negative.”
Martin: “Oh dear.”
“Vettel’s been told to use his KERS normally, not abuse it for overtaking.”
“We’re going to have two very unhappy teammates after this race. […] You’ll need boxing gloves up there, I suspect.”
Ross Brawn: “Nico, Lewis’s pace is what we’re asking him to do, and he could go a lot faster as well, so he’s being controlled as well.”
[…]
Martin: “The fight’s off, boys.”
“Lewis, we know, has been on a bit of a fuel-saving mission. It’s not they’re short of money to put the petrol in.”
“They wanted to take Lewis Hamilton away from McLaren, and they pushed hard, and they tried very hard. Do you think he would have gone there without some kind of advantage in his contract, some kind of higher position [against Rosberg]? I’d be amazed if he did. He had all of the tools in his hand for the negotiation to go to that team.”
“Toro Rosso always seem to lose their points just before the very end of the race, I’m sad to report.”
“One happy-ish Mercedes driver and one very unhappy one.”
CHINA
“You’re going to have to stay glued to this race, it’s going to be fascinating, but you might have to be patient!”
“Di Resta 14th after that little adventure.”
(Massa has a little look at Alonso)
“Now that I would like to see.”
“There’s Massa, then, trying not to go off the track, and he turns it into an advantage.”
“Oh, they’re going to have to queue! They’re going to have to queue the Mercedes! What’s that all about!? […] Well, that’s confidence in your pit crew, isn’t it?”
(Gutierrez crashes into the back of Sutil)
“I’m afraid that’s totally a new boy error.”
Crofty: “Should Ferrari have double-stacked?”
Martin: (bluntly) “Yes.”
Martin: “I think at the moment this is working out very well for those who started at the front on the soft tyres. I do hope so, otherwise people are just not going to go out in qualifying, they’ll just save the tyres. There will be no Q3. I really hope those that did a lap time in qualifying yesterday get rewarded today.”
[…]
Crofty: “I suppose the argument about qualifying, Martin, is that it’s giving us more strategic options, more exciting racing when we come to a Sunday afternoon.”
Martin: “I want both! There’s a way of doing both, I think.”
Martin: (cheekily) “Did I see Adrian Sutil helping Paul di Resta off the road at the end of the first lap?”
Bob Fearnley: “You did, Martin…”
Martin: “And what will you be saying about that?”
Bob Fearnley: “We’ll be having a little talk.”
Crofty: “Er, right…”
“Hulkenberg, the man I would have put in the McLaren, I have to say.”
(possibly directed at Sauber)
“Are you ready for Red Bull’s amazing pit stops? You’d better be, because that looked like another one.”
“Hulkenberg’s got his job done, but I’m sad to say the pit crew didn’t do theirs.”
“I think it was a day late and a dollar short from Mark. […] Mark’s coming up the inside, probably thinking his young mate/teammate-from-the-sister-team, who really would like his job if he gets half a chance, would let him through. And he didn’t.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “What the hell is he doing?”
Martin: “He does get upset, doesn’t he, when people reverse into him, in his view?”
“It’s no good if your wheel falls off like happened to Button [in Malaysia].”
(less than 30 seconds later, Webber’s wheel fell off…!)
“The tyre wanted to carry on.”
“It’s well out of harm’s way […] you’d have to have a special effort to crash into that.”
Martin: “The incident with Mark Webber and car number 18, Jean-Eric Vergne, will be investigated after the race.”
Crofty: “Don’t think Mark Blundell’s coming out for a drink tonight, then?”
Martin: “That’s a fact!”
“Raikkonen is missing a stack of aileron parts.”
Crofty: “Fastest man on the track, by the way: now Kimi Raikkonen.”
Martin: “With a dodgy front wing!”
“Imagine getting run over at 12mph by an F1 car, it would look like it was coming at you pretty quickly, wouldn’t it?”
(Alonso passes Vettel before the DRS line, having been behind him at the detection point)
“It’s sort of a (playground singing) “na-na-na-na” when you do that.”
(Martin explains “the dummy”, as demonstrated by Vettel)
“”I’m going to take you on the outside – no I’m not, I’m going to take you on the inside.””
“What’s happened to Grosjean this year!?”
“He’s just gone through a sequence of “mmm”s, hasn’t he? He’s got to put an S on that before the end of the race.”
(Tyre strategy, as explained by Countdown, perhaps)
Mark Slade: “Do you need more front wing, Kimi?”
Kimi Raikkonen: “Yeah, one turn.”
Martin: “I don’t know if Kimi knows he’s got a pile of bits missing.”
Crofty: “One turn and an elastoplast, if you don’t mind.”
Martin: “Yes…!”
Crofty: “Hulkenberg, as you rightly said, Martin, getting rid of the soft compound tyre.”
Martin: “Ted said that. Give Ted his credit down there in a dusty, noisy pit lane!”
“You looked at the tyre, I looked at all the bits jangling around.”
“To answer my own question earlier on…”
BAHRAIN
“I was coming across Rubens Barrichello, actually, doing his first grid walk for Brazilian TV! He’s going “do you do this every weekend!?””
“The two young Germans at the front giving no quarter and asking no quarter.”
“[Raikkonen] is… cautious on the brakes [into turn one], it has to be said, but that’s why he’s on a 31-race-finishing streak.”
“He’s damaged the left-hand side of his wing, he needs to be careful of the right-hand side as well.”
“Debris everywhere, today.”
“Sebastian Vettel, the guy who can’t race(!)”
“I’m super impressed with Rosberg’s aggression.”
Gianpiero Lambiase: “Box and confirm, Paul. Empty KERS. Box and confirm.”
Martin: “Empty KERS. Don’t turn up in the pits with a load of…… KERS.”
“Twinkletoes Button.”
“Sergio Perez looking like a McLaren driver today.”
Ted: “Talking of McLaren, Metallica have just come into the McLaren garage.”
Crofty: “(excitedly) Can you get an autograph, please?”
Ted: “I know you’re a fan of your heavy rock, but I’m afraid to say I’m not and I wouldn’t know them from Adam, so I wouldn’t know which one to ask!”
Crofty: “Just go and start singing “it’s a sad man” to James Hatfield(?) and you’ll be fine, my friend.”
Martin: “None of them are called Adam, Ted, so you’ve got a chance!”
[…]
Martin: “I was hoping to talk to them on the grid, but I think they’d just landed […] right, where are we?”
“Grosjean had to stop again, actually, because he hadn’t been on the options, so he had to do a 3-stopper, Crofty… we knew that.”
Crofty: “If you were Martin Whitmarsh, what would you be saying?”
Martin: “Mind BOTH cars!”
“Paul [di Resta] needed a bit more of the “drunken Rosberg” movement down the pit straight there of weaving across the track.”
(Metallica comes up on screen)
“Calm down, Crofty, calm down!”
“Ted’s asking “who can sing?”. Well, it’s not me, unless I’m drunk.”
“Grosjean getting particularly rude with Button.”
“Paul [di Resta]’s too polite down the pit straight. He needed to be three or four times as wide as that.”
“Can you give the man in last an unsafe release?”
Crofty: “Here comes Alonso, with his DRS–“
Martin: “No, no DRS. He gave that ace card away early on when it was doing double back somersaults every time he used it.”
Crofty: “I’ll ask you for a driver of the day but there are quite a few of them, and I wonder if Sergio Perez would feature on that in any way, shape, or form.”
Martin: “It’s got to be the mysterious Sebastian Vettel who keeps turning up with a computer out front, hasn’t it, really.”
“That’s where Mark Webber, then, going into turn six, lost a place from Mr Aggressive.”
(Perez, if you’re wondering.)
“Rules is rules, unfortunately.”
“Romain Grosjean had a few adventures en route, didn’t he?”
“Thrilling Grand Prix.”
“Rosewater, of course, here, not champagne. Doesn’t seem to spray around quite as much, does it?”
“I’m looking forward to counting up how many passes there were in the Grand Prix.”
SPAIN
“Well-known sports psychologist, Rob Smedley, there. He knows as much about sports psychology as he does about oversteer and understeer!”
“Stick them sideways across the road at 160mph and these tyres will squeal back at you.”
“Look at Alonso – opportunistic or what!? […] That’s immense. I want to see that again. […] You live on your wits. Look at this – talk about living on your wits: that is brilliant! Brilliant!”
“Some might say “unsafe release”, but it didn’t stop Hamilton’s progress and they didn’t make contact, so in my view it cannot be an unsafe release.”
Crofty: “Pastor Maldonado, to confirm, has got a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.”
Martin: “About the only place he has been speeding this weekend, sadly, isn’t it?”
