AUSTRALIA
“You only need two cars to make a great race.”
(Toto Wolff is standing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger)
“”I’ll be back!” “No, I’ll be back!” “No, I’ll be back!””
“If the safety car had enough fuel to do this race, it would be in with a great chance of getting some world championship points this afternoon.”
Ted: “Button complaining of under-rotation under braking, Martin.”
[…]
Martin: “Under-rotation is a fancy way of saying his brakes are locking, his front tyres are locking.”
Crofty: “Onboard with Kimi Raikkonen, ooh, big lock-up there from Nasr and also from Ricciardo as well.”
Martin: (dryly) “A lot of under-rotation there.”
“Kimi’s like The Stig, isn’t he? I didn’t think he talked.”
Crofty: “So far, absolutely looking perfect for him [Hamilton] today.”
Martin: “Ooh, commentators’ curse there, I feel!”
(if only!)
“I suspect Lewis is on the phone to Pharrell or somebody, he’s not got much else to do, has he?”
“It’s been pretty close between him [Vettel] and Raikkonen, and in turn one, extremely close.”
Crofty: “Penny for Nico Rosberg’s thoughts?”
Martin: “Something along the lines of “not again!”.”
“Nasr did well not to get lapped as well. It was a pretty close call, mind you.”
MALAYSIA
“GP2-styley, wasn’t it, all that barging about?”
“I suspect Massa’s battery pack overheated or didn’t charge up properly behind the safety car. That’s 160hp, enough to push a family saloon car along very rapidly indeed.”
“Great racing! We’ve had more fun in 8 laps than we had in the whole of the Australian Grand Prix.”
“These pesky Mercedes customer cars have been proving quite difficult for the works car to get around…!”
“8 cars there within 6 tenths of a second. […] 6 seconds, I meant to say. Not 6 tenths of a second. That would be impressive.”
(onboard with Nasr as Martin talks about the battle for the lead)
“It’s game on, isn’t it? It’s game on. (Nasr runs wide) That’s game off.”
“What a difference two weeks makes.”
“He [Rosberg] will have watched this red dot in his mirrors turn into a Ferrari.”
(Hulkenberg and Kvyat collide, and both survive)
“Force India and Red Bull suspension designers will be fairly chuffed with that!”
(Perez and Grosjean collide)
“What do they say? There’s some certainties in the world, death and taxes? Well, I think that incident was absolutely certain.”
“This race is all over the place – brilliant!”
“Do you know what I’d love to think, Crofty? I’d like to think that somewhere, Michael Schumacher has a big rubber smile on his face and he’s able to watch this.”
“Why did he [Vettel] get his backside kicked last year by Danny Ricciardo!?”
CHINA
“Bit of a noah’s ark grid.”
“You’re driving into a wedge that’s always going to disappear.”
(the two Red Bulls fight the two McLarens)
“Two great teams fighting like crazy over 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th. How things change.”
“A Formula One car goes a long way in one and a half seconds.”
“Maldonado tends to join the Championship a bit late, doesn’t he?”
“We’ve got a megastar in the hands on our making here.”
(eh?)
“Turn 1 all by itself is enough to make a tyre designer cry.”
“I know Sebastian Vettel was annoyed he can’t change his crash helmet every day, colour-wise, but it certainly helps, doesn’t it? Especially when you go on board like this and it’s your only reference point… that and the name at the bottom of the screen, of course, but that’s: a) not always there; and b) not always right!”
“There’s eight in there, son. Find one of them.”
(Vettel is told to push)
“Push”, I suppose, said the Italian to the German in English.”
(later)
“I called him an Austrian, didn’t I?”
(nope, you got it right first time!)
(Hamilton has had problems with a hot seat all weekend)
Crofty: “On Friday afternoon, “it got severely hot for me. The best way I can describe it is it felt like I got a good whoopin’ on my backside! The best way I can describe it.””
Martin: “I wonder when he got that, then, to have that as a reference point!? Whether it was his dad or the headmaster…!”
Crofty: “Or Ron!”
[…]
Martin: “At least I didn’t say “Nicole” there.”
