(Please note – all quotes from 2012-17 are from races only.)
AUSTRALIA
(Martin takes over 4 minutes to speak due to an errant microphone)
“I’m here, Crofty. My KERS failed me. Sorry.”
“I don’t imagine you’ll be push-starting these in a hurry.”
(Magnussen spins the rears up off the start, and veers hard left)
“Woah! Well held!”
“I don’t think he [Kobayashi] adjusted his brain properly there.”
(Sutil and Maldonado do not pit under the safety car)
“Maldonado must think “it’s a race track! I’ll stay on this and have a look around!””
(the Lotus reliability in pre-season was awful!)
“There are corners here this year that we didn’t know about last year, where the car was just glued to the track like a Scalextric car.”
(Bottas recovers through the field after having hit the wall)
Crofty: “He’s been drinking the go-faster juice, this morning, hasn’t he?”
Martin: “Yeah, a little bit too much of it, unfortunately, in turn 10.”
Simon Rennie: “OK, you do not need to save fuel. Hit the beeps. You do not need to save fuel.”
Crofty & Martin: (together) “That’s what we want to hear!”
“Whatever car you give Hulkenberg – Williams, Sauber, Force India, give him another Force India a bit later on – he turns up at the front, doesn’t he? Have I said that before(?)”
“Quiet weekend from Perez, so far, hasn’t it been? Haven’t really noticed he’s been here, actually.”
(Hulkenberg with a huge lock-up)
“That will have woken him up a bit!”
“I didn’t want to cut your legs off, Ted.”
“There’s more [cars] running than I feared at this stage, that’s for sure.”
(Crofty praises Ricciardo)
“Don’t give him the commentator’s curse, Crofty!”
“You’re not going to get your elbows out too well against Fernando Alonso.”
(Rosberg pits)
“They’ve got enough time to give that a wash and leather when it’s in.”
“Does he [Magnussen] really like to be called “Kev”?”
(remember this one!)
Andrea Stella: “OK Fernando, no threat from behind anyhow. We stay focused. Here is, like I said, a battle of reliability as well. So we look after everything and we see what happens.”
[…]
Martin: “The next step from that radio conversation is to whisper, isn’t it? It was so relaxed!”
Crofty: “McLaren, [if it] stays this way, would top the Constructors’ Championship at the end of this race.”
Martin: “As we confidently predicted(!)”
(playground singing) “I’m coming to get youuuu!”
Andrea Stella: “Fernando, you are being eight tenths quicker than the three cars in front of you. “Rich-ardo” [sic] , I think, is slowing down everybody so he may be struggling. “Rich-ardo” [sic] is ten seconds in front of you now.”
Martin: “We’ve checked with Daniel “Rick-ardo”, and said “there’s an I in your name, mate”, he goes “nope. It’s “Rick-ardo”. I’d get beaten up at school if I’d been called “Rich-ee-ardo””.
“With talent like this, Grand Prix racing has a great future, and it’s not just about rich kids.”
“15 runners. That’s about five more than I was expecting at this stage.”
“These tyres have hung on well, haven’t they? I think they could do two races on these, let alone two stints.”
“I hope he [Rosberg] keeps that black helmet. It’s much easier to spot him from Lewis.”
“Where did all go wrong, Nico, eh(?) Those beautiful girls cheering you, his fat race win bonus, leading the world championship…”
Crofty: “Super Kev, as I’m sure he’ll [Magnussen] now want to be called.”
Martin: “King Kev?”
(the trophies are replicas of Sir Jack Brabham’s steering wheel)
“I don’t know where Sir Jack would find G3 and G6 on that!”
“Looks like his mum’s sort of sent him out to play for the afternoon, doesn’t it? He [Magnussen] looks so young!”
MALAYSIA
(Raikkonen has a puncture)
“It’s only flat at the bottom.”
(Martin goes on a rant about backmarkers on the first lap)
“There’s just no excuses for crashing those!”
“Kimi was quite lucky in that it’s rolled off like a polo mint.”
(“fuel used” graphic)
“Red Bull will probably tell you it’s not accurate, though!”
(Ericsson defends heavily against Vergne)
“It’s great when the GP2 drivers step up to F1, because they’ve just got this… desperation mentality!”
Pete Bonnington: “We’re going to look after this engine. We’re just going to turn it down a little bit. It’ll be HPP 2, to position two. That’s for both cars.”
[…]
Martin: “You’d love that kind of service when you rang up about your mobile phone playing up or something, wouldn’t you, to have that kind of clarity, and to answer your next question before you ask it!”
(Grosjean decides not to pass Kobayashi before the DRS line)
“He applied brain, didn’t he? Now he can apply DRS.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “It’s raining a little bit on the back of the circuit.”
Martin: “Thanks for that, Kimi…!”
Sebastian Vettel: “Rosberg seems to lose either oil or water for the last couple of laps already.”
Martin: “Smells blood, doesn’t he? […] Car blood.”
“Double retirement within a lap or so: only thing worse than that is when they run into each other.”
(Ricciardo is released minus his left front tyre)
“I think that famous smile is going to disappear for a while.”
(then Ricciardo gets a penalty for an unsafe release)
“He’s going to be radioing in saying “is this April 1st already? You are kidding me…””
“Felipe Massa, Jenson Button, two wise old heads. They’re not really old, are they, they’re just… older.”