“[Alonso] somehow teased that Ferrari into the apex.”
(Van Der Garde’s wheel falls off, but he makes it back to the pits)
“I think if your wheel fell off after you picked it up from the garage, you wouldn’t drive it back, would you?”
“This is going to be a cracker!”
“That’s a very dejected-looking Lewis Hamilton.”
Lewis Hamilton: (dejectedly) “Now I’ve been overtaken by a Williams.”
Martin: “I spent my whole career being overtaken by a Williams, except for the one race where I was driving one. It was a different deal back then.”
“Another four laps, we’ll be at half distance!”
(Hamilton re-takes Maldonado)
“Maldonado will be on the phone saying “I’ve just been overtaken by a Mercedes, come on, guys(!)””
“When have we ever seen Vettel let somebody through like that??”
Crofty: “Just to go back to Lewis Hamilton, he did an interview to some of the papers at the start of the week about how he’d like to have raced in previous years.”
[…]
Martin: (angrily) “I’ll bring in the foot of metal that was in my ankle once, three big screws, and see what he thinks of those. I’m not sure. These cars just feel brilliant to drive – and they’re safe.”
“JB’s a minute behind. We’re going to have two grumpy Brits, I’m afraid.”
Martin: “That looks like an unsafe release if I’ve ever seen one… (contact) oh, for goodness’ sake! Why didn’t he get off– the throttle works both ways!”
[…]
Crofty: “Would Hulkenberg have seen the Toro Rosso coming in?”
Martin: “Well, if his eyes were open.”
“He [Raikkonen] needs to recover the time he’s lost behind the Red Bull – didn’t think I’d be saying that today.”
“10-second stop-and-go for car 11, Hulkenberg, for an unsafe release, you’ll be very surprised to hear(.)”
“Our chart here only goes up to four pit stops. I think we’d better get a new chart.”
“Hulkenberg just exits the pits for the sixth time this afternoon…!”
“If you were blindfolded and told to cross the track, you’d feel safer on the pit straight than the pit lane, wouldn’t you(?)”
“I think there should be [some reward for] fastest lap of the race, provided you’re in the top 10.”
(Ed: I’m writing this in 2020 – this became a rule in 2019.)
“They couldn’t run a bath sometimes in terms of making a decision. […] They just want to win. And that means making bad decisions sometimes.”
“Rosberg, now, is on front-running pace! How do you explain that? Don’t ask me to.”
“Fastest lap of the race: Esteban Gutierrez, as I’m sure you all guessed.”
(the trophy for third place is ridiculously tiny)
“It’s for his son, I think, that one!”
“Raikkonen looking very underwhelmed by all that.”
MONACO
(yet another faulty team radio graphic)
“Just waiting on this team radio… Paul di Resta has absolutely nothing to say at this point.”
“Nico Rosberg arriving by himself at the front of the grid.”
“Alonso pointing his car towards the enemy.”
Martin: “And STILL the McLarens are hitting each other!”
Crofty: “It’s like Bahrain all over again!”
“What we didn’t see was Alonso’s mighty normal start.”
Jenson Button: “He’s got to stop turning in on me, guys!”
Martin: “That is Jenson having to tell on his mate, on his team-mate, well, “team associate” seems to be the right word.”
(replay of lap 1…)
Crofty: (excitedly) “And look, there’s Sebastian Vettel locking up his brakes, can’t go round the outside, and Jenson Button and Sergio Perez! Button does try and go round the outside– that’s the replay, sorry, from earlier. There’s me getting carried away, it’s Monaco.”
Martin: “Ha ha ha, it was good! Go for it!”
Crofty: “Get it right the second time!”
Martin: “Yeah, we’ll play some more of those in…!”
(McLaren)
“What can the team really do about it? They can’t protest their own man, can they, and nobody else cares too much about it, I would think.”
“We are now 10% only through the Grand Prix. I remember here, you’d be going what appeared to be all afternoon and they’d show you 50 laps to go.”
“Get into the rhythm, get into the groove of the racetrack.”
“… if you’re anti-DRS, you’ll be delighted to hear…”
(Pic’s car catches fire)
“What they’re saying to Mark Webber, whilst we wait for the Caterham barbeque to be put out…”
“Just a reminder if you’ve joined the race, Mercedes are leading and 2nd at the moment but they are under an official protest from Red Bull and Ferrari over a ‘secret’ Formula One tyre test, and Ross Brawn said in our programme earlier on “well, it wasn’t that secret, they must have noticed we weren’t packing our cars away” after the end of the Spanish Grand Prix.”
“Smoke coming out of the strategy computers, I would imagine.”
(everyone’s going very slowly to save tyres)
“My mum’s a great driver and I reckon she could drive as fast as that around there at the moment.”
Crofty: “… from Red Bull, where David Hasselhoff is watching at the moment on the balcony. The Hoff is right outside our commentary box! I’ve never been this close to him before.”
Martin: (extremely uninterested) “Ooh(!)”
“You sort of wonder if Rosberg stopped on the grid, they’d all stop and wait for him!”
Martin: “It’s a bit like Sir Chris Hoy, isn’t it, when they do that, what is that, what is that called, can’t think of the name, when they wait and wait and wait at the top of the track–“
Crofty: “Sprint races.”
Martin: “– on the sprint races, and then all of a sudden they just go for it? It’s got all the hallmarks of that at the moment.”
“What did he [Keke Rosberg] say to me on the grid? “Who knows!?” That was almost a “who cares, I’m having a good day!””
“Don’t need slo-mo today, do you, at the moment?”
“Ooh, it’s almost like winding up a spring, Crofty, and it’s starting to get towards the end of the compression of the spring, as we start heading into the zone of one-stop territory…”
(Crofty hypothesises about bringing Webber in early)
“Patience, Crofty, you’re just desperate for somebody to come in!”
“So the undercut didn’t really work, did it? Well, it didn’t work at all, in fact.”
Martin: “I tell you what: those Mercedes are definitely much stronger on their tyres than they were a couple of races ago.”
Crofty: “Different tyre compounds? Different track surface? Different track temperatures as well? Maybe they benefit[ted from] a couple of weeks to think about it.”
Martin: “And a bit of testing(!)”
“They [the Red Bulls] were released because they weren’t leading the race, and they almost did become the race leaders!”
(the first Safety Car period of 2013!)
“When I spoke to Bernd Maylander on the grid, he was convinced he was going to be out today!”
(lapped cars may now overtake)
“I don’t know why they bother with that. I really don’t.”
Crofty: “Has no KERS, Giedo Van Der Garde.”
Martin: “No KERS in the world!”
(ba-doom tish)
(Crofty boasts about meeting Sir Cliff Richard earlier this weekend)
“Your life’s so rock and roll, Crofty(.)”
“Webber sweeps across to say “forget it, you’re not coming through there!””
“They do watch the GP2 races, the junior, ’cause they… they’re just mad, they’re all desperados, last chance saloon they get at becoming Formula One drivers, they’ll try anything.”
“He [Alonso] did well to see him [Perez] coming to be honest, because he was trying not to run into the back of Raikkonen at the time.”
(red flag)
“The car that’s running first should be on pole, go to the pole position, which of course, Rosberg knows well.”
“Sebastian Vettel chooses not to get out of the car. Doesn’t look unduly happy [sic] with life, does he?”
“If you’re going to hit something in a Formula One car, head on is as good as any.”
“I feel like I should be doing a grid walk right now.”
“The throttle works both ways.”
“Alonso’s scary when he’s not angry. He’s angry now.”
“He [Sutil]’s got to squirt the throttle and then seize the initiative because at that point it was all just heading into a tangle of carbon fibre.”
Mark Temple: “OK Checo, this level of tyre management is very good, this will definitely get us to the end, let’s keep going. This is really good.”
Martin: “His only problem is he’s got to make sure he’s got four of them when he heads towards the end of the race. Three won’t be enough.”
“Sutil getting all fighty down at the hairpin again.”
“I thought that was a bit sleepy from Fernando […] Sutil’s been threatening to do that and he’s left him a big, fat, wide door open!”
(Bianchi retires)
“What an afternoon, what a weekend he’s had – all of it bad.”
“Not often you see Fernando Alonso going backwards in a Grand Prix, is it?”
(Grosjean crashes into Ricciardo)
“He worries me, that boy.”
(Rosberg scares a bird out of the way)
“It can’t be the same one that did the double back somersault in the GP2 race, can it?”
“P11 means nothing. You might as well be last if you’re outside the world championship points.”
“Alonso mugged yet again.”
“It’s amazing Perez is still anywhere near this Grand Prix.”
“… of this remarkable Grand Prix. Don’t know where to look next for crazy things going on.”