(Maldonado spins)
“Spoke too soon, didn’t we?”
“Ricciardo must think there’s six Saubers in this race, he keeps tripping over them!”
“Sebastian Vettel, the Austrian from Germany.”
(a rather poor camera angle on replay)
“Oh, the bridge was beautifully placed there, wasn’t it(?)”
“Normally, you’ll aim at where the car was, because it won’t be there when you get there.”
“Didn’t see any sign of smoke on Lewis’s derriere where that seat’s been burning him all weekend. Thought I’d check that out for you.”
BAHRAIN
(Massa’s car is started up)
“Sounds like an Escort twin-cam from that angle.”
“Rosberg quickly falling back then into the clutches of fellow countryman, Valtteri Bottas there, having now been passed by Rosberg.”
(a proper Murray moment here!)
“The new, improved, ultra-aggressive Nico Rosberg. Welcome!”
“Massa in the Williams being very polite against his fellow countryman. It’s not how they drive in Sao Paulo and Rio from what I’ve seen!”
(Bottas is told to attack Raikkonen)
“It’s difficult to attack somebody who’s driving off down the road, normally.”
“We’ll have to give him [Nasr] another name: Fred, or something like that.”
“It’s the worst word in a racing driver’s vocabulary… that you can say on television, anyway.”
“Alonso’s either got huge fuel saving going on or it’s got a gremlin, because it looked like it wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding down that straight.”
“Ferrari are acing the pit lane this afternoon. This evening. This morning. Wherever you are in the world.”
“Rosberg looking very Hamilton-esque this afternoon.”
(Raikkonen is told to “make hay”)
“We did do a lawnmower race with him, when he was making a lot of hay very quickly, last year…”
Driver of the Day
Crofty: “I think for many people driver of the day will certainly be that man in red there [Kimi Raikkonen], Martin.”
Martin: “It would be difficult to argue with.”
SPAIN
“Maldonado could help himself to some points here this afternoon, but we did say that… was it China, where he was driving beautifully and then… er… had a little bit of a bad afternoon thereafter, shall we say?”
“They’ve [Red Bull] gone back, I think, to pistons they were using in Melbourne, the first race of the year. “Not the chocolate ones” is how somebody explained it to me, who probably would prefer to remain nameless.”
(Bottas is told he is on “plan C”)
“They’re just having a laugh, aren’t they? That’s got to be a 2-stop but using the tyres in a certain way, along the lines of Mr Kravitz’s pencils.”
“Max gives him a little tweak. He was a day late and a dollar short on that one.”
“Maldonado pushes Button down to 18th. Ouch.”
“Bottas last pitted on lap 15, so his tyres wouldn’t pass an MOT, I’d imagine.”
“Mr Grumpy has left the cockpit of 44, hasn’t it, and moved to the cockpit of number 5. Red 5.”
Crofty: “That’s how he’s been gaining on Bot-arse – Bot-arse? Bottas – significantly in the last three laps and half a second on lap 57. I went all posh for a moment then… “baa”.”
Martin: (laughs) “I’ll let you off that one, Crofty… that was an open goal, to be honest. […] Let’s call him Valtteri for now, shall we?”
“He will have the drag reduction system, if you want to be posh, down the pit straight […] and he is on the derriere of Bottas now, isn’t he?”
“Iceman chases down ice boy.”
“He’s going to have to squeeze that throttle pedal like he’s got an egg underneath it.”
“Sainz’s tyres 5 laps younger than Verstappen. And there’s not much younger than Verstappen out there.”
“Somebody tweeted me to say it’s rude of them [Rosberg and Vettel] to speak German. It’s not. They are German.”
MONACO
“Into the pit bend, as it were.”
“Not sure what half a burnout feels like.”
“Tail end wagging like a very happy puppy dog there.”
(Crofty jokes about the Sky F1 team’s boat being stolen)
“Nobody will steal it. I cut both the oars in half so they couldn’t steal it.”
(Martin gets caught out by the rotating camera again)
“Thought we were going swimming there.”
“Interesting that McLaren chose not to tell Alonso about the penalty. […] He was clearly sitting there [in the pit box] thinking “get on with it, then!””