Martin: “He’s good, Hulkenberg, isn’t he? Have I mentioned that before(?) Two or three years.”
Crofty: “I vaguely recall once… look, 7 laps from the end of every race, should we say “he’s not bad, that Hulkenberg”?”
“Always look at those two and remember them bouncing in the McLaren motorhome when they were about 13 years old, Hamilton, Rosberg, when they were teammates karting and… they were so confident, so… up, were those two kids were [sic], they knew where they were heading. And here they are.”
(Niki Lauda is on the phone)
Crofty: “Is he on the phone to Stuttgart?”
Martin: “Getting his flight slot!”
BAHRAIN
“Those two [Alonso and Hulkenberg] just seem to be tied together with a piece of string for 8 or 9 races now, including last year.”
“Perez locks his right front brake in sympathy. […] Jenson would be smelling some tortured Pirelli there.”
(Hulkenberg eases past Alonso down the straight)
Fernando Alonso: “We don’t have the power to keep him behind.”
Martin: “I don’t know any Spanish swear words but I’d imagine there were a few taking place there when the Force India breezed past him.”
“There’s some speed in that Lotus, if they can ever get it running properly. It looks a half-tidy car– well, it looks ugly as sin at the front.”
(Button passes Bottas)
“Hot knife through butter.”
“Ferrari were a day late and a dollar short on that one.”
Sebastian Vettel: “My DRS is not working any more.”
Martin: “It never rains, but it pours.”
(Rosberg gets carved up by Hamilton)
Nico Rosberg: “Warn him, that was not on!”
Crofty: “Doesn’t sound too happy, does he?”
Martin: “Well, he wasn’t going to put his hand up and say “well done”, was he?”
“The Ferrari’s just getting absolutely mugged by the Force Indias in all directions.”
“If Luca Di Montezemelo hasn’t already gone home, he’ll be heading out the back of the paddock now.”
“How many Force Indias have just breezed past a Ferrari tonight?”
“A car that’s got its legs splayed out like Bambi.”
(Gutierrez gets flipped by Maldonado)
Esteban Gutierrez: “Woah! What was that?”
Martin: “It’s a Maldonado!”
“Magnussen’s out. So is Gutierrez, unsurprisingly.”
“What a finish this is going to be!”
Paddy Lowe: “Lewis, it’s Paddy. Ten laps left to race, can we just make sure we bring both cars home.”
[…]
Martin: “I’d imagine that got filed under “B” for “bin”.”
“No quarter given; quarter was asked, by Paddy Lowe!”
(one for the tortured metaphor collection)
“That’s as good a race as we’ve had for a very, very long time.”
“Amazingly, even Alonso had his arm in the air as he came over the line – he finished 9th!!”
CHINA
Crofty: “This is a circuit that destroys the Pirelli tyres.”
Martin: “Destroys most tyres, actually.”
(Christian Horner and Ron Dennis are talking on the grid)
“Christian must have been watching Sky F1 where Ron said “he knows my number, he knows where I am, tell him to come and find me, and let’s sort this out!””
“Ron Dennis said to him [Magnussen] “drop the clutch, drive round everybody, and win the race”. So it’s a very simple instruction there.”
“[Maldonado] hasn’t tripped over anybody, which is good news for him. And everybody else.”
“I was talking to Jenson, I said “I’m doing the podium today but I doubt I’m going to see you up there, am I?” and he went… somewhere between bob hope and no hope, I think he thought.”
“Alonso just switches his brain on before anybody else does.”
“Absolutely zero hesitation, it was like a little fly, wasn’t it, he just batted it away and carried on!”
“Not exactly the Bahrain Grand Prix, is it, at the moment?”
“They were last and last-but-one [in the speed traps] in Qualifying, they could barely get out of their own way down the straights.”
“His [Hamilton’s] least favourite pit lane anywhere in the world.”
“We’ve mentioned it a couple of times up here in the commentary box over the last few years – maybe 25 times – but Hulkenberg seems pretty handy, doesn’t he?”
(the two Red Bulls)
“Will we be hearing “multi 45″? They’re squabbling over 4th and 5th at the moment.”
(more like multi 31!)
Guillaume Rocquelin: “Sebastian stay out, it helps us, please stay out. We are aware.”
Martin: “What a difference a year makes.”
Crofty: “Can Ricciardo overhaul Fernando Alonso and bag his first podium in Formula One?”
[…]
Martin: “Bag his first podium he might keep, anyway.”
[…]
Crofty: “It’s a bit like you in that season you raced, but then didn’t!”
Martin: “Yes… I didn’t exist! Except for a few broken bones…!”
Lewis Hamilton: “I just got the chequered flag!”
[…]
Crofty: “They need to bring back the man that used to stand by the side of the track and wave it with a wonderful flourish!”
Martin: “I saw them doing that in a GT race at Monza last weekend – it looked utterly dangerous!”
(because Hamilton was shown the flag one lap early, the final two laps did not count)
SPAIN
“It’s never won until you see that funny little piece of cloth with black and white squares on it.”
“Great start, but he’s [Magnussen] now on the grass; there ain’t an awful lot of grip on the green bits.”
(Maldonado barges past Ericsson)
“1.8 metres wide, and they stay the same width all the way around the track, and that wasn’t a 1.8-metre gap.”
“He got a little bit squirrely coming out of T15 – the mickey mouse chicane.”
