AUSTRIA
FREE PRACTICE TWO
(for once, Martin spent FP2 in the commentary box!)
“The brake pedal… it’s normally like pressing against a concrete wall.”
“There’s a man who’s dressed in red, but driving for himself.”
“Talking about COVID… really? To get rid of a Ferrari driver? They could furlough him, I guess.”
“At some point, they will find themselves trading pain with the team they’re moving to in 6 months’ time.”
“I’ve got deja vu with Ted up in that grandstand… do you remember 2002 […] and the grandstand booing? I can’t imagine Ted booing though.”
“Who can take speed through turn 9 – and keep within the track limits? If there was a barrier there they’d ALL keep within the track limits.”
“Those pink ears [on the Racing Point] look like something from Disney Land.”
“Wouldn’t want to get your fingers caught in that DRS, would you?”
“Turn 4 is much harder than it looks […] 5: nothing. […] 8: ignore.”
(again on the Pink Mercedes)
“That car is plain fast. And the car it’s based on was plain fast last year.”
(Stroll gets it wrong)
“Whoops!”
(Raikkonen rallycrosses over the gravel)
“His rally experience showing there. Or maybe the hovercraft race we did for Sky F1! Or the lawnmower race…”
Martin: “They [Racing Point] morphs into Alfa Romeo next year… Aston Martin, rather!”
Crofty: “See how confusing it all is?”
(talking about races behind closed doors)
“And [the fans] won’t have to put up with my Creed aftershave either!”
(on the new Toro Rosso name and whether it’s “Tau-ree” or “Tor-ee”)
Martin: “Can we just call it AT?”
Crofty: “We’re at it again!”
[…]
Martin: “I nearly had an “Alfa Martin” in there earlier!”
“Mugello in these F1 cars – or any F1 car – their eyes will be like saucers.”
“We always use that old adage – if it’s a barrier, you wouldn’t be out there.”
Crofty: (reading out a tweet) “”Ever since Martin Whitmarsh left, Martin Brundle has been the alpha Martin.””
Martin: “Martin Whitmarsh, the alpha Martin!? He fired me from McLaren!!”
“I was brilliant down the straights. It was the just the corners that were a problem.”
“I lost track of days during lockdown but I’m pretty certain this is Friday.”
“His engine and gearbox overtook him like a great big pendulum.”
“If Racing Point start smashing it out front, “we race as one” will be going out the window!”
Crofty: “Wouldn’t it be great to use the old pit lane for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix?”
Martin: (bluntly) “No.”
[…]
Martin: “What we should do here [Turn 1] is go straight on and use the old Osterrichring!”
QUALIFYING
“We race as one when it comes to diversity, but we don’t race as one when we’ve got a piece on a car the others wish they had.”
“Turn 2 doesn’t exist for the F1 cars.”
“Track temperature has just dropped 6°, which suggests that probe was in direct sunlight.”
“We call them happy hour in testing: 9 o’clock in the morning, 5 o’clock in the evening, absolute happy hour.”
“Looked like he was hanging wallpaper there on a windy day. […] I’ve no idea what I’m talking about, it’s a Jackie Stewart quote.”
“Let me ask you an obvious question and you give me an obvious answer.”
Martin: “The job I wouldn’t want to be is Lewis Hamilton’s teammate.”
Crofty: “Is there anyone’s teammate you would want to be?”
Martin: “I’m not answering that question!”
(Christian Horner says he has an overlay of Hamilton’s lap)
Martin: “Why can’t we have that information? Why can’t we have real-time overlays?”
Crofty: “We don’t have 20 people back at base!”
(Anthony and Karun appear to be wearing matching outfits, leading to a discussion on why Crofty and Martin aren’t)
“It was your swimming trunks that put me off, Crofty.”
(Vettel is called into the weighbridge)
“Let’s face it: post-lockdown, the scales are a scary prospect!”
(Bottas goes off, causing a yellow flag and retaining pole position)
“He’s not looking like a pole sitter right there, is he?”
“They [Hamilton and Bottas] are in the same bubble. As are we at Sky F1. I’m not asking you for a man hug, though, Crofty.”
RACE
“It [Hamilton’s grid penalty] was so late in the day it was nearly applied to next week’s race!”
“It’s a bit disappointing really – I was hoping Verstappen would be able to stay a bit closer than that!”
(Raikkonen passes Giovinazzi)
“Looked a bit like synchronised swimming, that, didn’t it?”
“Plan A – don’t spare the horses, don’t spare the tyres, flat out.”
“Kerb. Noun. A stone edging to a pavement or raised path. That’s the red and white bits, then.”
“Do not miss this last 20 laps.”
(on a safety car restart)
“He was so early, he nearly caught the safety car back up!”
(Hamilton wipes out Albon)
“Oh no, not again!”
“What a race, Crofty! What a race!!”
“It’s not often I get so engrossed in a race I didn’t notice it was the last lap!”
“Aced pole. Made sure nobody else could ace pole when he went off. Not saying that was intentional.”
STYRIA
QUALIFYING
“The throttle works in both directions.”
“The computer here saying risk of rain for this session is 100%, and that is 100% correct.”
“If you look at the start of, say, the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix, that was extraordinary and we thought that was fine.”
“The problem with the 80s and 90s […] the driver was most of the impact protection.”
(the safety car does some reconnaissance laps and chooses not to pit)
“Oh look, he’s going round the lap! That’s encouraging!”
“I used to like sitting in the car. The car is so comfortable. It’s like a tailor-made suit.”
“They don’t want you using wet tyres to do installation laps on a dry day.”
(the queue at the end of the pit lane)
“Latifi will have to get rude and just shove his nose in, hope that nobody runs over it.”
“These times are going to keep moving around like a fruit machine at an arcade.”
(a Williams hits debris from Giovinazzi’s crash)
“Well, it’s out of the way now, isn’t it?”