“Bottas vs Verstappen. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be saying that for quite a few years.”
Crofty: “You’ll notice that the track temperature has gone down five degrees in the last 10 minutes or so.”
Martin: “I haven’t, but I have now.”
(both commentators get the Ferraris mixed up)
“I got that wrong as well. Don’t worry– well, I do worry, but it wasn’t your fault.”
Julien Simon-Chautemps: “Situation is you have Rosberg and Vettel behind. And behind them is Verstappen, you are racing Verstappen, be careful when Vettel pass you. Verstappen is on new super soft and very fast. So you are racing Verstappen.”
Martin: “Wasn’t much good news in there, was there?”
“Raikkonen’s tyres 9 laps younger than Kvyat’s; a massive 18 miles younger.”
“That was a chess move, wasn’t it? He place the piece there perfectly.”
“There’s only one person in a single seater, and he crashed.”
“Hamilton had a piece of dirt in his eye last year; it’ll be a tear this year.”
(ed: not far off!)
CANADA
“Last of the late brakers; Dan dare on the left hand brake pedal.”
“This is not why Fernando Alonso went to McLaren, is it? There’ll be some choice Spanish swear words coming quietly around there, I would say.”
“No brake lights on a Formula One car, of course. It wouldn’t be too much good at a couple of hundred miles an hour.”
“You can only lose the race in the first corner. You can’t absolutely win it.”
Jonathan Eddolls: “At this pace Raikkonen will catch us just after the race. You’re bringing the fuel to target. Continue like this.”
Crofty: “Sounds a lot like my greyhound, who does most of his best overtaking once the race has finished and they chase the bunny onto the back straight, Martin. Lost again on Saturday night.”
Martin: “I know… you told me to put money on it!”
(Hamilton locks up)
Crofty: “How are Lewis Hamilton’s tyres looking there?”
Martin: “Stopped.”
“He [Hamilton] looked really troubled after Monaco. I saw him on a boat with supermodels, he turns up here in his own Candy Apple red Challenger, having been in America… it is tough, I don’t know how he puts up with it(!)”
“I’m so excited that Ted Kravitz is going to do the podium. He started with me and Murray up in the commentary box a million years ago, and it’s great kudos for Ted.”
Crofty: “He [Ted] was scrambling around trying to find a jacket, as well.”
Martin: “A jacket and sandals!?”
“Still probably the drive of the race from Sebastian Vettel.”
“Bottas looked at that trophy and was like “is that it!?””
“Always was a waste of good champagne.”
AUSTRIA
“Britain are normally rubbish at penalties, but McLaren have hoovered those up today.”
“Got to be careful not to flat-spot their tyres, make them look like 50 pence pieces. Those of you in the UK know what I’m talking about.”
Mark Slade: “Pastor, are you being held up? Are you being held up?”
Pastor Maldonado: “Yes, a little bit.”
[…]
Martin: “Would you like a million pounds(?)”
(Bottas passes Hulkenberg)
“He’s probably saying “I hope you enjoyed Le Mans, Nico, try a little bit of this.””
(Crofty throws to Ted, but gets no reply)
“Don’t leave us, Ted!”
“I think that was a day late and a dollar short there.”
Max Verstappen: “Tyres are completely gone.”
Martin: “But at least you’ve still got four of them, son! You’re very lucky there’s not one or two missing!”
(in the cool down room)
“Italian spoken between the Brazilian and the German.”
UNITED KINGDOM
“I’ll have that, thank you very much. Who did he [Massa] come as today, Superman or something?”
“It was all a bit amateur hour, wasn’t it?”
“Now, stay awake, Felipe Massa.”
Crofty: “We could keep racing until there’s one car left.”
Martin: “And that would be the safety car, at this rate…!”
“There are two rules between team mates at the start of a grand prix. The first rule is don’t run into your teammate. The second rule is: see rule one.”
(Massa is asked to look after his left front)
“It doesn’t mean send it flowers on its birthday or anything like that.”
“I wonder if there’s going to be a point where Mercedes go “OK, you’ve had your fun, boys.””