“We should take more grip off these cars, which will make me about as popular as a toothache with these drivers.”
“I always imagine, when they have their factory debriefs on a Monday, “just before we start, let’s have two minutes laughing at how the commentators tried to interpret our plans, our magic paddles, and all the other things, just a little giggle…” but anyway, we’ll guess our best!”
“Alonso will be chewing.”
“I’m even getting used to the ugly noses.”
(Raikkonen battles Grosjean)
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“Grosjean must have been thinking “where did he come from?” He arrived like a typhoon!”
Lewis Hamilton: “My rear end’s everywhere.”
[…]
Martin: “Immodium’s good for that.”
“Plenty of marbles out there on the pit straight again. It’s looking a bit like a goat track.”
(Perez can’t decide whether to use mediums or hards at the next stop)
“Unfortunately, you can’t try half and half […] because if you could, you would, definitely!”
“This is Sebastian Vettel, “I have nothing to lose” – I know exactly that feeling – “I have nothing to lose, so I’m just going for it, you decide if you’re going to turn in.””
“It does seem as though Lewis got out of bed the wrong side this morning.”
“When he [Hamilton] sees the silver nose [of Rosberg] in his mirrors I’m not sure they’ll need a radio to hear him, to be honest.”
“It’s easier to be the hunter than the hunted.”
(Alonso gets undercut by Vettel)
“I’m happy it’s Natalie Pinkham interviewing Fernando Alonso at the end of the race… oh dear!”
Crofty: “We really wanted to see this. When this was announced last year, Martin, Raikkonen and Alonso at Ferrari, we wanted to see this sort of battle!”
Martin: “Not for 6th and 7th, really, but we’ll take it for now!”
“Hey, this is exciting!”
Niki Lauda: “All the bullshit people talk about sometimes…”
[…]
Martin: “I didn’t see too much bull waste material there.”
(the Mercedes drivers are fairly quiet in the cooldown room)
“Happy families(.)”
(Ricciardo takes 3rd)
Martin: “You declared that’s one he’s going to keep, but I hope you’re right, Crofty, it’s got to go through parc fermé yet!
Crofty: “I’m not as suspicious as you!”
“Lewis’s happy juices have just started to flow a little bit.”
Martin: “Driver of the Day: What do we think? Sebastian Vettel?”
Crofty: “Yeah.”
Martin: “Coming through from 15th to 4th with some mega, mega overtakes into T10.”
MONACO
(Vettel has a car problem)
“Sounds like a bag of nails, doesn’t it?”
“That horrible helmet colours there of Seb Vettel. I wish they wouldn’t keep changing helmet colours; it’s their signature, it’s their trademark, it’s everything they stand for, especially now they’re buried further and further inside the car.”
Martin: “They’ll put the trolley underneath that so they can spin it through 90 degrees, put it in the garage, or they might just… push it in the harbour.”
Crofty: “I think Seb’ll want to help do that as well!”
“It’s not a track designed for DRS, is it?”
Crofty: “Did I hear that he had a touch of indigestion this morning as well, Kimi Raikkonen, I think missed the track parade as a result of it?”
Martin: “I’d rather not think about it, to be honest.”
“A Formula One car’s hardly a London taxi when it comes to turning.”
“He [Sutil] tentatively went into it thinking “oh, he’ll probably going to close the door… oh, no he hasn’t, so I’ll just carry on then”.”
“You try and hit that orange barrier on the inside, knowing you’ll slide past it.”
(Rosberg locks up, after doing the same thing in qualifying which caused yellow flags and thus retaining pole position)
“It’s quite hard braking into Mirabeau in that car, isn’t it(?)”
“Being in the pit stop window doesn’t necessarily mean you have to jump through the window.”
(super slo-mo)
“I was looking at the front wing: it looks like a jumbo jet in turbulent weather.”
“They may elect to let lapped cars through, which annoys me. […] It’s about going racing, not going waiting.”
“Mr Honest-It-Wasn’t-Me-Guv in front of Mr Very Unhappy.”
“The wheels have come off his race – literally with that extra pit stop.”
“Kobayashi’s car looks like the steering wheel is connected to the rear wheels rather than the front at the moment, such is his lack of rear end grip.”
(comparing Mercedes 2014 to McLaren 1988)
“It was partly my fault in ’88 they [McLaren] didn’t win every race, actually, because I drove for them in Spa; I drove for Williams in Spa because Nigel Mansell wasn’t feeling well, then my contract in sports cars stopped me from driving for them in Monza, and of course, Jean-Louis Schlesser drove in Monza, and managed to crash into Ayrton Senna, didn’t he, and stopped McLaren winning every race!”
Martin: “You can smell Vergne’s car up in the commentary box…!”
[…]
Crofty: “I thought that was your new aftershave, to be honest.”
Martin: “Yeah… “Eau de engine oil”!”
“I can well see Lewis declaring war after this if he finishes 2nd.”
“He’s [Alonso] 16.5 seconds behind Ricciardo and 51 clear of Hulkenberg and I think he’s getting a bit bored in there, he’s got nobody to play with!”
“Ooh, we’re going to have some discussion this week about that pole lap!”
(as Hamilton gets out of the car, after suffering from dirt in his eye)
“Looking for a bit of Optrex, I’d imagine.”