“There was debris on the track, but eventually it was the entire car.”
“Further confirmation – if we needed it – that George Russell is a handy little driver.”
“I like a wet qualifying. It’s great!”
“I’m sure Williams would prefer they didn’t have the word “Williams” on the rear wing.”
“What’s Leclerc doing on this lap? Nothing and nothing.”
“Look at that! He’s wrestling the car like an octopus, fighting an octopus, the way he’s grabbing the steering wheel!”
“Yeah, we don’t mind a Hamilton-Verstappen front row, don’t we?”
RACE
“Did I get the right Ferraris when I was talking about them before?”
“Apologies again from me for getting the two Ferraris the wrong way round. That’ll teach me to look at something else.”
“I think Alonso would have him [Ocon] on his roof, to be honest.”
“DRS on the Racing Point, a car that looks similar to last year’s Mercedes, and has quite a turn of pace, similar to last year’s Mercedes.”
“I tell you what they didn’t get is last year’s Mercedes’ wet setup.”
(Magnussen and Raikkonen go side-by-side through Turn 9)
“It’s hard enough to get one car through there.”
“Normal service resumes.”
HUNGARY
QUALIFYING
“It does appear it’s the 2020 Mercedes versus a very good copy of the 2019 Mercedes.”
“I’ve got my cup of qualifying tea here, so I’m looking forward to it.”
“The front wondering away from the inside of the corner.”
“The first couple of turns looks like Banksy’s been out overnight.”
(there was a HUGE oil spill in the F3 race, resulting in a lot of cement dust on the track)
“Perez goes fastest on a 14.6. What’s going on!?”
“Wow. That is track evolution with a capital E!”
“Little bit of a Noah’s Ark going on.”
“I’ve never seen a racing car stick to the track better through turn 4. It was extraordinary!”
RACE
“Every sport at the highest level, at world-class level, is about your head.”
“Red Bull appear to have shot themselves in the foot aerodynamically.”
(to Toto Wolff)
“Are you going to let him [Binotto] off the ropes? You seem to punch him every day.”
“I crashed a Jordan in there [Turn 4] when it was a horrible gravel trap.”
“What about when [Vettel] bumped into Lewis in Baku behind the safety car? Yeah, that was nuts. What about when he moved the boards around in Canada last year? I enjoyed that, actually.”
(if they repair Verstappen’s track rod on the grid)
“It’s not going to be like a supermarket trolley.”
“I remember doing a feature back in 1997 and said – be on the right tyre at the right time.”
“Verstappen braving it out, despite suspension being lashed on his car at the last moment.”
“I wouldn’t want the job of feeding my F1 car back into a trail of F1 cars.”
“”These tyres are rubbish”, said the Frenchman to the Italians.”
(Leclerc is Monégasque!)
“They’re two metres wide, these cars – I think the Ferrari is three metres wide at the moment.”
“He’s a bit of a traffic jam at the moment.”
“I think he’ll be asking for his money back on this set of tyres.”
“Guy called “Hamilton” out front, apparently.”
(The rain is a little slow to arrive…)
“12 minutes, they said.”
“Good driving there that they didn’t end up in a pile on the outside of the track.”
“Great driving from the pair of them, and they have 8 wheels intact still!”
“What’s that song? “Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz”?”
“I’m beginning to think that Merc engine turns the earth in the opposite direction.”
James Urwin: “We expect possible rain in 9 laps.”
Martin: “They’re just teasing us, aren’t they?”
(Thanks to Signe Færge for the engineer name.)
“It’s going to happen when I’m walking to do the podium interviews again, isn’t it? Like last week, all the best bits happened when I wasn’t there!”
“It can rain. And snow. It can do what it likes. He’s got a pit stop in hand.”
“I think he can put anything on, as long as it keeps the rims off the ground.”
“Thank goodness for Max Verstappen at the moment. I said that last week as well didn’t I?”
UNITED KINGDOM
QUALIFYING
“I made a note in my diary, August 1, 2020, never complain ever again about traffic into Silverstone!”
(Crofty talks about fans watching from home)
“Mine’s a single malt with a little bit of cold water please!”
“He looked like he was wrestling an octopus there trying to get out of turn four.”
“Oh dear. That is not where you need to be, Lando.”
“Bit eye-watering, that, when you go over those kerbs at 190mph.”
“It’s not often you see an F1 car that sideways these days. They’re normally backwards if they get that sideways.”
Martin: “These things are… wait for it… there’s some Brundle commentary bingo… are like aeroplanes upside down!”
Crofty: “I’ve not heard that for… I’m just ticking off, I’ve got all four corners now on this one! Talking of which, Ted Kravitz, let’s have some bingo from you.”
Ted: “Well, Lando Norris not driving the car the way he treats his grandmother… what was it, Martin, “drive like you’ve got your granny in the back of your car”?”
Crofty: “Oh, hang on, full house! Got it!”
Ted: “He hit the exit kerb around the backside of the circuit and has asked his team to check whether everything is OK.”
[…]
Martin: “”Backside of the circuit” is not on my bingo list, by the way, Ted. You can claim that one.”
Crofty: “It’s a new one for the new season bingo.”
Ted: “I think it was… what I meant was “not-the-bit-of-the-circuit-which-is-the-frontside-which-is-what-I’m-looking-at””–
Crofty: “What?”
Ted: “– which is Maggots and Becketts. The backside, from where I’m looking at. (suddenly realising) The far side! The far side!”
Martin: “When you hit rock bottom, stop digging, Ted!”
Crofty: “Oh, hang on, no no, that’s a diagonal, I’ve got that one!”
[…]
Ted: “I will look but not stare!”
[Crofty collapses in laughter]
Ted: “There you go, that’s another one for your bingo…”
Martin: “That’s wrong anyway, it’s “look but never stare”…”
Crofty: “We actually did… I did have a tweet from someone saying, yeah, Mike Byrne, says “I’m just waiting for “tyres are like 50 pence pieces”, then I’ve got a full house as well”.”