“I don’t exactly think Massa’s going to put a hand out and go “pass me this side, young man.””
“I’ll be really angry if it doesn’t rain in the race and only rains just afterward so the fans get wet walking back to their cars.”
“It’s Frankie Dettori doing the podium today. Presumably he’ll just leap up there from the pit lane.”
Crofty: “Lewis Hamilton saying it’s getting a bit dark out there.”
Martin: “Probably all those flies on his visor.”
“Formula One’s only paid the rent on the bit between the white lines.”
“I wince every time they turn up at turn one at 180mph and just chuck it in from the top of the kerb. The cars I used to race, that would have been a trip to the Northampton Hospital every time.”
“They [intermediate tyres] must feel horrible. Like being on chewing gum, I’d imagine.”
(Stevens crashes at Brooklands)
“Do you know what? That is an identical spin to the one I had!”
(Martin drove and crashed a Force India at that corner)
“One of the finest Grand Prix victories I ever had the pleasure of commentating on was this man [Hamilton] in 2008, in that incredibly wet Grand Prix.”
“44 might be his favourite number, but 43 was the one today, the lap to come in on.”
“Squeeze the throttle like it’s got an egg underneath it you don’t want to brake.”
“You could spin these in their own length if you wanted to.”
“You treat the kerbs like the hind legs of a donkey, basically.”
“He wanted to just do a hint of a doughnut – “sorry guys, I need this engine and gearbox again!””
“Two Germans speaking German, as they’re entitled to do.”
HUNGARY
(Massa causes an aborted start by stopping short of his grid box)
“I’m flying with him to Spain tonight. That’s going to be a sombre journey, isn’t it?”
Crofty: “I tell you what, there was the width of my tagliatelle pasta from last night between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.”
[…]
Martin: “Well, if it’d been my tortellini, they’d have both been off, I think, to be frank.”
(Ferrari celebrate taking the lead)
“It’s only the first lap, boys.”
“Look at this: Ferrari – where have they been hiding this pace all weekend!?”
Ted: “Kimi was a bit slow getting away for whatever reason.”
Martin: “Ah, very slow, wasn’t it, 3.2 seconds, it’s like an iceberg, isn’t it, it’s that slow(!)”
“Maldonado did not make any attempt to NOT run into the side of the Force India.”
“The Hamilton chicane: he was heading to the beach early on his F1 summer break.”
“Kvyat getting a face full of carbon fibre – it’s like confetti at a wedding, isn’t it?”
“It’s normally about now I’m moaning and bitching about letting the lapped runners through, but it’s really brought this alive!”
“Wow. What’s going to happen next today!?”
BELGIUM
“You don’t have small accidents around here.”
“The cars are 4.8 metres wide and 1.8 metres long. They seem to forget that from time to time.”
(Button suggests that the team have forgotten to connect the battery)
“That’s 160 horsepower he’s missing. That’s a very fast road car. […] It’s not a very fast road car, but enough to give you a thrill anyway, 160 horsepower. That’s about what my motorbike’s got, and that definitely gives me a thrill.”
(Bottas has three soft tyres and a medium on his right rear)
(cheekily) “Has Bottas used both compounds in this race now?”
“Two or three years back, Grosjean would have tripped over somebody.”
“To finish first, first you must finish, which they seem to forget from time to time.”
“It’s so much better when the corners have names, not numbers, isn’t it?”
“There must be Formula One designers watching from behind a pillow.”
(Kvyat locks up and still makes it past Massa)
“Ah, well held!”
ITALY
“Parabolica always surprises you; it’s in the same place every lap.”
“We didn’t used to have – incredibly, I can’t believe we used to do it – but we had no speed limit in the pits, so we would come in there, there’s a tiny little gap you aim at, and it is difficult to see because you come off Parabolica so fast, but we would go in there at something approaching 200mph – it seems ridiculous now, doesn’t it, that we used to do that – and leave just as fast as we could! I remember they clocked Keke Rosberg once in Estoril over 160mph in the pit lane…!”
“The clock’s ticking whether you’re in the pit lane, on your out lap, or on your in lap. Every tenth of a second counts.”