(Hamilton sprays the champagne somewhat disconsolately)
“Looks like he’s watering the flowers out there, doesn’t he, by himself?”
CANADA
(describing Rosberg’s defending in the first corner)
“It was hard. Just about fair. Slightly rude.”
“I can’t believe how that Marussia’s – literally – fallen apart.”
(Lap 7, behind the safety car, still)
“At least we don’t have to put up with the misery of letting the lapped runners through.”
Bradley Joyce: “We have broken Jenson’s DRS. We’ve broken Jenson’s DRS so just watch the rear tyres sliding behind the Ferraris.”
Martin: “Meaning that he’s more than a second in front, rather than he’s thrown something at it.”
“Dan Ricciardo’s going to have to become Dan Dare shortly on the brakes.”
“The last two laps through here, outside our commentary box window, Crofty, Vettel has just about been swapping the Pirelli paint on the sidewall of his rear tyre with the paint on the wall.”
“Save of the day to Rosberg – that might save him 25 points. In fact, make that a net 32 points.”
Martin: “As KK…”
Crofty: “Spins all on his own.”
Martin: “I think he’s just amusing himself there, isn’t he?”
(Button overtakes Kvyat)
“The old boy’s still got it, hasn’t he?”
“4 hours and 4 minute race [2011] that was harder in the commentary box than it was in the car.”
“A lot of people think there shouldn’t be telemetry in a race. Let the drivers work it out for themselves, with a few big warning lights on the dashboard.”
(the Mercedes, both of whom have lost power and brakes, race down the straight)
“I think they were already both struggling for brakes there, it was sort of “after you,” wasn’t it, “no, after you”.”
“It’s gone, curiously, into sort of, suspended play, hasn’t it? And Perez is just holding them up. And Rosberg’s just sitting there, probably thinking… “where are they? This is too good to be true!””
“Oof! That stopped in a hurry, didn’t it?”
“Mercedes kept offering that race to all the rest of them, and I thought nobody was going to take it!”
“What you see with Daniel Ricciardo is exactly what you get: a really nice bloke.”
AUSTRIA
“He [Massa] knows how to win a Grand Prix. He actually won a world championship for about 30 seconds.”
(Vettel breaks down yet again)
“I’d give Mark Webber his car back if I were you.”
(Gutierrez is released without his right rear tyre.)
“Three wheels on his wagon – just.”
“Ooh, Massa behind Perez – sounds familiar? […] What did Felipe say after Canada? “I’ll think twice before I’ll try and pass him again!””
“That sums up Vettel’s season, doesn’t it? Loses his front wing fighting for last place.”
“160 horsepower [from the MGU-K], which is the same power as a pretty quick family saloon car.”
“I reckon anybody who’s ever driven one of those at a garage of 25 men – sometimes women as well; a garage of 25 of your crew – if they’d ever driven those clumsy things in I don’t think you’d ever stand, you wouldn’t be one of the mechanics, to be honest. You can’t see anything at the front of your car. Your mechanics put a huge amount of faith in you, and occasionally, as we’ve seen – who was it? Nakajima in Brazil, wasn’t it, and occasionally in sports car racing as well – you let them down.”
David Lloyd: “We are racing Button, we are racing Button, we need two tenths per lap.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “Yeah give me some more power.”
Crofty: (laughs) “That was an encouraging message to Kimi Raikkonen, who wants a bit more of a helping hand!”
Martin: “”Get your finger out, Kimi”; “no, you get your finger out first!””
(Massa and Perez again)
“You do have phases like that where you just keep ending up on the same piece of track as another driver. I had it with Jean Alesi when I was at Benetton and he was at Ferrari, we just kept meeting in the middle! And do you remember last year Alonso always seemed to be chasing Hulkenberg, didn’t he, race after race after race, which is probably why, I’m hearing, he may have said “I don’t want Hulkenberg at Ferrari: bring me Raikkonen!””
“Will the supersofts go hard for 15 laps?”
(ba-doom tish)
(Vergne struggles to stay out of the way, with brake failure)
“Vergne probably should have – well, he couldn’t get on the brakes, could he, really, he hadn’t got any!”
“Rosberg’s showing that he’s got all of the tools, all of the skills, to take it to Hamilton in a straight fight.”
Driver of the Day
“My driver of the race: Bottas. Look at that, just 8 seconds off the mighty Mercs.”
(the Austrian grid / presentation girls en route to the podium are all wearing traditional outfits)
Martin: “Looking forward to the national dress of the UK.”
Crofty: “Which is going to be… what?”
Martin: “I don’t know, I was hoping you would fill me in there!”
(some, er, interesting podium music)
Crofty: “Do you know what we’re going to get now? The first yodels I think I’ve heard all weekend long!”
Martin: “I thought it was Ted from the pit lane!”
“[The trophy] looks like one of those things you cut parma ham with.”
(Crofty talks about Hamilton’s stops being slower than Rosberg’s)
“I will see the inevitable on my Twitter feed about how intentional that was…(!)”
UNITED KINGDOM
“They pull very few revs, very few revs indeed, and just try to drive away like you would from the supermarket car park.”
(Crofty talks about the Constructors’ Championship)
“I think we’ve mentally parked that one and handed the trophy over.”
“It’s a bit like if you cut the leg off a chair, it’s going to rock on the other side.”
“They certainly had a good thump tyre-to-tyre, that’s for sure.”