Martin: “Do they still make those?”
“Hug the apex like it’s your favourite granny.”
“The torque demand, as it’s called – throttle, you might know it as.”
“This has thrown a double six, no doubt about it.”
(Crofty reads out more of Brundle’s bingo lines)
“Will Hamilton be a day late and a dollar short?”
“You’ve got 14 times a greater chance of a yellow flag now than when Lewis had a nice clear lap.”
“He’s in fat city with tyres.”
“Brooklands – lovely corner. […] Luffield – horrible corner.”
“There’s no brake lights on these cars, of course.”
“1.1 seconds… they’re having a laugh out front, now.”
Martin: “You have to share your sweets out through the entire lap.”
Crofty: “Full house!”
“It’s just a blink of the eye between Hamilton and Bottas but it’s always Bottas’s eye that’s doing the blinking.”
“They wouldn’t be doing that at Wimbledon or Wembley, would they? Driving on the grass.”
“When you’re turning left into a right hander, you’ve got a problem.”
“Oof, he turned in from the edge of the kerb there. That was brave.”
RACE
“In the good old days, also known as last year…”
“Look at Bernd Maylander, he hasn’t even got his safety car yet! He looks a bit lost!”
“We snigger at the toilet break, but it’s an essential part of preparing for the race.”
“If [Hulkenberg] didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.”
“I will never complain about a traffic jam into Silverstone ever again.”
“I doubt it would pass an MOT, the clout that thing had.”
Martin: “That’s one of those places where you can lick the stamp and post the letter, but the post office was closed by the time he got there.”
[…]
Crofty: “Two things guaranteed at Silverstone […] and Brundle bingo, you’ve come up with three so far!”
“In a month of Sundays you wouldn’t normally drop an F1 car there.”
“It’s barely a braking zone into Stowe, but it is a braking zone.”
“It is an old school circuit, and if something goes wrong you tend to hit something hard.”
“He’s a good man. He doesn’t use two words when one will do. He’s a straight talker, Alan [Permane].”
Martin: “It was a day late and a dollar short.”
Crofty: “People around the world are rejoicing, that’s another one they can cross off!”
“He’s saying “I can’t see anyone in front of me, I can’t see anyone behind me, I’m bored, so I’m going to tease you on the pit wall instead”.”
(Ted goes “neow”)
“You need to check your spark plugs, Ted.”
(Grosjean makes some interesting defensive moves)
“These Grand Prix Drivers’ Association meetings must be interesting when he’s chairing those.”
“I’ve seen much worse on the M25 most days, but you’re not doing those kind of speeds.”
(Grosjean struggles to get going)
“There’s a gear in there somewhere.”
Martin: “He’s got 11th place pl— pl— he’s got 11th place pace.”
Crofty: “Easy for you to say.”
Martin: “Obviously not!”
“If Lewis jumps off the pit wall after today’s race, it’s going to hurt, because he’s not got the crowd there to surf.”
70TH ANNIVERSARY
QUALIFYING
“Hulkenberg was going so slowly I think the earth’s rotation was as fast as him there.”
“28.4 is not exactly rapid.”
“Bang! On the brakes.”
“Squeeze it like you’ve got an egg under the pedals you don’t want to break.”
Crofty: “The team that started 1-2-3 and 4 in the first ever race in 1950 start 19th and 20th in 2020.”
Martin: “That’s progress for you.”
Crofty: “I’m missing the air horns [etc]”
Martin: “And the rotten eggs they used to throw at us!”
“This must be the slowest lap Lewis Hamilton’s ever done in a Mercedes Benz. And that’s with 4 wheels on it.”
“He knows he doesn’t need to take every inch, every ounce of their life… there’s some old money for you.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “[bleep]. [bleep].”
[…]
Martin: “I was expecting only the bleeping machine there, and we got it.”
“Oh dear oh dear oh dear, Sebastian. What’s going on?”
(someone tweets in pointing out the earth rotates at 1,000mph)
“Maybe the earth’s not flat after all.”
Crofty: “Mercedes going for a 9th consecutive pole at Silverstone.”
Martin: (sarcastically) “Yippee.”
“The rotational speed of the earth at each pole is 0.”
“I like the look of that grid. That’s an interesting grid.”
RACE
“I feel like I should be working for Al Capone or something.”
(Sky have dressed up in 1950s outfits to celebrate the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix)
“The car’s going very fast, because last year’s Mercedes was very fast.”
“The only team that’s happy with them plagiarising Mercedes Benz is Mercedes Benz.”
(Murray is on the phone)
“Hi Murray, it’s Martin here, dressed like a dodgy car dealer.”
Jenson: “Do you think Copse is flat?” (in late 1950s cars)
Martin: “I think it is for you. Once. Do you like hospital food?”
(Later, in the same feature)
“Who do you think you are, Sterling Moss?”
“This is a phase, like going to the dentist on a wet Monday morning, that you don’t like but it’s got to be done.”
“Have I mentioned this before? Thank goodness for Max Verstappen!”
“That must be like driving a rally car.”
Martin: “I’d hang on to those.” (referring to VES’s tyres)
Crofty: “Hang on to them like your favourite granny?”
“Nothing against grandmas. We do see them moving around quite quickly sometimes!”
“When I said it wouldn’t take him long to dispatch Bottas, I wasn’t thinking one corner.”
“It’s going to be a long and messy divorce between Vettel and Ferrari.”
“Ambition ahead of adhesion, there.”
“They don’t look good enough to go down the shops with.”
“I said Leclerc will be easy meat, but Lewis is a vegan, of course.”
SPAIN
QUALIFYING
“It’s very hot. Coming from Great Britain, we will never ever complain about that.”