Driver of the Day
Crofty: “[Nico Rosberg] driver of the day, but overtake of the day has to go to Sergio Perez, you’d have thought?”
Martin: “Well, one of them! In the end, he did roll the dice once too many.”
“I thought it was a great race.”
(Rosberg is swamped by photographers)
“This is bordering on being a little bit out of control.”
CANADA
“Somebody’s going to win it, Crofty.”
(you don’t say…)
“It’s a bit sensitive, isn’t it, the test, when we talk about Mercedes and their tyres.”
“We do love our tyres in Formula One. We wrap them up in little blankets and we love them and we keep them warm and we keep them at the right pressure…”
“You can get your rear tyres warmed up – you’ve got the perfect heater underneath your right foot.”
“I’d rather be going down there with two cars in front of me than 20.”
“Alonso will… NOT be able to sweep in from there!”
“Remember they’ve got 160 kilograms of fuel onboard, that’s like carrying two passengers in these cars.”
“Massa with great confidence there for a man who’s visited the wall a few times lately.”
“It’s easy out front, isn’t it?”
“He [Bottas] wouldn’t let Webber go too easily down into turn three, but had a sensible tablet when he got there.”
“I’m not entirely sure Sutil meant to come in the pit lane. I think he just got so crossed up by late braking.”
Crofty: “Sebastian Vettel, who we’ve not seen for a while, Martin, the only man lapping in the 1:19s at the moment, it’s a blistering pace.”
Martin: “Nobody’s seen him for a while, Crofty!”
“It was a collision, but it was hardly malicious, was it?”
“His [Hamilton’s] only problem is Sebastian Vettel, not for the first time.”
“Wouldn’t be too popular in Mexico, would they, if they had connected?”
(Perez and Gutierrez)
“That was fair enough. Firm, to say the least, but fair.”
“Look at Vettel’s lap time. A 1:18.4. A class of one out front.”
“Unusual to see […] Red Bull passing Mercedes in a straight line.”
“He’s playing dare with the wall everywhere, isn’t he? Incredible.”
Tony Ross: “You are going to the end of the race on this set. 39 laps remaining.”
[…]
Martin: “And the good news is… The Rolling Stones are playing later this evening!”
Crofty: “Just ’cause you’ve got tickets!”
“We’ve still got 22 runners, David!”
“Sensitive issue about safety cars and Fernando Alonso, isn’t it?”
Mark Temple: “Jenson is the car behind now, and we are racing him.”
Martin: “So that is NOT a radio call I expected to hear!
Simon Rennie: “Tyres are good. Push ’til the end.”
Martin: “That’s what we want to hear!”
(Vettel pits)
“They can give it a wash and polish as well if they wanted.”
“Vettel will hate that: Webber’s got fastest lap at the moment.”
“Alonso’s done the new fastest lap of the race. I still expect Vettel to be trying to get that.”
“Lewis parked his car on the apex while he sorted himself out.”
“Part of Mark Webber’s front wing’s still sitting out here on the middle of the track, isn’t it?”
“Lewis always plays dare with his front wing, doesn’t he? We’ve seen him lose it a few times.”
“I hate to see – I nearly hit one of those once – I hate to see those things [tractors] out there. […] I think there’s less peril just leaving the car there, frankly, than bringing that thing out. […] You’d have put a special effort in to go and hit Gutierrez’s car, you’d want to hit it, to be honest.”
(Ed: all condolences to Mark Robinson, who was run over by said tractor and died)
“So Sutil’s had a drive-through, a spin, a clout up the gearbox, and he’s still in the points.”
“He’s had a few adventures considering how comfortable it’s been out front.”
“Webber, despite his droopy front wing, picks up fastest lap of the race.”
“Sad day for Williams, though, isn’t it, with that excitement of 3rd on the grid? They ended up 14th and 16th.”
“Vergne doing a good job of enhancing his reputation within the Red Bull empire.”
UNITED KINGDOM | (the “exploding tyres” Grand Prix)
“It said on there “Paul Di Resta – no time”, and that’s exactly what he’s got this afternoon – no time at all to make his way through the tailenders and get on anywhere near the top 10.”
“I was looking a message here: “risk of rain for this summer is 0%”. Well, I wanted to say summer, but it actually says session. I guess it is a session, but it’s the British Grand Prix! You can’t just say session for British Grand Prix!”
Martin: “We could even see that strange phenomena – a bit like Halley’s Comet coming through – of a heat haze coming off the Silverstone surface!”
Crofty: “Ho ho!”
Martin: “Whatever next?”
“They’ve [Button] got to do something different, because they haven’t got any raw pace.”
“You can’t really win the race on the first lap, but you can lose it.”
“There’s a heat haze, look! That’s incredible!”
Crofty: “Over 120,000 expected to be here this afternoon.”
Martin: “And I’d like to say 120,000 thank yous, and for the people who came on Friday and on Saturday, because if they don’t turn up, there will not be a British Grand Prix. That’s the only way this thing is funded, so thank goodness they do turn up!”
“We’ve seen them sitting on the pole now over 40 seconds in recent times. I remember sitting in driver briefings on a Sunday morning, when we used to have them then, and Jean-Marie Balestre, the President of the FIA back then, a quite unusual character, would scream and shout – and we were timed! – if we didn’t get on the grid within 30 seconds, the whole grid of 26 cars, we’d be in for it, like seeing the headmaster, at the next race!”
“Alonso was giving no quarter and asking no quarter. He completely ran Jenson out of options there.”
“I saw that car [Webber] after the end of the Canadian Grand Prix. It was a mess.”
“Alonso’s line through turn four was awful!”
“It always tends to concertina a bit, like a piano accordion.”
Dave Robson: “OK Jenson, how are the front tyres, front tyres?”
Jenson Button: “Fronts feel like they’re overheating. But also the rears do. I mean, all four feel like they’re overheating.”
Martin: “Is that really going on in the race? Sounds like they’re in the lounge about to settle into a beer. So calm. So calm.”
(Hamilton gets a tyre failure)
“So Lewis has been told “tyre switch 12, mid 12, mid 12″, whatever that means.”
(Replay)
“And there it goes… and the main carcass comes out like a polo mint…”
“Turn two’s a left hander, pretty nothingy flat-out thing.”
(Raikkonen comes up behind Grosjean)
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear the Kimster on the phone shortly, saying “I’m up for the world championship, boys”, or words to that effect.”
(Vergne is the third car to have a tyre explosion)
“Turn 4 and 5, that was not.”
Martin: “I wonder if Charlie [Whiting]’s thinking of putting the safety car out and cleaning the race track out any time soon.”
(Five seconds later, the safety car is deployed)
Ted: “Charlie must have heard you, Martin!”
“This is a very, very significant event for Formula One and for Pirelli.”
“When a tyre explodes like that, tell me you can really analyse it afterwards(!)”
“Remember, Pirelli wanted to go back to a kevlar structure, and I think it was Lotus and Force India and other teams wouldn’t agree to it because they thought they’d got an advantage with the way they’d been using the tyres, so Pirelli had to abandon that idea, and there’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing this evening.”
“They give a minimum pressure, and the teams always try to… push the limits on that.”
“I’m only half-joking when I say the safest place to be at a Grand Prix is in the cockpit, compared to say, you know, being in the pits, being part of the pit crew or marshalls.”
“Debris is causing the punctures and then the explosions, when creates more debris. You’ve got a catch-22 going on.”
(Ed: no you don’t, you’ve got a vicious circle)
(Martin asks whether they will restart the race given the tyre situation)
“Safety car’s in this lap, so that answers that question.”
“If it’s not black, don’t use it! If it’s white, red, green, whatever, stay away from it for the rest of the afternoon.”
“They’re all completely ignoring the advice to stay off the kerbs. Completely.”
“The steering wheel works in both directions.”
“I’m semi-impressed and semi-disgusted: they’re absolutely mullering the kerbs!”
“This is Massa fighting as if his life depended on it for 17th place.”
“Which bit of “don’t use the kerbs, especially in the high-speed corners” is difficult to understand?”
Dave Robson: “And Jenson, how are the front tyres? Are they graining?”
Jenson Button: (calmly) “Front left yes, a little. But I also have poor traction.”
Martin: “And two sugars in my tea, please!”
(Webber passes Grosjean)
Martin: “And that’s how Mark Webber won the British Grand Prix last year. His favourite trick, going round the outside [at Brooklands]. I don’t feel so bad he overtook me now in our feature!”
Crofty: “It was harder for him that day, surely?”
“It’s hurting a bit on the surface, but it’s black, it’s round, and it’s inflated, which is good enough right now.”