(Crofty talks about Raikkonen’s back problems at the end of 2013)
“He didn’t have too many back problems on the lawnmower race we did in the pre-race show…”
“James Hunt used to physically throw up before a race, he was so nervous.”
“Massa, of course, was tail-end Charlie.”
(Chilton pits under the red flag)
“Almost like he was swimming amongst a shoal of fish as he came down the pit lane.”
(barrier repairs)
“That looks a good job to me. We should get them on the M25 and the M4 and all those places, they always seem to be closed.”
Crofty: “10,000 bottles of wine; 6,000 bottles of champagne; and I’m glad to say 20,000 bottles of mineral water are consumed at the British Grand Prix, approximately.”
Martin: “Any other useless information up there?”
Crofty: “I’ve got more useless information than you ever care to know. 50,000 hot drinks, how about 10,000 litres of tomato sauce?”
Martin: “Width of circuit, look: 14.5 to 17 metres(!)”
Crofty: “Would you like to know how many sausages?”
Martin: “No…! But you would, I know you love your sausages.”
Crofty: “1.08 miles worth of sausages eaten at the British Grand Prix, with or without–“
Martin: “That is a made-up number, there’s no doubt about that!”
Martin: “Just stretching out Fernando Alonso’s spine just before he got back in. I could do with some of that after that lawnmower race, I’ve hardly slept since then with back pain! Won’t be rushing to do that in a hurry.”
Crofty: “It was quite a spin…”
Martin: “It wasn’t the spin, it was the bumps! I was already in trouble long before I spun off! Spinning off was a relief, to be honest!”
“They must love these kind of restarts, they don’t get bothered by people like me with a camera and a microphone! They’ve got the place to themselves: media are not allowed back on the grid, if you’re wondering why I’m not down there doing a second gridwalk for today.”
Frank Williams: “… and close your eyes when you overtake!”
Crofty: “Really!?”
Martin: “That’s why Frank’s a team boss and not a racing driver!”
“Alonso always seems to end up behind Hulkenberg.”
“You’d apportion that, roughly, about 100% Gutierrez’s fault, wouldn’t you?”
Tony Ross: “So push hard now, Nico, push hard now, won’t be long.”
Martin: “Sounds like going to the dentist or something, doesn’t it?”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, 3 tenths faster sector one, it’s hammer time.”
Martin: “It’s hammer time! It’s Hamilton time, I think, frankly!”
“The tyres are getting a bit second-hand now, having done all of… about 75 miles.”
“Assume nothing, Mr Croft!”
“I thought he’d locked a wheel up, it was squeaking, one of those wheels we can now hear, but it was the crowd, squeaking!”
“I love this shot, one of my favourite shots of the year, flicking into Copse corner, heat haze… Costa del Northampton!”
(Alonso with an AMAZING move round the outside of Vettel at Copse)
“That is bravery beyond the call of duty. That would be an airplane crash if they touch going in there!”
“You’ve got to leave him a space, a car’s width, but… that’s a car’s width and what, two cigarette papers? I don’t know. The regulations say “a car’s width” – I always think they should say “a car’s width and a metre” to give the bloke some breathing space! […] They’re 1.8 metres wide if you’re wondering, but sometimes you can make them appear much wider.”
Andrea Stella: “We are reporting track limits to the race direction.”
[…]
Martin: “”It wasn’t me, it was him!””
“Again Alonso all four wheels off, but they’re busy reporting Vettel for doing that at the moment. It’s like smoke and mirrors: “don’t look over here, look over there!””
“Don’t think Seb will be reporting in on that one, it was him off the track that time!”
“That’s exactly what I was explaining in my lengthy explanation.”
(eh?)
“We could do with some good news in British sport, and we’ve got it. Great drive from Hamilton; I’d love to have seen him fight to the end with Rosberg though, because that was looking quite mighty.”
“I’ll trade Jenson my podium at the British Grand Prix for one of his wins. Do you think he’d take that?”
GERMANY
“Regulations are there to be read for the first time to see what they say and read again to see how you can get around them.”
“Rosberg thick end of a second a lap faster than the pack. No surprise there, I’m afraid.”
“Next year, after a safety car restart, there will be a standing start in some circumstances, and it’s exactly that that some people are worried about: “I’ve done a great race, I’ve lost my advantage behind the safety car, and– oh, hang on, I’m upside down in turn one now.””
“And suddenly – boom! Wake up, I’m coming through.”
“Sorry to young Kvyat. He’s done some brilliant things this year… but that was not one of them.”
“Lewis plays dare with his front wing more than any other driver I’ve ever seen in Formula One.”
(Hamilton and Ricciardo close in on Raikkonen)
Martin: “I see tears. I see unhappiness.”
Crofty: “But who?”
Martin: “I don’t know!”
(Hamilton with a divebomb on Ricciardo and Raikkonen)
“It was always going to be none of them, an accident, or both of them.”
(Grosjean’s car tries to roll back down a hill)
“They don’t have handbrakes on F1 cars, unfortunately, otherwise he would have put it on.”
“[The switchback is] sort of like a snooker player, thinking two or three shots ahead.”
“If the computer didn’t tell us, I’m not sure we’d know Rosberg is still in the venue.”
“Grip doesn’t wear your tyres out anywhere near as much as sliding or spinning does.”