“It’s like a hop, skip, and a jump, you want through there.”
“Braking distance is so short there he could barely get down the gears in time!”
(if Qualifying engine modes get banned)
“It sounds like a “get Mercedes” kind of clause.”
“I thought he’d dropped a fiver in the garage, when he said “check the floor”.”
“Kimi bounced off the other side of the sausage kerb and it bounced back again!”
(Stroll gets some air over the kerb)
“That’s a shot you’ll see in the magazines or on the website.”
“… whether or not their tyres turned into chewing gum.”
“Brake less? Carry more speed? Get on the throttle earlier? Find a shortcut?”
“We’ve gone offboard, sadly. Was looking forward to that.”
RACE
(Natalie talks about the heat)
“Inevitable, isn’t it, August in Spain?”
“This is a plug-and-play circuit.”
“I feel trussed up like a Christmas turkey. I’ve got some junk in the trunk as well.”
(Martin and Nico stand in the “1” grid media spot)
“We’ve claimed pole position here.”
“We’ve been mesmerised by this giant sticker going on the front of the grid which will have the fraction of the life of a mayfly.”
(to Nico)
“You could have been a multiple world champion if it hadn’t been for one “L Hamilton”.”
“I want some ultimate cage fighting at the end.”
“There are no fans in the grandstands, and there are no fans on the cars either.”
“Easier said than done for Bottas to get past what is essentially a 2019 Merc.”
“He’s getting mugged left, right, and centre, isn’t he?”
Sergio Perez: “How are the tyres?”
Tim Wright: “Tyres are looking OK at the moment but they are at their hottest. Slip management now is critical, Checo.”
Martin: “I’m sorry, but that should be the other way around.”
“Hope Verstappen’s bluffing about his tyres.”
“The way they were complaining about it [the hard tyre], you wouldn’t put it on a wheelbarrow.”
“Look up at the braking board, “brake… 3… 2… 1…, and sort it out later.””
“Those tyres are over the cliff, as we used to say more often.”
“There’s 20 cars out there but they all want to be roughly in the same part of the track.”
(Leclerc runs wide trying to pass Norris)
“Haven’t paid the rent for out there.”
Riccardo Adami: “We are expecting rain after lap 50.”
Martin: “That could be the cage fighting I talked about at the beginning.”
(Raikkonen)
“… and some very short interviews.”
“It’s like pulling the handbrake on.”
(Sainz vs Albon)
Martin: “The matador there was not having him around the outside. Gave him the squeeze.”
Crofty: “The matador against the bull!”
“It’s normally about now I say “thank goodness for Max Verstappen”.”
Sebastian Vettel: “OK, you need to let me know what to do, in terms of pace.”
Riccardo Adami: “Understood.”
Martin: “It was kind of a “remember me?” call, wasn’t it?”
“Well he ordered them online, didn’t he, and got his medium tyres when he went to the pickup point.”
“How did Stroll end up behind Perez? Do you remember?”
“It’s not electrified the #77 of Valtteri Bottas, that’s for sure.”
“Vettel having to get out of the way to be lapped by Lewis Hamilton. What a difference a year makes.”
“I’m doing the post-race interviews. I think I’m going to find one happy driver and two unhappy drivers.”
“Get the bleeping machine ready when they tell Kvyat about his penalty.”
BELGIUM
QUALIFYING
“Yeah, he’s [Hamilton] getting quite good, isn’t he(?)”
(Also, Martin got terrorised by a wasp in the build-up but ever the professional, kept going!)
(Concorde agreement)
“I think he left the table disappointed that everyone signed up, so that’s the hallmark of a good negotiation.”
(On Ferrari’s appeal of Racing Point despite Ferrari’s engine deal in 2019)
“It is the pot calling the kettle red, there, isn’t it?”
Crofty: “There is a very real risk of both Ferraris being knocked out in Q1 in the dry for the first time ever.”
Martin: “Oh come on, you’ll be telling me Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist, next!”
“A lot of track limit restrictions around here now, thank goodness.”
“Max is not the kind of guy to accept a helping hand.”
“No name corner coming up, you can really yahoo through here.”
“This is great: arrive, drive.”
“All you can see is sky when you’re climbing Raidillon.”
(Blanchimont)
“In the dry, you can read your newspapers.”
“I got into commentary because he [James Hunt] went missing at Spa […] and anybody that broke down and spoke English was ushered into the commentary box, and I ended up commentating with Murray Walker. […] I’ve never managed to go missing on race day yet.”
“Max just doesn’t want to go into the playground and play with the others, does he?”
Charles Leclerc: “[Bleep]. There’s not much more I can do.”
Martin: “Unlucky for some. P13.”
“Then he called me a lot of bad names, which is an Australian way of being friendly, I guess.”
(Ricciardo, obviously)
“That has got to be, easily, the grippiest racing car in history. It’s like it’s on rails.”
Max Verstappen: “I ran out of energy a little bit early.”
Martin: “Meaning his battery pack rather than himself.”
Crofty: “I hope it doesn’t rain.”
Martin: “I hope it does rain.”
RACE
“Last changed in 2007. Every time they’ve changed it, they’ve made it worse, as far as I’m concerned.”
“The most compromised pit entry in the world of motorsport, surely?”
“Underestimate the honey badger at your peril.”
“You couldn’t make a track like this any more. You wouldn’t be allowed to.”
“Come on, Valtteri! Get in there and give us a race!”
“That’d be an airplane crash if they’d touched.”
(Ed: Martin, you’re British. That should be “aeroplane”, shouldn’t it?)
(Norris passes Leclerc)
“He could even drive through it, it was so much faster […] it’s like he’s got a plug lead off or something, hasn’t it? Dear oh dear.”
“What on earth is going on at Ferrari? The customer car’s just breezed past it.”