“Lewis is playing dare with his front wing today.”
(to Crofty)
“Not only are you the sausage king, you are the segue king.”
“Sutil is respecting the kerbs more than most, even if he didn’t necessarily respect the overtaking rules.”
“It needs about a 6-point turn to get it through there. They’re clumsy things to push.”
(lapped cars may now overtake)
“I hate this rule […] imagine a wet day at Spa, it’d take forever!”
(Alonso, practically in Perez’s gearbox, avoids Perez as the latter’s tyre explodes)
“He’s got the reactions of a cat, that boy has.”
“What a Grand Prix this has turned out to be despite the dramas and the craziness!”
“All the Kimi Raikkonen lovers have just become DRS haters, right there.”
Crofty: “… as we move on to the final lap.”
Martin: “No, let’s not do that! Let’s have another 10! This is brilliant!”
“”Tyre”‘s become a four-letter word in F1.”
“At the end of the day, the craziness of the tyres brought us a great race.”
(Raikkonen has broken the record for most consecutive points finishes)
Martin: “I think that will be very little solace for him, David. I think he will be very unhappy with P5 in that race.”
Crofty: “I try to look on the bright side of life, as you well know.”
Martin: “He might need to come and see you this evening.”
Martin: “Certainly going be one of those debriefs where the drivers are asking more questions than the engineers. What happened there? Why did we stop then? What happened to him?”
Crofty: “What was that bit of rubber that came flying past my head?”
“We didn’t even get to see Kimi Raikkonen’s haircut, did we?”
GERMANY
(grid rundown)
Crofty: “Mark Webber – worst qualifying performance here for a few years.”
[…]
Martin: “I know you didn’t mean to but you beautifully drop kicked Mark Webber there when you said “worst qualifying”! He’s P3 on the grid!”
Crofty: “I didn’t mean to!”
[…]
Crofty: “I’ll tell you what then, I’ll big him up now: it’s his highest grid spot since Australia. How’s that?”
Martin: “But you’re right, it’s his worst grid spot here for a long time, isn’t it?”
(some people are watching from Castle Nurburg)
“You’d see some ants going around.”
(there’s a giant “Go Seb” banner taking up some crowd space)
“Be awful to get a seat in the middle of that! Mr Ecclestone would call that a “listening ticket”, rather than a “watching ticket”.”
“We need to see whether Grosjean can go fast and not hit things.”
(Perez pulls off a tough move on Button, then Ted explains that was McLaren’s plan, to release Perez as the hare)
“Didn’t look like “a release” to me!”
(Massa spins)
“Well, that was really odd! He was sliding right and spun left!”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, big push now, big push.”
Martin: “Sounds like he’s having a baby!”
Tony Ross: “Nico, you are a different strategy to Lewis, so don’t hold him up.”
Martin: “That shouldn’t come as news to him! […] Nico’s thinking “Malaysia… I remember”.”
“Making that Mercedes as wide as he can. Looks like the new S-class, the way he’s driving.”
“Williams would like their 600th race to stop right now if they could. They’re 7th and 8th, Maldonado and Bottas.”
(Bianchi blows up in super-slow-motion)
“Dramatic shot you’ll see in the magazines and on the Sky F1 website.”
(comes out of replay)
“It’s now rolling down the track by itself! […] The irony of that is it’s in a safer place than it was when it decided to rejoin the race without its driver!”
“If Charlie Whiting has nightmares, that would be included.”
“Alonso back in the pack – how does he do that? He’s always there somehow.”
Crofty: “And Mark Webber has already passed Max Chilton and Charles Pic into turn one.”
Martin: “Pretty easy when you’ve got a Red Bull against a Caterham and a Marussia.”
“If you win a Grand Prix by 6 seconds, you’ve usually dominated it.”
“Three wheels on his wagon.”
“I’d be treating the back of that Sauber a bit like the rear end of a donkey.”
“This is Mark Webber trying to get past a… very weavy Gutierrez.”
Crofty: “The door just firmly shut in his face.”
Martin: “Slammed, wasn’t it?”
“I’m a big fan of Nico Hulkenberg, as people who listen to this commentary might have guessed.”
(yet again, the McLarens race each other super hard)
“That wasn’t a release, was it – again – that was a fighty fight.”
“Come on, Kimi, give us a race!”
“Turned 26 on July the 3rd. How much better can he [Vettel] get?”
Circuit PA: “In second place, from Finland, driving for Lotus F1 Team also, Kimi Raikkonen!”
Martin: “Looks thrilled(.)”
Circuit PA: “And the winner, from Germany, driving for Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Sebastian Vettel!”
Martin: “Is thrilled.”
HUNGARY
“I loved talking to the drivers on the grid. They’re all like “let me at it! Let me at it!” This is going to be great!”
“I think Romain Grosjean’s got as good a chance as anybody of winning this race.”
(Massa has front wing damage)
“I remember knocking my steering completely wonky here in ’93 and just went faster and faster!”
“All the time counts. The watch is running from those lights going out to the flag being dropped.”
(Webber, having not put a time in in Q3, is becoming a factor)
Martin: “I hope it doesn’t all play out like that too often. We’ll have a non-qualifying session in Q3 if that happens too often.”
Crofty: “Back to that old argument again!”
“Vettel between the devil and the deep blue sea now: slow down, cool the car, front wing, keep Grosjean behind him, try and pass Button – impossible to do all of that!”
“Do not leave this motor race. It’s turning into an absolute cracker!”
(Grosjean passes Massa around the outside of turn four)
“Getting ready to duck there – I thought we were going upside down if I’m honest!”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, you’ve got Webber ahead on 8-lap-old prime tyres. Alonso ahead of him, 19-lap-old prime tyres, we need to get past these guys.”
Martin: “There’s a challenge for you!”
(replay of Raikkonen going off at turn four on lap one)
“He didn’t pass anybody, did he, but he did when they tripped over each other shortly afterwards.”
(Vettel comes out of the pits just behind Ricciardo)
“Not going to hustle him too much through turn one, is he, Daniel Ricciardo(?)”
“I doubt Raikkonen’s car would pass an MOT at the end of the race.”
Martin: “So the big story now–“
Crofty: “Webber’s coming in. Sorry, Martin.”
Martin: “I just wanted to say “the big story now is when is Webber coming in?”!”
Crofty: “Haha – now!”
Martin: “Yep. You’re ahead of me on that one.”
“Raikkonen’s just done a personal best in the middle sector. Life in the old dog yet.”
“Yet again, we’ve got a Caterham parked in the middle of the action.”
Guillaume Rocquelin: “Fail 22, fail. Fail 2-2, fail.”
Simon Rennie: “Fail 22, fail. Fail 2-2, fail.”
Martin: “Now they’ve got some homework to do whilst they’re racing as well.”
BELGIUM
“We’re not expecting the Red Bulls to run away and hide.”
(remember this one for later on)
“It’s almost like the grid was randomly chosen to create a great race.”
“Whenever you turn into La Source at the start of any race at Spa, you’re grimacing, waiting for the impact, frankly.”
“That’s the first time for a long time we’ve seen Red Bull with any kind of straight line speed, and it’s paid off handsomely, hasn’t it? I was absolutely ASTOUNDED to see him [Vettel] breeze past that Mercedes [Hamilton].”
“That’s got all the hallmarks of a car whose brakes are getting too hot.”
(Martin’s crystal ball works!)
“We just don’t know at Spa, do we, what the weather’s going to do, we should just admit that and stop talking about it. You just never know what’s going to happen here.”
“So the teams that will try to one-stop, or “n minus one” as I heard it this morning…”
(Perez gets a very, very harsh penalty for squeezing out Grosjean)
“What is “a car’s width”? Is it 1.8 metres precisely, because that’s what the regulations say? Is it 1.8 metres and two lollipop sticks? What is it exactly?”
“How did he keep that on the track!? […] He had to turn left into a right-hander.”
(Sutil squeezes past Gutierrez)
Crofty: “He spied a gap and decided to go for it there.”
Martin: “He made a gap, I think, didn’t he, really, on that one? Very brave.”
Martin: “What a dream front end that thing [Lotus]’s got on it! Love to have a go in that!”
Crofty: “Was that a hint?”
Martin: “Yep!”
(a photographer starts to run up to Di Resta on a narrow path, but quickly runs away)
“He’s in a one-way street, and the man coming the other way was not about to stop.”
“I remember saying, I think it was on the grid, “we’re not expecting the Red Bulls to run and hide” – well, that’s what they’ve done so far; what one of them has done, anyway.”
“Must be lovely engineering somebody like Jenson. It’s all so calm and so easy, and he’s not complaining you’re talking too early, don’t bother me, it’s a conversation, isn’t it: “and two sugars in my tea stirred clockwise for the end!””