“We were happy to survive Curva Grande a few years ago, let alone overtake through there.”
(Rosberg passes Raikkonen and brakes late)
“Can Rosberg stop? Yes… just.”
“He’s so exciting to watch out on track, the teenager [Verstappen], just throws the car around, but under control… unlike one or two others out there… one of whom is not in the race any more.”
(could be Grosjean or Maldonado, your guess is as good as mine)
“Must have been, what, the ’80s, where we had a few great crazes split up by backmarkers, and I remember we had Jean-Marie Balestre going crazy at us on a Sunday morning about that, and then the blue flags came in. I personally think it’s a skill, navigating the backmarkers…”
(Crofty opens the discussion on whether we are entering “the Hamilton era”)
“I don’t like talking about things like this until the race is over, don’t want to put the commentators’ curse on him.”
(if only!)
“Lewis is finally going to have to take that cap off that he’s been wearing all weekend to hide his new hairdo.”
(he went blond!)
“I’m jealous. I’d love to be doing that podium today.”
SINGAPORE
“Lewis Hamilton in fifth place. We’re not used to saying that in the last year and a half!”
“There is Perez, doing a magnificent job of – somehow, through sheer willpower – not wiping out his teammate.”
(Vettel increases his lead rapidly)
“It’s like he’s got a shortcut somewhere.”
(Hamilton complains that Vettel is driving slowly)
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing his pit wall can do about it. You can’t walk down going “excuse me, young man, would you mind awfully getting Sebastian to drive a bit faster?””
“It’s “hurry up and wait”, isn’t it?”
(a man walks down the track casually)
“Like he was going to the beach!”
Sebastian Vettel: “Tell the safety car to speed up a bit.”
Ricciardo Adami: “OK, copy, we are trying.”
Martin: “Ha ha ha! Sorry, I love the irony of that – we had Lewis on the phone going “Vettel’s backing everybody up, tell him to go faster!””
“Inside the safety car it’ll feel like you’re on your door handles around every corner, and the F1 car pottering along in second gear behind it.”
“This was the great thing about the virtual safety car: we don’t have any of this nonsense of unlapping.”
(after Crofty explains why the safety car has to be deployed for a spectator incursion)
“Or [the safety car would] just lead them into the pit lane, for example, if he got his table and chairs out and his picnic.”
“Two Saubers, two Toro Rossos: that’s got tears written all over it.”
“The old “puppy dog” approach might not be quite right.”
“Somebody’s got to give Red Bull an engine, otherwise they’ll be like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, won’t they? They’ll be pedalling out the bottom of the car with no engine behind them.”
“I just looked at the clock and thought “there’s only 8 minutes to go” – I thought it’s whizzed past, actually!”
“The digit returns.”
“Well, it’s nice to have a change, isn’t it, from, you know, “who can finish third behind the two Mercedes?””
JAPAN
“It’s always a bit of a magical mystery tour going down to turn one here.”
“Adrenaline is the best drug in the world.”
“Sauber’s looking a bit flighty there, to say the least.”
“What are they going to put on that? Eeny meeny miny mo.”
(Perez passes Nasr)
“South American battle there… well, actually, it’s not, Mexico is North America.”
Fernando Alonso: “GP2 engine, GP2. Argh!”
[…]
Martin: “That’s a man trying to get fired, I reckon.”
(Raikkonen passes Bottas on thermal camera)
Martin: “Surprised you can’t see the driver in that.”
Crofty: “No, he’s keeping cool.”
Martin: “The iceman!”
(groan-inducing pun here)
“Kvyat’s got a front right tyre like a 50 pence piece now.”
“Waste of good champagne.”
(Kai Ebel has audio issues on the podium)
“Start over again. Get the kettle on.”
RUSSIA
“Surely the best roundabout in the world, isn’t it, turn 3?”
“Understeer, understeer, understeer, MORE understeer…”
(Hulkenberg and Ericsson collide)
“I’m fully expecting some Force India and Sauber babies from that little union.”
(Bottas passes Raikkonen)
“Nice man passes iceman.”
“You ignore team orders, rightly so, and you get applauded for it; you don’t get fired.”