(Vettel and Leclerc nearly collide)
“That would just finish it off, wouldn’t it, fighting 13th and 14th and running into each other.”
“He is running 17th, also known as last.”
“Those that didn’t stop [under the Safety Car] are going to prove me wrong.”
“It’ll be shaking his eyeballs out, won’t it?”
“I cannot put 140bar into this braking system. You need the leg of a donkey!”
“You’ve got to stay within the confines, just like if you kick the ball over the line, it’s out of play. Allegedly.”
ITALY
QUALIFYING
(on the “Party mode” ban)
“The document explaining what happens is four pages long of what you can and can’t do!”
“You couldn’t make it up: we’ve just had 8 of the 20 drivers in the stewards’ office at the fastest circuit in the world for going too slowly.”
“If you take off in a little aeroplane behind a big aeroplane, you’ve got to wait 2 minutes, and it’s like that on a smaller scale.”
“It’s sort of double – if not triple – trouble for Charles Leclerc.
“Cheat across the kerbs there. That’s allowed, for some reason.”
“Stick to the racetrack!”
“Party mode for Mercedes-Benz? It’s more like a month on the beach in the Maldives for them.”
“Stroll loses his time as well, so we’ve got four drivers back of the class.”
“You think you’re going to slow us down? You’re going to have to try a bit harder than that.”
“Ocon with the widest Renault in existence there.”
Ted: “They never learn, do they!? They never learn!”
Martin: “Ted, I think you need some decaff espressos!
[…]
Martin: “Have you finished, Ted?”
Ted: “Yes, I’ll go and have a lie down.”
“Look how much distance he had! He had a full car’s width to the white line!”
“It’s always the blink of an eye and it’s always Bottas’s eye that blinks.”
RACE
(driving the Lotus 72)
“It’s like an insect, isn’t it?”
“This race is going to be short, but let’s hope it’s sweet as well.”
“3 into 2 doesn’t go.”
“The people I expected to finish 2nd and 3rd in this race are currently running 6th and 7th.”
“I so much prefer a proper safety car.”
“You’re going straight to the scene of the accident.”
(the broadcast cuts to Leclerc’s shattered car)
“That will not polish out.”
“This is worst case scenario for Lewis.”
“Did he make a place up there? He certainly lost one quickly.”
“If ever Lewis Hamilton needed a turned-up-to-11 race mode – which he’s not allowed to do any more! – it’s this afternoon!”
“This is Valtteri Bottas’s big chance.”
“You know those reverse grid qualifying races […?] We’ve got it, we’ve got it going on right now.”
“Didn’t trouble the racetrack at Parabolica.”
“If he snatched a brake, he’d be into your sidepod quicker than you’d know it.”
“Hamilton was having a canter out front. It was a one-horse race until the penalty.”
“Lewis is not going to sail through this pack like a video game.”
“Gasly will be able to thank Red Bull for kicking him out of the team!”
“David beats Goliath.”
“Formula 1 needs this result. It really does.”
“I wish I was doing THESE post-race interviews! I always get the ones: “you won again, Lewis; you lost again, Valtteri.”
“I don’t know how many COVID tests we’ve had now. I think I’m up to about 18.”
“Mercedes don’t leave crumbs on the table too often. You’ve just got to make sure you eat them.”
TUSCANY
QUALIFYING
“There’s a chicane in 13 and 14, they just straight-line it!”
“In a football match, if you had a variable goal line it wouldn’t be a good match, would it?”
Crofty: “”Stay off the green and into the mix, otherwise your lap time is in a bit of a fix.” Will that work for today?”
Martin: “I’ll leave you to say that.”
“Occasionally, the camera cuts are so fast to try and keep up with the cars.”
“Straight into the 15s for Lewis Hamilton. Take that, the rest of you!”
Crofty: “Take us through this lap, Martin.”
Martin: “I will.”
“Throttle pinned. Now we’ve got to start thinking about some brakes.”
“Legal. That’s fine. Still a bit cheaty to me.”
“What’s Vettel’s first effort? Oh dear.”
“Poor old Sergio Perez misses some races through COVID, gets fired, gets a one-place grid penalty for running into Kimi Raikkonen, who probably doesn’t care that much, and now gets some hand-me-down bits.”
“New colour on the Ferrari just for this weekend. Clashes with the toolbox, doesn’t it?”
“Mercedes haven’t just moved the goalposts there, they’ve picked their blazers up and taken them away.”
“It’s a car that ought to be a top 10 contender, even in that state… condition… specification!”
“Wow, couldn’t believe how much grip he got in the gravel there!”
“How did George Russell find that much grip on the gravel!?”
(Bottas backs the traffic up)
“It’s like a safety car restart.”
“I don’t actually like the names on this circuit. It’s not Maggots, Becketts, Stowe, and Club, is it?”
(On one of the corners)
“It takes longer to say than it takes the F1 cars to go through it.”
“Brake less! Put the throttle on earlier! Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.”
“Ambition well ahead of adhesion, and his engine and gearbox overtook him.”
RACE
“I’m never going to feel sorry for a Formula 1 driver.”
(throwing to an interview)
“It’s not easy to catch Lewis Hamilton, but Paul di Resta managed to do it earlier on.”
“If this is a one-off, then we’ve got to make the most of it.”
“Half a minute a lap faster than the MotoGP riders, because we have downforce.”
“It’s a very fast pit entry here. Everything seems very fast around this Mugello circuit.”
“The more Max tries to power out of there, the more he’ll make sandcastles.”
“Three– no, four into one doesn’t go.”
(Verstappen’s start onboard on replay)
“I don’t think he was going too far anyway.”
(the safety car is red for Ferrari’s 1000th race)
“Michael Masi knows there’ll be someone at the back of the class saying “you didn’t tell me the safety car was red!””
“Kimi still has four wheels and they’re all still pointing in the same direction.”
“Like a lucky dip, everybody will go home with a prize, probably.”