“He’s [Vettel] been a bit Mr Grumpy lately, hasn’t he?”
“What a fine race it’s been. I was out of breath at one point there! I think there’s more to come yet!”
“I don’t like to see tractors on… I hit one once in Suzuka. It scares me, because a single seater goes underneath those things.”
(scarily prophetic in hindsight)
“Alonso’s just… “help yourself, my friend. See you later.””
“Poor old Jenson’s mirrors will be worn out in this race.”
“Poor old Jenson. He keeps getting himself up into a reasonable position, and then he just gets mullered as soon as the tyres are going backwards.”
Jonathan Eddolls: “Use overtake to try defending if he attacks.”
[…]
Martin: “Don’t think there’s a lot of “if” about the attack…!”
HUNGARY
“I remember hitting Gerhard Berger here once, well, actually, he hit me into turn 13 hard, bent my steering rack. I then went on to do my fastest lap of the weekend, with bent steering!”
“It’s the most pathetic feeling in the world when you lock the brake like that.”
“Got a little bit eager with the loud pedal… “not-quite-so-loud pedal” these days.”
“I’d like to be Jenson Button to be honest. […] Tall. Good looking boy. Got a few quid. World champion.”
“Unfortunately, the cameraman was not expecting Grosjean to have an incident there.”
“Done it myself, it doesn’t make it any less stupid when it happens. […] It looks ridiculous, you think “best drivers in the world, can’t even go in a straight line at 50 or 60 mph.””
“That’ll be 5 drivers out of the race. It seems more than that, somehow!”
“My new favourite expression I heard on the radio there – “mission critical”!”
“A good car […] usually spins down the middle of the road.”
“Left the door wide open, and Rosberg didn’t even need the keys to get through that one.”
“He [Rosberg] pitted on lap 49, I believe, looking up here… no he didn’t, because we haven’t got to lap 49.”
“Ricciardo on “new” soft compound, Hamilton on “used” medium compound, and Alonso on “very used” soft compound.”
“What he [Hamilton] needed back there was a “Ricciardo lunge”!”
“Was that an amazing race or what!? What an incredible Grand Prix! Did you enjoy that? I certainly did.”
BELGIUM
“You can see the damage there, like it’s been nibbled by a crocodile.”
“3 into 2 doesn’t go.”
“Vergne doesn’t have to be nice to the Red Bulls any more, does he?”
(a piece of kevlar attaches itself to Rosberg’s aerial)
“You couldn’t do that again if you tried 1,000 times, could you?”
“I don’t think you can separate a driver from his car: a driver can’t put it in the gravel trap and go “I tell you what, the team did a good job so let’s give them the points anyway” – they are one and the same thing.”
(Magnussen fights off Alonso)
“It’s like having an angry dragon behind you.”
“Hulkenberg sort of unlocked the door, opened it, and held it open for him.”
(Hamilton wants to retire)
“He’s clearly asking to be excused from school this afternoon.”
“I was listening to a rather strange noise but then I realised it was the helicopter rather than the F1 car.”
ITALY
“You can’t really win it on the first corner, you can definitely lose it.”
“You need the steering lock of a London taxi to get through there.”
(the grid takes a while to form up)
“Come on, boys, pay attention and keep up!”
“It looks like Hamilton, then, is missing the electrical element of the engine, that’s 160 horsepower, and that’s enough to make a pretty rapid family saloon car go nicely along the motorway.”
(Chilton makes a mistake and crashes out)
“And he gets a mouthful of dust as extra punishment.”
(Rosberg has to go down the escape road at turn one)
“He did well through the slalom course, didn’t he?”
“I haven’t quite got my head around where it all went wrong for Bottas on the first lap.”
“Who was it who said “thank goodness Fernando Alonso’s not in the Williams”?”
(Grosjean has damage)
“That’s frustrating on those days where that happens and then you go faster. I bent the steering on my Ligier once and did my fastest lap with the wheels pointing in different directions! Bit embarrassing.”
“We saw how feisty Magnussen was in Spa, and you’ve got to treat him like the hind legs of a donkey.”
“Lewis doesn’t do patience very well normally, does he?”
“Valtteri’s having a scrappy race for that scrap […] people are so discourteous as to park in his way when he gets to the corner.”
“Raikkonen left the door open, and you don’t have to give Daniel Ricciardo too many invitations, he’ll soon crash the party given half a chance.”
(Perez passes Button)
“McLaren’ll be thinking “I’m pleased we fired that Perez boy(!)””
(Grosjean and Gutierrez collide)
“Front wing makes right rear puncture… exactly as we saw, of course, with Rosberg and Hamilton…!”
(Hamilton covers his head with a white towel)
Crofty: “Does he not like his hairstyle at the moment?”
Martin: “No idea, but I’m not one to talk about hair…!”
“Was it [Rosberg’s race-changing mistake] part of the deal that was done post-Spa, do you think(?)”
Crofty: “Wouldn’t you love to be down there [in the crowd] in the thick of all that in the moment? Great passion. Great excitement.”
Martin: “I’d rather be up there [on the podium].”
SINGAPORE
“They only hand the points out at the end.”
“Vettel didn’t give Ricciardo much change going down into the first corner.”
“Looks flat as a pancake.”
“I started talking about the rear brake ducts, didn’t I, which is not the most exciting thing in the world to talk about, but anyway…”
“What was that regulation? “The driver must drive the car alone and unaided” – well, Rosberg’s definitely doing that today.”