“Only 9 laps to go, but that’s a long way around here.”
(Vettel hits the #1 sign in parc fermé)
“He obviously didn’t respect the parking beepers.”
“Wasn’t an all-time classic race, Crofty, was it? Seb Vettel spoiled that, really, didn’t he… or the weather, the weather didn’t help us out.”
ITALY
(Alonso was forced to meet Cristiano Ronaldo as part of the pre-race preamble)
“I’m sure Alonso was sitting on the grid, mentally preparing, thinking “what I’d really love to do now is meet Ronaldo(!)””
“60% chance of rain, which of course is 40% chance of brilliant sunshine as well.”
“Somebody saying they should have pointed that [thermal imaging camera] at Luca Di Montezemelo after qualifying yesterday to see how hot he was, when Ferrari basically managed to trip over themselves.”
(the camera cuts to David Hasselhoff)
“Your mate, there(!)”
(see also: Monaco)
“He put his car into a wedge there that was always going to disappear, Maldonado.”
(Alonso with a world class overtake on Webber)
“I thought he was going to get squeezed up on the kerb and he just wouldn’t give up, look, as ever – how many times have we said that about him!?”
“For me, it was Alonso very much saying “OK, you enjoyed your moment at Spa going around me that everybody raves about at Eau Rouge – take that one!””
Martin: “People do that on the motorway, don’t they – pull over in front of you, they pass you, and then brake hard!”
Crofty: “No indicators of course in Formula One cars.”
Martin: “Or brake lights.”
Crofty: “And often no indicators on the motorway either!”
“Brake harder, you lock the tyres more – or underrotate as they like to call it – and you’re hearing straight to the scene of the accident.”
“This is going to be very much sort of like a Bridgestone style of race.”
“McLaren-Merc breezes past the Merc-Merc.”
(Vergne retires with a blown engine)
Crofty: “Felipe Massa having an engine change before the start of this race.”
[…]
Martin: “Also a Ferrari engine, of course, in the Toro Rosso. Not too much of a surprise it’s a Ferrari engine in the Ferrari, mind you, but I know what I meant.”
Fernando Alonso: “(message in Italian)“
Martin: “Italian Grand Prix, so let’s speak Italian. Looking forward to Korea(!)”
“It’s kind of exciting that Fernando Alonso’s leading the non-Red Bull/Sebastian Vettel class. We’ll have to look there for our pleasure today. Not for the first time.”
“The boxenstopp has taken place.”
“Before speed limits, we used to come in the pit lane at approaching 200mph. Lunacy. I don’t know why we did it, how we did it…”
“Nico Hulkenberg will now temporarily hate himself.”
“No flying carbon fibre there between Perez and Grosjean!”
“Unfortunately, it’s an era about who can finish 2nd.”
“Come on, boys, give us a race! Stick it up the inside, Mark!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for your patience. I think you’ll be rewarded.”
“It still feels slightly weird to see Lewis hunting down McLarens, doesn’t it?”
(the camera cuts to Vettel, having not followed him for a while)
“Oh! He’s still in the race, isn’t he(?)”
(Vettel walks out onto the podium)
“There’s the boos that you were predicting, Crofty!”
SINGAPORE
“Bit of commentary, doing the podium today, doing the post-race… I might have a beer!”
(Raikkonen has some back pain)
“The best thing I’ve ever known to kill pain is adrenalin by the bucketload.”
“It’ll be like a goat track down the pit straight of tyre rubber.”
“Fernando Alonso might be rubbish at qualifying; he is brilliant at starting!”
“I could hear tens of millions of people cheering as Nico Rosberg took the lead around the world, and tens of millions of groans when he lost it.”
“Vettel checked out by 2.2 seconds up front that time. We’ll hear Rocky on the phone in a minute saying “we don’t need to go this fast”.”
“If Vettel carries on at this speed – which he’ll probably won’t – he’ll lap the field. Now that would be something, wouldn’t it? Would that be a first? Except from those bizarre races where nobody would cross the line and finish at Monaco.”
(ed: nope – Australia 1995, where Damon Hill finished 2 laps ahead of everyone)
(onboard with Rosberg’s start)
“Nico hit the rev limiter a little bit too hard as he was waiting for the Red Bull to run into him… (he understeers off the road) Stick! Stick! Stick!”
(Vettel passes Mansell for laps led)
“He seems quite good, doesn’t he?”
“If he’s [Webber] going to join the A-team up front…”
Crofty: “The gap has actually come down a little bit to 6.8 seconds.”
Martin: “Yeah, he’s teasing now, isn’t he? He’s shown what he can do, now he’s been told off by Rocky to slow down.”
“He’s [David Beckham] got much better footwork than me […] wonder why that is(?)”
“Rosberg has been told to take an earlier apex into turn 20 […] driving school going on.”
Crofty: “And here’s interesting, Martin – Ferrari, with Massa, thinking “no, we want to be on the medium tyres for the next stint.””
Martin: “No they’re not, they’re thinking “what are we going to put on Fernando next?” […] Is that too cynical? I don’t think so.”
“I’d love to have interviewed him [Tom Jones] on the grid. What a ledge.”
(a fierce battle for 12th)
“It’s as if their lives depended on it, and their careers kind of do!”
(helicam)
Crofty: “I can see my hotel bedroom.”
Martin: “You need to fold your clothes up, Crofty, from what I saw there!”
(Tom Jones meets the Lotus mechanics)
“Tom’s going to be involved in the next pit stop by the looks of things. […] I was going to say something corny like “they’ll be throwing nicos[?] at him in a minute”, but… I won’t say that.”
(I have no idea what Martin’s on about there)
“So they’re going to let the lapped cars through, which is annoying.”
Ted: “I’ve done some– I’ve done some maths and– you– know– we’re–“
[…]
Martin: “I think Ted’s gone off to…
Crofty: “Change his batteries?”
Martin: “… be Sebastian’s PA again.”
(Safety Car in what has been a fairly dull race)
“That’s a breather we didn’t need.”
“Look at the debris! […] If you go off on that, you’re going straight to the scene of the accident.”
Martin: “That’s all we need, isn’t it, Rocky telling him [Vettel] to go faster(?)”
Crofty: “More collective groans from the sofas of the world!”
“It’s got to be the worst job in the world, front jack man.”
“Meanwhile, Adrian Sutil randomly does the fastest lap of the race down in 14th position.”
“I wouldn’t want to play poker against him [Vettel]. He just keeps pulling aces out, doesn’t he?”
“The man who never gives up, the bullfighter.”
(Alonso.)
Francesco Nenci: “You’re racing all cars behind.”
(Gutierrez then gets passed by Webber, Rosberg, and Hamilton in quick succession)
Martin: “As soon as they gave Gutierrez that message, he just fell apart!”
“Alonso is… using Alonso power.”
(to Sebastian Vettel)
“The only man who could beat you today had the slowest car on the track: the safety car.”
(the crowd starts booing Vettel)
Martin: “Please, don’t do that. That’s not correct.”
Sebastian Vettel: “They’re on a tour. They go round in a bus…”
SOUTH KOREA
“I think it’s a bit like when you’re on a long journey, you turn around and say to the kids “stop squabbling, stop fighting in the back there”.”
“He’s [Grosjean’s] slower than a slow thing down the straights.”
“You can only lose the race on the first lap, you can’t win it, but I imagine Mark Webber will pay no attention to that whatsoever.”
“[Alonso] lost [a place] to Hulkenberg, a man I believe should have been in the Ferrari.”
“Vettel just got the perfect start, didn’t he? Got the whole place to himself.”
“What exactly was Felipe doing, charging up the inside of his teammate??”
(Alonso goes over a rather large bump)
“Oof! That’ll sort your back out.”
(Alonso puts a tyre off the road at turn two)
“I don’t think that piece of grass has ever seen a Formula One tyre!”
(Alonso is stuck behind Hulkenberg)
“Sauber have announced a new deal, extended deal with Ferrari with their engines, but Ferrari will be well pleased with that at the moment(!) Holding up their main man. Well, he’s not really holding him up, is he, but having the audacity to be in front of him.”
“It’s a front limited track. In other words, it’s that right front; being an anticlockwise track, inevitably, to get back to the beginning, you’ve got to do more lefts than rights.”
(Raikkonen goes over the same bump)
“That bump nearly took him clean off the road!”
(Rosberg passes Hamilton just as Rosberg’s front wing fails, creating a huge shower of sparks)
“Lewis must have wondered what on earth was going on!”
(Perez’s tyre delaminates)
Crofty: “Martin… front limited circuit, front right tyre gets all the punishment, front right tyre fails.”