“I think you could put a bet on the safety car winning this race.”
“How many walls have we seen Kimi Raikkonen in so far? He’s in P11!”
“We know him as Daniel Ricciardo, his brake pedal knows him as Dan Dare.”
“A wall of death around the outside of the nicely cambered turn one, job done.”
“Lewis knows what he likes and likes what he knows.”
(slow Alfa Romeo pit stop)
“There was a bit of a committee meeting as to whether to let it go or not.”
“Don’t crash into each other, we need you!”
“Red flags are so unusual in Formula One, relatively speaking.”
Crofty: “Has Daniel Ricciardo got a problem there?”
Martin: “I think he’s just applauding his potential shoey.”
“It’s a shame Lance Stroll had to take a pounding up against the barriers to make that [red flag and standing restart] happen.”
“I’m nervous in the pit of my stomach.”
“Valtteri, you had your chance, and you didn’t get off the line.”
“Lewis has taken all the sweeties again, hasn’t he?”
“That was a tough Grand Prix, mentally and physically.”
RUSSIA
Martin was not in Russia; Karun deputised in the commentary box.
EIFEL
QUALIFYING
“Super sub.”
“You’ve got a wonderful thing under your right foot called the throttle pedal.”
(to Andreas Seidl)
“Just tell the drivers it’s just corners and straights, like anywhere else!”
“Carlos has had a couple of… fender benders, shall we call them, recently.”
“When you throw to Ted “up on the roof”, makes me think of The Drifters!”
Crofty: “If Hulkenberg gets into Q3, is that a pretty good achievement?”
Martin: “No, it’s a BRILLIANT achievement!”
“Turn 12 is a complete nothing unless it’s waterlogged.”
“We’ve spent a lot of billions of pounds to go 1.5 seconds faster than Takuma Sato.”
(Hulkenberg qualifies last)
“He’s inside the top 20, we’ll give him that.”
“The track’s a bit of a patchwork quilt.”
“I don’t want them racing on a billiard table.”
“Do you wear bare-foot sandals on a day like today, Ted?”
(Ted replies he’s wearing socks and sandals.)
“I’m not thinking about The Drifters any more. They were cool.”
“Leclerc’s really standing up in that seat at Ferrari, metaphorically speaking.”
Crofty: “Wind updates from Ted Kravitz.”
Martin: “On the roof.”
RACE
“This is not a finishing school or a rehabilitation centre. This is Formula One.”
(in a VT with Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen)
“We’ve got six legs, six arms, and one brain between us.”
“Maybe I’ll never do a gridwalk again. Who knows.”
“They’re just 13-inch wheels […] sort of thing you’d have on a Mini Metro from 30 years ago.”
“Nobody made the first corner!”
“I really thought the Mercedes were heading out there to have a bit of an incident.”
“Heart-in-your-mouth time.”
Tom Stallard: “Carlos, there could be a small light shower in about 5 minutes. Very small, very light.”
Crofty: “Ho ho ho!”
Martin: “Bring it on!”
“Leclerc locking up left, right, and centre.”
“Welcome to the weekend, the hard compound tyre.”
(Bottas with a huge lock-up)
“He’ll have to pit. That’ll be like a 50-pence piece.”
“This is where he needs some hammer time… or Valtteri time… or whatever you want to call it.”
“We’re now back under green conditions and on the green grass.”
(Bottas slows with engine problems)
“And then there were two!”
Alex Albon: “They race me so hard.”
Martin: “Welcome to Formula One.”
“Seb Vettel, I suspect, CANNOT wait to move on.”
“Lewis [Hamilton] is doing the equivalent of someone on the motorway pulling up alongside and asking you to go a bit faster.”
“It’s going to be like driving on ice.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it, whining about no tyre temperature and they’ve just taken off like scalded cats.”
“That was good, wasn’t it? I enjoyed that. Lots of surprises.”
“A socially distanced shoey from Daniel Ricciardo?”
PORTUGAL
QUALIFYING
(Qualifying is delayed due to track repairs)
“It’s like you want to replace a few loose patio tiles, only to find your entire patio is loose.”
“There are some usual suspects who have had rather a lot of the 150 laps that have been deleted.”
“Anybody got Big Phil’s number?”
(yeah, I’ve no idea either)
“Headmaster Ross Brawn called me in to show me all the data as to why they didn’t use the tight chicane in Turn 1.”
[…]
“By the way, all 20 drivers last night in the drivers’ briefing were saying we should be using the chicane in the first corner!”
“Apparently in amateur racing people do get confused if they have a spin and head off in the wrong direction.”
“Fastest unemployed man in the world is fastest at the moment, Sergio Perez.”
Crofty: “Onboard with Verstappen, take us through this, Martin.”
Martin: “… I’m just enjoying it, actually!”
“Is this going to get the job done for Verstappen? It most certainly is!”
“You can smell the asphalt when you’re out there, it’s so new […] I’d bet it’d be slippery if it was raining, that’s for sure.”
“That’s an arrive and drive corner, isn’t it, it’s an approach to this.”
(Ocon wrestles the car into the final corner)
“Oh! Had to really fight it. He was turning left into a right hander.”
“If Hamilton out-qualifies Bottas, Bottas is going to be broken-hearted.”
“7 is a really quick arrive and drive, as I called it earlier on.”
“Verstappen’s not had a great middle– in fact, Verstappen’s had an awful middle sector.”
“Cue one broken heart for Valtteri Bottas.”
“Lewis Hamilton pulls it out of the bag one more time.”
RACE
“A little bit of rain, it’ll be like a skating rink.”
“The stopwatch never lies.”
“Thankfully, these days, they don’t get too many broken bones.”
“This Algarve racetrack looks more like a rollercoaster to me.”
(Martin and Ant are doing the track guide on e-scooters and Martin can’t get up the hill, so starts pushing)
“Going to have to give the scooter the old scoot-along!”