Crofty: “Onboard with Pastor Maldonado now, and that’s how he managed to get past the McLaren of Jenson Button.”
Martin: “Passed? He just about frightened the thing off the road!”
(Button is also passed by Sainz)
“Suzuka revisited, isn’t it?”
“His head was like a punchball.”
(did you mean a punchbag?)
“Bernd Maylander, who drives the safety car, will have that on his door handles.”
(the marshalls repair the barrier)
“Feels a bit like putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg, doesn’t it?”
“The pace that Hamilton’s showing at the moment, he could get out, do a little dance, get back in, and still win it.”
“Look at the front wing on that: looks beautiful, but also looks like a Christmas tree.”
(Kvyat comes out ahead of Button and Crofty asks whether Button can challenge him)
“I’ll be surprised if, three laps from now, he can read “Infiniti” on his rear wing; Jenson’s got some good eyes.”
“The mirrors on these are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.”
“He’d look like Rudolph at Christmas coming towards him, I’d imagine.”
“Hamilton just amusing himself out front.”
“He was as much trying not to have an accident as he was an overtake there, I think.”
“Look at Carlos Sainz, he’s gone from Free Practice 3, to hospital, to the back of the grid, to P7, on a track he’s never raced before.”
“That is a lesser-spotted Mercedes-Benz out front there.”
“I’m on a plane to Nice tonight and the three drivers who are on it are Rosberg, Hulkenberg, and Ricciardo, all of whom are now out of this race. That’s going to be a ball, isn’t it(?)”
“Raikkonen has just done a new fastest lap of this race. Where did that come from!?”
(Hamilton celebrates in parc fermé)
“Green light showing: the car’s approachable, and clearly huggable.”
UNITED STATES
“The Mercedes don’t have any front grip. They waltzed off the track together in turn one.”
(Rosberg complains that Kvyat rejoined unsafely)
“He’s got to come on somewhere, Nico. You can’t expect him to park up and wait for a policeman to help him come back on.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “That guy [Verstappen] keeps pushing me off the circuit every time when I’m next to him. So if that’s legal, then I will do the same next time.”
(Raikkonen then comes up behind Verstappen)
Martin: “And he’s got a man behind him who says he’s going to run him off the road(!)”
(after Raikkonen pits for a new front wing)
“Give it another try, Kimi.”
“When I drove that thing [the Mercedes] in Silverstone, it frightened me […] I’m sure I appreciated it more than the two Red Bull drivers just have.”
“It’s like two Grands Prix in one, isn’t it?”
“”Get your head down, Nico” – they said, and did he ever!?”
“They haven’t done any miles on these tyres. Or kilometres, for that matter.”
“Alonso wants to remove parts of Massa’s body, by the sounds of it.”
(Alonso unlaps himself)
“Alonso, then, he can just, for the moment, make believe he’s leading the Grand Prix.”
“He’s not always good at doing what he’s told from the pit wall, is he, Max?”
(Sainz collides with Ricciardo)
“It’s a wonder Sainz wasn’t round or upside down there.”
“I think if Fernando comes in, they should put Vandoorne in it to do the last few laps.”
“Isn’t it nice to see the McLaren not being breezed past?”
Crofty: “If you were Nico Rosberg, you know now, Martin, that the championship, unless your team mate makes a mistake, is not going to be yours this year, so what do you do? Do you help Sebastian Vettel, your fellow countryman? Do you let him go past?”
Martin: (indignantly) “Only with your resignation at the same time. No, you don’t.”
(Hamilton nearly drives off the road, too busy waving at the crowd)
“Whoops, there’s some grass.”
“Need to watch that race back and try and remember what happened!”
MEXICO
“I started to read, just to fill myself in on this “70 places”, and I decided it wasn’t worth wasting my heartbeats over, so I stopped reading it, frankly. He’s at the back of the grid, and that system is… marginally ridiculous.”
Crofty: “Have a listen as they approach the capacity grandstands.”
Martin: “… when Perez turns up. […] I hope he gets that far in the race!”
“I don’t think “crisis” is too strong a word for the situation that Honda find themselves in.”