Martin: “Yep. You just answered your own point, there, Crofty!”
“Lapped cars may now overtake. Do it quick, and get out of the way!”
(the aforementioned lapped runners then take quite a while)
“Well, those four might want to stop for a cup of tea or something.”
“I’m on a plane to Tokyo tonight with Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso. Right now, that’s looking like a pretty glum trip, isn’t it?”
(Alonso was 6th, Webber 11th – and it was about to get worse…!)
“Safety car will be in at the end of this lap. That’s just me saying that, hoping somebody hears me.”
Crofty: “Safety car is in this lap. That’s not me saying it, that’s actually official now, Martin Brundle.”
Martin: “Good.”
Crofty: “Stewards have listened to you on this one.”
Martin: “No they haven’t.”
(we cut to an onboard of Webber’s car, on fire)
“That could be the final shots from that camera any time soon!”
(the drivers come across a fire truck)
Martin: “And what’s that doing on the track!?”
Crofty: “That is not the safety car…”
Martin: “The safety car’s deployed now!”
Crofty: “Is that some sort of fire marshalls’ car? Yeah, it is a fire car.”
Martin: “Yeah, but that’s gone out of its own accord! That hasn’t been sent out onto the race track! Charlie Whiting will be doing his pieces!”
(the safety car comes out of the pits, comically, just behind last place!)
Crofty: “There’s the safety car…”
Martin: (laughing) “The safety car at the back of the pack instead of the front! Somebody’s obviously decided to put a fire marshall on the track… wow!!”
Crofty: “It would be comical if it wasn’t quite so serious, quite frankly, you can’t just bring cars out onto the racetrack, whether there’s a problem that needs attending to or not, that’s got to be– well, unless it has been authorised by Charlie Whiting…”
Martin: “No chance! He would have neutralised the race first.”
“Red Bull with a lot of work to do before the Japanese Grand Prix, that’s for sure!”
“You don’t see that in your mirrors. The mirrors are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard, anyway.”
“If Mark Webber didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all, would he? […] He even gave the other clowns a full car’s width just in case!”
“I came across a breakdown truck once in Montreal, but that was back in the day, long before we had safety cars neutralising races. […] It’s not unheard of to come across vehicles on the racetrack in the middle of a Grand Prix…!”
“Bet his eyes are on stalks there, Lewis, that’s for sure.”
“Some Formula Ford tactics there from Gutierrez.”
“For how many years are we going to have to say “why won’t they put Hulkenberg in a race-winning car?” How many years are we going to have to say that?”
“I tell you what was a great race: the non-Vettel Grand Prix.”
Driver of the Day
Crofty: “Vettel wins, and survives a very tricky race for the race leader, but driver of the day, I think, goes to one of the other Germans, doesn’t it?”
Martin: “I think so too. Adrian Sutil, you mean(?)”
Crofty: “Yeah, exactly(!)”
Martin: “No, Nico Hulkenberg did a tremendous job.”
“If we gave him [Vettel] the Championship now, do you think he might not come to the last few races or something?”
Sebastian Vettel: “He was on the limit, Maylander, did you see? In the safety car, he ooohh ooh ooh (imitating oversteer) all the time!”
Romain Grosjean: “He was bloody slow, though.”
[…]
Martin: “He did have the SLS Merc leaning over fairly well, didn’t he? Shows you how fast these cars are: they’re ticking over in second gear, and a car that would frighten the living daylights out of you on the road is on his haunches with its mirrors scratching the ground.”
“Bernie Ecclestone wants random sprinklers. We nearly had that, we got a random fire truck!”
Martin: “A drive, I think, that confirms they’ll be very keen to keep him at Lotus next year.”
Crofty: “Absolutely.”
Martin: “Grosjean, I mean. Bit too late for Raikkonen.”
“You must get “Red Bull neck” working for that team, like, a crook in the next, you’re always looking up at the podium, aren’t you?”
“[Raikkonen’s] eighth podium this year […] it’s why he looks so happy(.)”
“I enjoyed the race overall. Plenty of things going on. Some brilliant driving too. Some pretty crass driving in places.”
Crofty: “… the driver interviews, which, today, conducted by our very own Johnny Herbert. In fact, our commentary box is right opposite the podium, Martin, so I assume he’s still in make-up, I can’t quite see him round the back.”
Martin: “Shall we make faces at him?
(the microphone-holding girls come out)
Martin: “Is that him in the white short skirt?”
JAPAN
“It always looks like a target sight, doesn’t it, on the visors of those Schuberts?”
(Schubert = Ferrari/Alonso’s helmet manufacturer)
“Is he [Vettel] carrying a bit of damage, because normally we see him going out front and building a gap that just breaks everybody’s heart, and spirit.”
“He’ll [Vettel] bolt like a rabbit when he gets a chance.”
Rob Smedley: “Multifunction strategy A. Multifunction strategy A. Now, please.”
Martin: “Let’s hope that’s not the call to move over!”
(wrong)
“Let’s wait and see what happens when they let the Red Bulls go, when they let them off their leash.”
“Get in the pit lane, and get a service.”
“Button was doing the fandango lap times, wasn’t he?”
(Vettel finally – finally – pits)
“It seems a day late and dollar short.”
(Rosberg is unsafely released into Perez)
“Everybody did a great job of avoiding that, not least the [Lotus] mechanics and Cheek-o Perez.”
“I think Hulkenberg had both rear ends twitching there as he nearly lost it in the middle of Spoon.”
(takes a minute for that joke…)
“Alonso did a rubbish job in qualifying, but you somehow knew he’d be ahead of Massa sooner or later, didn’t you?”
“Massa will be slow out of Spoon because he had to take a very tight angle on the way in, which gives Gutierrez his chance if he keeps his head… which he hasn’t.”
(Perez vs Gutierrez)
“That’s got trouble written all over it.”
“What a lap for Gutierrez – he goes and pulls a Kobayashi at the hairpin, and then gets it all horribly wrong!”
Martin: “I spoke to a team boss this morning who’s not altogether convinced by Hulkenberg…”
Crofty: “Really?”
Martin: “… which I don’t fully get. I believe Hulkenberg has signed for a team next year – I can’t say who – and they’re just waiting to tidy up a couple of things but I think it’s pretty much decided what he would like to do, but I’m a bit surprised at one or two other things.”
Crofty: “If I just write on a piece of paper, you can put your thumb up in the commentary box, but I think I know.”
Martin: “I was told in the strictest confidence…”
Crofty: “All right then.”
Martin: “That’s why you get told these things, ’cause you don’t give them away!”
Crofty: “I’ll get you in a headlock later!”
[…]
Ted: “Martin, on a completely unrelated [note], how do you think Hulkenberg would look in a black and gold fire suit?”
(pregnant pause)
Ted: “Yeah, no, I thought I wasn’t going to get an answer from that.”
“This reminds me a little bit of my first ever sports car race where I beat the Porsches into the first corner, the dominant Porsches, in the Jaguar, and they let me have 10 laps leading and enjoying myself and then they just turned it up and creamed me down the back straight, basically, and I followed them home and finished third.”
(the crystal ball works again!)
“Isn’t it nice they’ve [Red Bull] got somebody to hunt?”
“Have we ever seen Sebastian Vettel make so many mistakes in one race in recent times?”
(Massa gets a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane)
“Always seems a paradox when you get penalised for speeding in a Formula One car, doesn’t it?”
Sebastian Vettel: “Ichiban!”
[…]
Martin: “You can get cream for that, I think.”
Driver of the day
“Grosjean‘s my driver of the day.”
INDIA
“Jenson Button, he needs to follow zebedee.”
Crofty: “Is it right to go long at the start; is it right to get the worst tyre out of the way quickly?
Martin: “Well, people a lot cleverer than us, Crofty, don’t know the answer to that, and that’s why we’re watching!”
“With regard to tyre choice from 11th backwards, the computer says “work it out for yourself!””
“[Turn] 7 – the one they all get wrong.”
(Massa leads)
“Felipe Massa’s looking for a job next year and he’s got the biggest advert on the post office wall, hasn’t he?”
“Three into two doesn’t go.”
“Not sure Alonso’s had a decent start since he did the masterclass with us on “how to do a decent start”!”
“It’s all over the show, isn’t it, on the strategy? All over the show!”
“Thank you Pirelli: bring this a bit more often, I like it when there’s a huge gap between the tyres. It makes qualifying more interesting, it makes the race more interesting.”
“It was a clear jump start for Gutierrez. It was the worst kind of jump start, he then brought the car to a halt, so it was like a double whammy, unfortunately.”