“It’s the sort of problem you could chase your tail on all day, and the day after.”
“Box full of neutrals.”
“What he’s [Rosberg] looking at on the screen is the last thing he wants to see – a comfortable lead for Lewis Hamilton.”
Martin: “I think Lewis will need to pick his pace up. He can’t quite go that slowly, actually. He’ll be surprised to find his lead went down by 6 tenths, nearly 7 tenths, on the previous lap, without traffic, so he’s pacing himself, but that pace is not quite quick enough. So he responds with a personal best in the middle sector.”
Crofty: “Almost as if he’s dialled in to your commentary and advice this afternoon, or evening…!”
Martin: “He’s dialled into much more clever people than I am, more information, and he is clever anyway, basically! And faster!”
(Gutierrez retires and throws a glove in frustration)
Ted: “Oh, he’s walking towards me. He’s got his specs on already. He normally wears contact lenses, but he’s actually wearing his glasses this weekend for some reason.”
Crofty: “Will he talk to you or has he still got another glove to throw?”
Ted: “He can still headbutt me!”
Martin: “Yes, it might be a punch this time, Ted! Wouldn’t be the first driver that tried to punch you, will he, though?”
“It’s not a good news day, is it, out there? […] It’s all been bad news! I’m getting quite depressed(!)”
“I imagine Alonso shaves while he’s cleaning his teeth in the morning. He’s that sort of guy, isn’t he? He’s just… on a mission.”
Crofty: “That’s Kevin Magnussen going straight on.”
Martin: “The scenic route.”
(Maldonado leaves the pits with a wheel gun partially attached)
“The wheels are still on it, but it’s almost like he – literally – jumped the gun.”
“I think Lewis has decided it’s hammer time.”
“It takes two to tango.”
“A good pit stop is literally a blur these days.”
“It’s very much like the old Vettel there – he’s calling the strategy from the steering wheel.”
“The only time I ever needed a drink in a race was when the drinks bottle broke.”
Crofty: “The lapped cars may now overtake, so that is Bianchi, Perez, whose front wing damage caused this safety car, Ericsson, and Chilton.”
Martin: “No, no, no, no, no. How upset am I allowed to get about this? […] We’re not going to wait for them to get all the way round to the back, are we…? Just let them get down the road a bit!”
“So as you know, 14 divided by 2 and three quarter is… quite a lot.”
(a Sauber person reacts angrily to Sutil’s penalty)
“I’m not much of a lip-reader, but that was heading in the wrong direction, wasn’t it?”
“It’s sledgehammer time, that’s for sure, and you’ve probably got to throw an anvil in there as well.”
(both Saubers have retired in the pits)
“Looks like Sauber’s got their own parc fermé down there.”
“It’s been a very solid drive from Jenson this afternoon. This evening. Tonight. Whatever you want to call it.”
(Button’s steering wheel shuts off, and then restarts itself showing the McLaren logo)
“He gets the sales brochure in the middle of the steering wheel.”
“The next time the leader crosses the line [after 2 hours], they’ll wave the funny little black and white cloth at him.”
“They look like they’re on ball bearings coming out the corners.”
“I hope that will stop the silly tweets I get that say they’re nobbling Hamilton’s car to help Rosberg.”
JAPAN (#JB17)
“I think they’ll be treading very daintily with their fireproof slippers on the throttle pedal.”
“I noticed when I was wondering up and down the grid, looking for ideas for future gridwalks…”
“You’ve got to be on the right tyres at the right time.”
(Alonso retires)
“Being brought back on a Honda motorcycle – will he have a Honda engine behind him next year?”
(replay of Alonso grinding to a halt slowly)
“That’s the most unexciting blow-up I’ve ever [seen].”
“It all goes eerily silent as you’re skimming across the top of the water, then the grass, then the inevitable barrier.”
Jean-Eric Vergne: “Conditions are fine now. It’s perfect to drive now.”
Martin: “”Perfect”‘s an unusual choice of word!”
“What on earth is going on!?”
“It looks terribly slow, but if you were in that safety car, you’d be moderately terrified.”
(Vettel goes wide at Spoon)
“Oh… come back!”
Tony Ross: “Inter tyres are slower at the moment.”
Martin: “Slower than the Mercedes, maybe.”
“This is Button territory, isn’t it? […] “Twinkletoes”, as I like to call him.”
“Amazing grip he had through there! I was wincing as he turned in and the car just stuck!”
“Worth waiting for, wasn’t it, this race?”
“Grosjean’s been off the track at, unlucky for some, turn 13.”
(the two Mercedes nearly collide)
“Had a bit of Spa written all over that one, didn’t it?”
“That is one of the slipperiest pit lanes in the world.”
“When Ricciardo smells an overtake, it’s like he changes up a gear and goes for it.”
(Sutil crashes)
“Are others going to be aquaplaning on or spinning off in the same place? Something that’s a bit sensitive to me, because it happened to me.”
(I include this as it is almost scary that Martin predicted Bianchi’s fatal accident just seconds before it happened.)
RUSSIA
“Rosberg, with his square front tyres…”
(on whether Rosberg was right to make the move at turn two)
“No. That had Monza written all over it.”
“Turn 3 is going to start making it into the top 10 corners of the Formula One calendar.”