[…]
(then he overtakes Ant down the hill)
“If you’re in a bobsleigh, you need an extra bit of success ballast around your middle.”
“Don’t we just crave normality in today’s world?”
(Turn 1)
“Very much arrive and drive, and two into one will not go.”
“Gave it a little wiggle to make it 3 metres wide instead of 2.”
“I don’t know why Valtteri decided to go and fill his tyres up with rubbish.”
“You’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t if you defend down into turn one, you give your rival a perfect view of the racing line.”
(to Otmar Szafnauer)
“If it could go wrong, it has gone wrong for you so far.”
(Stroll gets a second penalty of the day)
“Any more and he’ll be getting a parking ticket when he comes in for a pit stop!”
“They could make two pit stops and still be in front of Verstappen.”
(Bottas wants soft tyres and doesn’t get them)
“Don’t you hate that when the parcel turns up and it’s not what you were expecting?”
(and then struggles for warmup)
“Maybe he’s just still shocked they’re not red.”
“You have to leave a car’s width, which I actually think should be “a tiny bit more than a car’s width.””
“You can hear them doing pit stop practice from miles away!”
(Russell has a hairy moment)
“Woah! Come back! Well held!”
“And done a 21… is that an 0 or a 9?”
(Editor’s note: a real shame that Martin was asked to do the interviews in parc fermé for this race. He surely would have had plenty to say about Hamilton breaking Schumacher’s win record…!)
EMILIA ROMAGNA
QUALIFYING
“I have no idea how close it’s going to be, but “very”.”
Pundits’ favourite Hamilton wins:
Martin: Canada 2007
Paul: Singapore 2018
Johnny: United Kingdom 2008
Ted: Portugal 2020
Crofty: Germany 2008
Karun: Monaco 2008
Simon: Bahrain 2014
“The class of 2020 meets old school here at Imola.”
“Hop, skip, and a jump through here.”
“Then arrive and drive.”
“Somebody needs to tell Sergio about that short run to the line. He did several more metres than he needed to.”
(discussing alternative punishments for track limits)
“Or a little electric shock on some tender parts of your body or something like that.”
“Carry the speed and keep it within the confines of play. Simple, really. Is that too much to ask?”
“You very rarely hear of spark plug issues. You forget they’ve even got them.”
“You brake so late into Rivazza. It makes me wince.”
(Hamilton just avoids, then hits, the gravel)
“Ohhh…. right up against the edge, and ducks into… that was over the edge.”
“I predict a slightly grumpy Lewis on that one.”
RACE
“19 corners, although a Formula One car will ignore 5 of those at least.”
“A little chicane that also comes and smacks you in the face.”
“Pulls you around like a railway line.”
“I wish I could roll my Rs like he [Alonso] does. Can you roll your Rs?”
(Alonso picks out Russell as the best “next generation” driver)
“He’s not a man who will throw away compliments easily.”
Christian Horner: “Any recommendations, Martin? What would you do?”
Martin: “I would drive faster.”
“Where they hit the brake pedal makes me wince.”
“Alex left the door open, Daniil tried to walk through it.”
“There’ll be a few choice Spanish words there in the helmet of Carlos Sainz.”
“Lewis’s brain was ticking over there – it was actually on the rev limiter.”
Crofty: “Trust me, Martin Brundle’s eyes light up when they go through those corners.”
Martin: “And then I wince because that’s where I crashed the Jordan in 96.”
Pete Bonnington: “OK Lewis, can you extend 10 more laps?”
Lewis Hamilton: “I can definitely go longer.”
[…]
Martin: “Well, that’s obviously plan C now.”
“Daniel “Dan Dare” Ricciardo.”
(Vettel has a very slow stop)
“That’s not good enough from Ferrari, is it? It really isn’t. It’s race 13. And it looked like there were two tyres with an issue.”
“How does that song go? “Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” Max is just staring at the back of them, and that’s his… life at the moment.”
“He had a nice early present at the bottom of the hill.”
“Kimi Raikkonen wins the fleet manager award for the day. He’s 46 laps on a set of tyres and still going.”
Kevin Magnussen: “I’m getting a massive headache from all these upshifts. It’s like a kick in the head every time.”
[…]
Ted: “Ooh, that Magnussen doesn’t sound nice, does it? Oh my goodness. Can upshifts be that harsh, Martin? It’s like… pushed in the head, every upshift?”
Martin: “Yes. And of course, your headrest and HANS device is literally– there’s no gap behind you, but he’ll get over it.”
Ted: “What’s that going to result in, what, an extremely sore neck? He’s not going to pass out or anything, is he?”
Martin: “No.”
Ted: “OK, all right, good. Just making sure, you know, care about him.”
Martin: “You’re a caring person, Ted.”
Crofty: “That was a brilliant, subtle “in my day it was much much worse”, from Martin “he’ll get over it!”…”
Martin: “No…”
Ted: “We used to get whacked round the head with a cricket bat, every lap–”
Martin: “I didn’t mention me at all!”
Ted: “– and we said thank you…!”
Crofty: “Ken Tyrrell used to bring a bat as motivation…!”
“McLaren having a quiet one down in 9th and 10th.”
(Russell crashes behind the safety car and sits dejectedly by the railings)
“He’s having a Mika Hakkinen moment, isn’t he?”
“You’ve got to get up early to outbrake Daniel Ricciardo.”
“Gave us a better race than I feared about 10 laps in if I’m honest.”
TURKEY
QUALIFYING
(on the 2021 calendar)
“The TBC is interesting, that’s a kind of “come and get me” date.”
(who is the best team principal of all time?)
Martin: “Enzo Ferrari.”
Simon: “But he was quite divisive, wasn’t he?”
Martin: “All right then, Ken Tyrrell.”
“A typical Verstappen-type slide.”