“Vettel doesn’t tend to bother with issues like that, does he? He just ignores them.”
“There’s no point in you losing 2 or 3 seconds fighting the wrong person [… but] you’re not going to jump out the way and say “after you, Claude”.”
(Alonso, wearing a “1571” helmet, passes Gutierrez)
“Come in, 1571, your time is up. And through he goes.”
(then Gutierrez re-passes him)
“I think there’ll have been some colourful Spanish words as Gutierrez breezed back past.”
(then Alonso goes through again)
“Alonso says “I’m fed up with this; I’m coming through, whatever you do.””
“You’ve got to leave a car’s width, which is 1.8 metres, and that was 1.81 metres, by the looks of it, wasn’t it?”
(Rosberg with a huge lunge on Massa)
“That was bold from Nico Rosberg. I imagine his eyes were on stalks when he got there, because it didn’t look like it was going to slow down!”
Crofty: “Did Hulkenberg gain a place there by going off the track and exceeding the limits?”
Martin: “Yes…! But he’s saying he ran wide, which he did because he locked his brakes, “and I had no option”: his option was, of course, to lift off and let him back through.”
“We’ve already seen one banzai move from Rosberg at the end of the straight.”
Crofty: “Perez squeezes through the gap, and just like my taxi driver did last night, on the way back to the hotel, finds he can overtake a car and there’s plenty of room either side(!)”
Martin: “Yes – crazy out there, isn’t it, the road system here is utterly crazy. You just look out the window in disbelief and a great amount of fear normally.”
Crofty: “I think he was just taking advantage, Martin, that for once there wasn’t a car coming the other way on the wrong side of the road!”
Martin: “Their roundabout technique’s impressive, isn’t it: lob it in and see what happens when you get there!”
“I want to see a shot of a million quid’s worth of F1 car on the back of the… value pick-up trucks they have there.”
(Vettel is told to stop using the drinks bottle)
“I used to forget to drink the stuff. It tasted horrible anyway: warm energy drink. Or warm water.”
“Alternators can break down on the first lap, the 30th lap, or the 59th lap. It’s not over until it’s over.”
(Webber retired earlier with alternator failure and Vettel is getting some stern messages to coast from Red Bull)
“Apparently they said onto the radio onto Kimi “get out of the bleeping way”, and Kimi replied “don’t shout”, basically! “I know what I’m doing”, I guess, was coming after that, but I don’t think he did know what he was doing there.”
(Raikkonen pits with 2 laps to go)
“I think they’re a day late and several dollars short on that one.”
Ayao Komatsu: “OK Romain, you are doing an excellent job, you need to short-shift as much as you can, you need to short-shift as much as you can.”
Martin: “Not much good news out there today…!”
(Vettel does doughnuts and parks on the pit straight)
“I wonder how much that’ll cost him in fines, but it’s probably worth it. […] They’ll probably dock him 50 points as well(!) […] I don’t think that’s parc fermé, Seb, but it’s good fun. […] Even his doughnuts are good.”
(Vettel tries to climb a very high catch fence)
“You’ll not get over there, mate.”
(he then throws his glove, and still doesn’t get it over the barrier)
“Neither will his gloves.”
“Bit of showboating. Nothing wrong with it at all!”
(Horner, Newey, and Vettel embrace in parc fermé)
“Most valuable man in Formula One standing there. And he doesn’t have blond hair.”
“In hot rod racing you used to have to have the world champion starting at the back. You probably still do. And I think we probably should start that crusade.”
“Bit of magic dust in his car somewhere.”
ABU DHABI
“I’m not quite sure what a “half burnout” consists of.”
“Let’s hope he [Webber] can get that Bull charging into the first corner.”
(groan)
“He [Raikkonen] drove into a wedge that was always going to disappear.”
(Button pits for a new front wing)
Ted: “Bad news is: he’s currently last.”
[…]
Martin: “Let’s call it “21st-having-already-got-a-tyre-stop-out-of-the-way”. “Last” just seems a bit cruel. Sorry, Ted.”
“You have to squeeze the throttle like there’s an egg underneath it you don’t want to break.”
“It’s good to see Gutierrez not darting all over the road as he’s had a tendency to do.”
(Martin makes the argument for why Raikkonen should have started from the pit lane)
“He’d be on the back of them by the time he got down to turn seven instead of in the back of them in turn one.”
“So he’s got to make the pass now or they’re telling Lewis Hamilton to drop back and save tyres. It’s like telling David Beckham not to kick a ball, isn’t it?”
“Gutierrez’s car is oversteering like an airport trolley.”
“They’re on the kinky straight now – look, it just loses a lane as you get down the far end, slightly bizarre. Even more bizarre at night.”
“He [Vettel] could afford to do some doughnuts here at Turn 13 and still it won’t affect his race, frankly.”
“He’s [Vettel] going faster, but using his tyres less [than Webber]! It doesn’t seem possible!”
(Gutierrez defends Hamilton aggressively)
“What did I say about the darting around? There it was!”
“He was a day late and a dollar short on that defensive move.”
Martin: “He’s [Vettel] in class A, isn’t he, and the rest are in class B.”
Crofty: “He’s just a class of his own, quite frankly.”
(Perez vs Alonso)
“Alonso there, seeing a bit of the Mexican wave.”
(groan)
“You almost feel like you’re on a cushion of air if you get too close [to the car in front].”
(Ted reports that Pic is ignoring team orders)
“I hope Pic’s response wasn’t “I’m richer than you”.”
“Brilliant! They should have fired Massa at the beginning of each season, because ever since they did that, he’s taken off, and then rehired him at the end! […] This is brilliant driving. Your senses are in hyper mode.”
“In years gone by – some years ago – Lewis would have had an accident there.”
Martin: “… as the Hoff. He’s been on telly before, hasn’t he(?)”
Crofty: “Once. Or thrice… million.”
[…]
Martin: “The cool thing to do is pretend you haven’t noticed you’re on telly.”
Crofty: “Sutil comes back out onto the track ahead of Perez and ahead of Maldonado. Now did he gain an advantage there, Martin, by leaving the track?”
Martin: “It begins with Y, doesn’t it, the answer to that, surely?”
Crofty: “It’s another lights to flag victory on the cards for Sebastian Vettel.”
Martin: “That’s got all the hallmarks of commentator’s curse, that one!”
Martin: “I’d guess about 30.6 seconds [gap] from the looks of that(!)”
Crofty: “You’re probably right, actually, yeah…”
Guillaume Rocquelin: “Balance is stable, as you can feel in the car, but you are still wearing the tyres. Tyres are still wearing.”
Martin: “Scandalous(!)”
“Massa always looks like he’s a touch too low in the car, peeping out over the top of it.”
(Alonso comes up behind Massa)
“I imagine if they get on the radio to Massa, he’s going to ask for it to be in Portuguese or something.”
“At the risk of sounding like his manager, which I’m not… they’ve got to get Hulkenberg into one of these… a car of this calibre. They’ve got to.”
(Hamilton with a huge lockup)
“That’ll rattle the fillings out of his teeth for the rest of the race… don’t know if he’s got any fillings in his teeth, but if he has, they’ll rattle.”
“Grosjean does a new fastest lap of the race, which I’m sure the team will not tell Sebastian Vettel.”
(final lap)
Martin: “If he [Vettel] does his doughnuts now he won’t get a penalty.”
Crofty: “He might get investigated, though, by the stewards, for exceeding the track limits.”
(on the podium)
Martin: “They’re going to charge you rent on this top step soon!”
Sebastian Vettel: “Yeah, I don’t mind… I also did some doughnuts…”
Martin: “You are a naughty boy! That’s going to cost someone some money!”
(Vettel talks about the support of his father)
“I’m going to need my handkerchief soon.”
Martin: “Show me how you use your foot! You’re so gentle with these tyres! What’s the secret, champ?”
Sebastian Vettel: “I don’t know if there’s a secret… I’ve got traction control(!) At least, that’s what they said three/four races ago…”
“Sebastian Vettel is getting the hang of it, it seems.”
UNITED STATES
“Chance of rain is 0%, unsurprisingly. Chance of getting heavily sunburnt out there: 100%.”
“Mercedes don’t care if they’re 19th and 20th, provided Ferrari are 21st and 22nd.”
(onboard with Bottas with the rotating camera)
“Great camera angle – or many angles. […] Ooh, I don’t like it when the camera turns, I think we’re heading off for an accident at that point!”
“You win together, you lose together. If you’ve got a problem, you slam a door and go and shout and jump and scream. You don’t come out and say “my men sabotaged my car”!”
(Maldonado accused Williams of sabotage after qualifying)
“40% of the crowd are from Mexico – which is in North America, as people remind me – and other South American countries.”