Tom Stallard: “Gap to Alonso 0.8.”
Jenson Button: “Yeah, I don’t need reminding when he’s this close.”
Martin: “”I can see him in my mirrors… I can see his teeth!””
“That would be quite something. A complete race on virtually one set of Pirellis? We’ll all be moaning that they’re too conservative, having moaned all last year that we were fed up only talking about tyres!”
“I can understand Jenson’s point of view: he’s not on the magic carpet of a Mercedes Benz Formula One car.”
(discussion on Hamilton’s easy stroll up front)
“He’s just got one annoying thing spoiling his afternoon, and that’s Valtteri Bottas.”
“I like Jenson’s chirpy replies on the radio. It sounds like he’s on the beach on the phone, doesn’t it, “yeah, it’s OK down here…!””
“We’ve had such great races this year, we’ve been a little bit spoilt.”
(Hamilton has a small lock-up into turn 13)
“That’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to him all afternoon.”
“This is a sensational drive from Rosberg. I mean, he’s got the best car on the track, but it’s still a sensational drive from Rosberg.”
“After that incident in Canada, Massa was asked if he’d think twice about racing Perez again. He said, “I’d think three times before I raced him again!””
UNITED STATES
“I’m afraid that’s, roughly, 100% Sergio Perez’s fault.”
“There’s only 18 of them out there this weekend, and we managed to have three of them in contact.”
“The Mercedes just drives away like a chauffeur.”
“What is Alonso doing next year!? I just keep getting different stories. People telling me, facts: he’s doing this, he’s signed that, absolutely, unquestionably, he’s at McLaren, he’s going to start a team, he’s going to drive a Le Mans car next year…”
“Ferrari look like they’ve got three world champions driving for them next year.”
(the camera cuts to Matt Le Blanc)
“Good. Well, he seemed happy, didn’t he?”
“He might as well have put his hand out of the window and go “after you”.”
“He sort of… loitered in the middle of the track and didn’t cover anything off, really.”
“Button made a small error, which gave Alonso his chance, and Alonso made a bigger error, and handed the advantage back.”
(Magnussen pits, watched on by Miss USA)
Crofty: “Miss United States.”
Martin: “She was probably thinking “he overshot his marks on that pit stop”(.)”
(discussion on the use of “box” rather than “pit”)
Martin: “I don’t remember being told to “box” when I was an F1 driver.”
Crofty: “Except after the race if someone had run you off the track?”
Martin: (wryly) “Haha… yes.”
(Alonso locks up and goes wide)
“Woah! Come back!”
“That was a great race, wasn’t it? I really enjoyed that.”
“Unsurprisingly, Lewis somewhat happier than Nico…!”
BRAZIL
“I wouldn’t like to go out with him [Ricciardo] on Halloween, because he does like to come up behind you and surprise you.”
(the tyres start blistering)
“Pirelli will have their toes and fingers crossed.”
(Massa’s 5-second penalty)
“I don’t have a stopwatch in my head, but that looked like a very long 5 seconds.”
Tony Ross: “So, just be aware, your teammate is pushing quite hard, gap is 6 seconds, so just remember to control the gap.”
[…]
Martin: “I find the terminology interesting: “your teammate”. Not “Lewis”, not “Hamilton”, it’s factual, isn’t it, and it’s easy to hear on the radio but I just find that an interesting terminology.”
Crofty: “Do you want to display emotion to your driver when you’re trying to keep them calm, or do you just want to be matter-of-fact?”
Martin: “LOOK OUT, HE’S GOING TO GET YOU IF YOU DON’T HURRY UP!”
“When we say “lift and coast”, we mean “arrive at 210mph and brake 3 metres later than you were before”.”
“If Button’s does leave F1, there’ll be drivers on the grid next year who couldn’t hold a candle to him, that’s for sure.”
“The door was open; he decided to walk through it.”
(Massa stops at the wrong pit box)
“His face will be about the same colour as those tyres.”
(Massa finishes third)
“Thank you, Ferrari, for firing me.”
“No “I” in “team”, as they say.”
ABU DHABI
“What’s he [Hamilton] been saying to us all weekend? “I’m going to drive it like I stole it!””
“Oh, grandma leaving the supermarket car park, perfect!”
(Kvyat squeezes Stevens)
“I would imagine he [Stevens] had to walk around the garden as well on the outside there, because he was left no space whatsoever.”
“Great radio message from Alonso: “who is this!?””
“What they’ve got to do now is resist taking the grip out of these new tyres. […] It’s like Christmas morning, you want to grab all of your presents, and you have to resist and open them one at a time!”
“It’s an awful lot easier to overtake in the straights.”
“It’s a kinky straight, as they don’t say.”
“Right, come on, you lot!”
(Maldonado’s car retires on fire)
“It’s like November the 5th – that pretty much sums up his year, doesn’t it?”
“Pastor looking like he hopes it burns to the ground. He never wants to see it again. He won’t even look back at it!”
“I’m doing the podium today. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m going to see any Mercedes drivers up there!”
“It never rains, but it pours.”
“He [Rosberg] doesn’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of keeping Hulkenberg behind him. Snowball in Abu Dhabi, even. On this warm evening.”
Crofty: “Apparently it rained in Abu Dhabi on this day last year.”
Martin: “Could do with some of that now!”
“What a race. What a season. What a World Championship.”