“Massa – DRS and slipstream: 365 kilometres an hour! I bet the braking zone comes up and smacks you in the face!”
Sergio Perez: “I am struggling with the rears, mainly the rears, other than that all under control, man.”
Martin: “I wish I could roll my Rs like that.”
(Vettel tries and fails to pass Maldonado)
“There was a snowball’s chance in hell of that slowing down, I don’t think! The laws of physics wouldn’t move out of the way for Sebastian’s determination there.”
(Sainz goes across some grass)
“Trying to follow his dad rallying, there, wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t want to be sitting too near him [Vettel] on the plane home.”
“It is a bit like those nightmares where you’re running in a never-ending tunnel, and something’s catching you: “he’s getting closer… he’s getting closer…””
(Christian Horner is live whilst Ricciardo passes Massa)
Christian Horner: “On the brakes. Got the space. Got the corner. Job done.”
Martin: “Give him a pay rise, Christian!”
(Vettel picks up some of the debris from his accident)
“Quite impressed he had a little tidy up of pieces before he left. Typical racing driver OCD.”
“Anyone who punts Sergio Perez off here will need to get one of those Halloween costumes and get out of here fast.”
“The website or whatever it is, “has Pastor crashed today”, the answer’s no. But very nearly.”
(sadly now defunct)
“Sergio Perez, if you run a big fleet of cars, you’d want him training your drivers up. He’s very parsimonious with tyres.”
“Nigel Mansell said he used to use that building as his turn-in point to Peraltada. I don’t remember it being there!”
“I certainly won’t be doing the podium today, because it’s about a 20 minute walk from here.”
“Bottas will want to shake the hand of the designer of his front suspension.”
(the podium caps are replaced by sombreros, and in the US Rosberg threw his hat at Hamilton)
“Definitely won’t be throwing those sombreros around. […] Why didn’t we have stetsons last weekend?”
BRAZIL
“If Sainz didn’t have bad luck recently, he’d have no luck at all.”
“To finish first, first you must avoid the other Finns.”
(Hamilton has a slow-ish stop and emerges behind Rosberg)
“If Hamilton’s had been the low 2s, that would have been an awful lot closer. Big conspiracy there, don’t you think(?)”
“Lewis would rather donate one of his fingers than give away a pole position or a race victory.”
“Max Verstappen will be able to draw the gearbox and rear end of a Force India, won’t he, easily from memory?”
(Maldonado wipes out Ericsson)
“We’ll have to poke the stewards and make sure they’re awake for that one.”
“Max was about to send his car into a wedge that was about to disappear.”
“Brilliant action. I wish this was for the lead.”
“First time since Japan Raikkonen hasn’t had a crash in a race.”
(Martin is doing the podium)
“It’s a long dash from here. If it’s silent, you’ll know I didn’t make it.”
ABU DHABI
(Crofty points out that UAE Independence Day coincides with his anniversary)
“That was the sound of broken hearts I heard, Crofty, when they found out you were married.”
Max Verstappen: “He didn’t give me any space!”
Martin: “He didn’t have to.”
“Ericsson will be a mobile chicane on those tyres.”
“I just hope there’s another half-dozen Sainz-and-Verstappens in the wings ready to come into F1.”
(Rosberg is changed from start 10 to strat 6 and then back to strat 10 again)
“Pick a strat, any strat…”
“Good job from Raikkonen. Sometimes he’s been on the missing list this year.”
(the cars do doughnuts after the race)
Martin: “All that lovely blue paint that’s got to be done again(!)”
Crofty: “Ha ha ha, I don’t know, I quite like it when the cars sign their own signature!”
Martin: “”I love you, Mum”, is that, or something?”
Crofty: “Something like that! “Give us more power” – that could have been the translation of that script…!”
Martin: “I’ll ring my Mum in a minute, it’s her birthday actually. Happy birthday, Mum.”
“Why do they all look like they’ve lost a pound and found five pence!? What’s the matter with them!?”
“He [Raikkonen] doesn’t do “happy”, really, does he?”
“Second is a swear word for Lewis, that’s the trouble.”
“It is rosewater, isn’t it? Not the battery acid.”