(facepalm)
“I can’t keep up with which girlfriend is with which driver.”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, we do need to manage these tyres, we’ve still got some laps to do on them.”
Lewis Hamilton: “That’s what I’m doing, man. Let me focus.”
Ted: “Ho ho, I love that – does every radio message and reply to Lewis end with “man”? And “stop bothering me”?”
Martin: “It’s grumpy driver week, Ted, isn’t it!?”
“Hamilton was Hamilton-ed there, wasn’t he?”
“He [Hamilton] hates having to manage the tyres like this. He just wants to get up in the morning, drive flat out all day, and go out to dinner.”
“Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself.”
(Vettel flying out front, again)
“Good job they’re changing these cars for next year, isn’t it?”
“Sounds like a practice engine failure in a helicopter, without the excitement though.”
“It’s a wonder he [Vettel] didn’t do a doughnut at the hairpin and just have a look down the track – “come on guys, where are you? Bring it on, give me a race!””
“Rosberg must have looked a bit of an ant in his [Ricciardo’s] mirrors at one point.”
Martin: “Bottas pits. Sorry if you’ve just said that. Did you say that?”
Crofty: “I did.”
Martin: “Well. I missed it. I was reading something else. We’ve double confirmed. And now there’s a third one, look – he leaves the pits!”
(Webber has a 2.3-second stop)
“He pulled away and I’m looking to see if he’s got any tyres!”
Lewis Hamilton: “OK, you need to give me some feedback, man. About my tyres, temperatures. Do I need to push more? Less?”
[…]
Martin: “His poor old engineer must be like “what have I got to do today!?””
“There’s too many drivers, but not enough seats.”
“He’ll need to treat Gutierrez like the rear legs of a donkey.”
“Raikkonen will be pleased to have dropped down to fourth [in the Championship]. It means he doesn’t have to go to the prizegiving, the FIA prizegiving. He hates that.”
“Mark Webber’s yo-yoing around behind Grosjean, just sort of pleasing himself, really. […] Now Webber’s done the fastest first sector. He’s just sort of having fun, really, isn’t he?”
“I don’t recall seeing so many banzai, long-way-out overtakes in one race.”
“Rocky’s told him [Vettel] so many times his tyres are going to explode and he’ll go upside down and cartwheel into the lake, or something…”
“He’s all over him like a rash.”
“I think the incredible Hulk thought he’d got that one done, actually, but never underestimate Fernando Alonso, even if he hasn’t got rear tyres worth too much. Wouldn’t pass an MOT, I would imagine.”
(2 in 1!)
Crofty: “Tried desperately hard to get past Jean-Eric Vergne.”
Martin: “Tried to get through him, I think, didn’t he?”
“We are witnessing something very special in sport.”
“Vettel was playing with him like a cat with a ball of wool.”
Crofty: “We press the reset button in Formula One. Brand new rules and regulations and we’ll start all over again [in 2014].”
Martin: “From what I hear, we’ll press the detonation button in the first part of next season!”
BRAZIL
“A stampede at 800 metres altitude. 7% less air for them.”
“Mercedes looking vulnerable in any decent straight line. Luckily for them, there’s not too many around this race track.”
(Massa passes three cars off the grid)
“Like a PlayStation game!”
“The first thing I wanted to know when Alonso passed Rosberg was “will he catch Vettel?””
“Is that really a man retiring? Three stunning moves already in the Grand Prix! I think he’s almost thrown caution to the wind, it’s like “I am just going to enjoy this, I’m going to do what I want and you’d better get out of my way, or run into me!””
(Grosjean, impressively, sprints back to the pits)
“Should be fit enough, shouldn’t he? Needs to burn off some of that energy drink.”
(Webber doesn’t use his KERS)
“I wonder if he’s even got KERS on that car sometimes! Never seems to be working.”
“I’m enjoying this. We should just give up practice, and have a qualifying session and not let them have any time to set them up, this is brilliant!”
“”Take that, Flavio Briatore” is what Kovalainen was saying there. Flavio was pretty vociferous about what a mistake Lotus had made, putting him in the car.”
“That helps Vettel a little bit. Like he needs it(!)”
“I can only assume they write on their plan “annihilate the competition”. What else are they going to write?”
(Webber has a slow pit stop, Vettel has a good one)
“Please don’t tweet in that they did that on purpose.”
“We’ve already seen Mark with three wheels on his wagon this year.”
“I think the Porsche Sports Car team are enjoying this.”
(Webber’s destination for 2014)
(Massa gets a drive-through)
“I’m pleased he’s not leading the race in the Ferrari, we’d have a riot on our hands with the crowd, I think, when they see their man coasting through the pit lane.”
“It’s not the first time they’ve [Massa’s family] had disbelief here, is it?”
(Sutil unlaps himself)
“Weird. I mean, presumably, if he [Vettel] picks up pace, Sutil will be getting the blue flag to let him back through again!”
Martin: “You took the words out of my mouth: is Vettel starting to think of an early Christmas present for Mark Webber?”
Crofty: “He wouldn’t, would he?”
Martin: “I don’t think he’d give him the time of day, let alone a victory!”
Lewis Hamilton: “Can you give me an update?”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, I’m afraid we’ve got a drive-through. We’ve got a drive-through for causing a collision. So we want to get it out the way as soon as possible just in case any rain comes.”
Martin: “That’s not the update he was looking for!”
“Somebody told me “categorically” it’s him [Perez] and Hulkenberg at Force India. We’ll see how “categorical” that was in the coming days.”
“I’ve driven them all. Four-cylinder turbos, V6s turbos, V8 normally aspirated, V10s… we’ve had them all. And they all sound pretty good, because they pump out a lot of power. […] V12 Yamaha! Forgot about that as well, drove a V12. Felt like a boat anchor behind me, but it sounded very nice…”
“The rain’s going to have to hurry up, isn’t it?”
(Pic’s car starts rolling down the hill, prompting Martin to talk about Bianchi in Germany)
“From the S near the end of the lap, it [Bianchi in Germany] made its way back on, wanted to take part again!”
(Maldonado and Vergne collide)
“That was heading for tears, wasn’t it?”
(Maldonado baulks Rosberg)
“And he gets out of the way… doesn’t he? Nearly?”
“Went very well for them after that test that they did, didn’t it? Mercedes started that trend, Red Bull claimed their chance of a test, and they’ve barely lost a race since.”
“It’s going to rain just in time for all the boys and girls to do the packaway for the final time this season.”
Fernando Alonso: “Ho il giro veloce?”
Andrea Stella: “Controllerò, Fernando. I don’t know at the moment. Due giri alla fine, due giri alla fine.”
Martin: “I thought he said “what are we doing tonight?”… but probably not…”
(Alonso was asking about the fastest lap)
(on the run to the line)
“This is his chance to slow down if he wants to let Webber win(!)”
(Webber takes off his helmet on the slowdown lap)
Martin: “There’ll be a fine, probably, and he doesn’t give a monkeys.”
Crofty: “What are they going to do, give him a reprimand(?)”
Martin: “Yes… 10-place grid penalty for Melbourne(!)”
(Vettel does doughnuts)
“He can keep going until that engine melts, can’t he? Doesn’t need that one any more. It’s a coffee table after that.”
(Webber and Vettel embrace in parc fermé)
“”Good job”, he said. That’s probably added 25% of the words they’ve spoken of late.”
“Driver of the day? Button, I’d say.”
Martin: “Now we head to the calamity of what will be the early stages of 2014, David, enjoyed working with you again this year.”
Crofty: “Oh, it’s been fabulous, mate.”
Martin: “We’ve had some fun?”
Crofty: “I get the feeling we’ve got our work cut out, revising and swatting up for next year. Shall we have an early season meeting?”
Martin: “Yes, it’s going to need it, isn’t it?”
(Renault are planning a big engine revving party)
“I hate it when they blow those engines up. It’s just… you don’t give pain to an engine. You love engines. I walk away – I don’t walk towards them, you don’t know which bits of conrod and piston are coming your way!”
(Webber falls over on the podium)
Crofty: “Oh, and he falls over! He’s down! Kind of half-styled it out, Mark.”
Martin: “And he’s out now, of course…”
Crofty: “I think he’ll probably eat well tonight, as well. He doesn’t have to lose so much weight for next year.”
Martin: “He’ll still need to be skinny for a sports car drive, up against the likes of Anthony Davidson!”
Crofty: “Good job they’re not in the same team…!”
Martin: “… and Allan McNish…”
Crofty: “How could they share a seat…(?)”
Martin: “He probably weighs as much as them put together!”
“The year of the Vettel.”