“The throttle works both ways.”
“It’s dark here in two and a half hours’ time!”
“Yes, why not? Track limits still count.”
“They were struggling to get in the pits, for goodness sake!”
(Gasly tiptoes through turn 8)
“Flat-out turn 8, this will be(!)”
“It [a road sweeper] was the only thing we’ve seen make the apex of turn one so far, and it was a bit quicker than the F1 cars in turn two as well.”
(onboard with Ocon’s lap)
Martin: “Is he just finished it or has he started it?
Crofty: “It’s difficult to tell!”
“Red lights flashing away. That would send me absolutely mad, following that through a race.”
“He’s really kind of more minding his business than putting in the fastest lap of qualifying.”
“I’ve been upside down a couple of times, there’s not much grip when you’re doing that, or in the air.”
(Damon tweets in a picture of himself suggesting he should dry the track with his jetpack)
“If he hasn’t got a beard, moustache, and eyebrows next time we see him, we’ll know why. […] Mid-life crisis. He’ll like that I said “mid-life”.”
(track is ready)
“Like an advert we used to have in the UK… yes, the fruit’s ready!”
“I bet there’s more grip out there on that concrete!”
“You’ve got to fire the throttle up, because otherwise you’re building sandcastles on the beach.”
“We’re going to get this qualifying session done a bitesize at a time.”
“We don’t like trucks on the track, especially on wet days.”
(onboard with Norris)
“It’s actually exciting, isn’t it, I— woah!”
“Two or three years of world rallying didn’t do Kimi any harm in these conditions.”
Crofty: “That’s put the cat amongst the pigeons.”
Martin: “Yeah, but the pigeon’s about to come over the line.”
“If I was Perez, I’d leave it in the gravel!”
“Told him he should have left it in the gravel trap!”
RACE
“The surface is too new. It looks like a mirror.”
“If I was a driver, I think my pulse would have gone up 10 or 15.”
“Coax the thing away, like when you’re leaving the supermarket.”
(to George Russell)
“You’re being interviewed by a former driver who crashed his brand new Tyrrell on the way to the grid at Imola.”
[…]
“Now, you had a bit of a Mika Hakkinen moment…”
[…]
“Do Formula One drivers cry?”
“If we don’t have too many safety car periods, which is looking unlikely, frankly…”
“Let’s hope it’s not too successful, starting in the pit lane, or they’ll all be doing it next time.”
“Excuse me, we need some race tracks for this 17-race season in the pandemic. Can we borrow yours, please?”
“They’re at sea – literally.”
Tom Stallard: “Good stuff, Carlos, big fan of your work.”
Martin: “And I have to say, Carlos’s work was relatively straightforward there.”
“Verstappen needs to clear this Ferrari PDQ.”
(VSC ending)
“A good day to squirt it, and go immediately backwards.”
(Hamilton vs Vettel)
“Bit of history between these two in combat…!”
“We’re nowhere near half distance, Crofty! Talk about who’s going to win it – there’s a long way to go!”
“Replay of Max, there, having ANOTHER adventure.”
George Russell: “He [Norris] pushed me off the road.”
[…]
Martin: “I’d rather see that kind of thing than all the happy clappy social media.”
“Imagine going through there with that wet patch on slicks today. You’d be down the barriers quicker than you can say “that was a mistake”.”
“Great advert for slashing the downforce on Formula One cars.”
Crofty: “The driver of the day: I wonder which way the vote is going at the moment?”
Martin: “All of them, surely?”
(Bottas finally, FINALLY, pits)
“They had to bring him in. They were going to be reported for cruelty to race drivers if they didn’t bring him in.”
“If you fire a set of slicks up, you will find 10 seconds. You will also find the wall if you’re not careful.”
Riccardo Musconi: “Four laps to go.”
Valtteri Bottas: “I wish it was less.”
[…]
Martin: “I was about to say exactly that: I bet he wishes it was less.”
“Norris had to have six goes at coaxing his McLaren into that final turn!”
“Not the first time he’d been over that particular piece of wasteground.”
“There was enough tarmac on the outside that had more grip than the racetrack.”
“To match Michael Schumacher in a Schumacher-esque race […] I think it was really fitting.”
BAHRAIN
QUALIFYING
“I don’t know why we just stick to all the track limits […] if it wasn’t faster, they wouldn’t be out there. It’s as simple as that.”
(Russell is attempting to beat Nelson Piquet’s record for most consecutive out-qualifyings of a team mate)
“I bet George would give several of those away for a few world championship points on a Sunday afternoon. Or a Sunday evening.”
“The corner we say is not really a corner is where Alex Albon crashed last night.”
“F1 cars are like patients in hospital. When they come in they have an umbilical cord plugged in to them, you keep some areas cool, other areas hot, it’s like they’re on life support.”
(Verstappen sparks like crazy)
“It’s no life for a skidblock, is it?”
(Leclerc gets held up badly)
“Were those cars actually stationary on the way into turn 14!?”
(Sainz spins)
“It’s almost like pulling the handbrake on.”
(Replay)
“It was exactly like pulling the handbrake on, wasn’t it?”
“Got to make the apex… we didn’t make the apex.”
“Come on Max, give us some sport!”
Pete Bonnington: “Lewis, you’re on pole.”
Lewis Hamilton: “Congratulations, guys.”
Martin: “That could just be a recording they play out to him!”
(Perez qualifies 5th)
“Give that man a job for next year!”
“You wouldn’t want to slip off the front of a highly polished Formula One car with those antenna, would you?”
“It’s just the blink of an eye, but it’s usually Valtteri’s eye that’s blinking.”
RACE
(should Hamilton be knighted?)
“Two for one please: one for Murray Walker as well.”
“We heard that awful expression of “tyre management” from Albon.”
“Nothing is as ugly as last year’s racing car.”
“I so admire that W11, but I don’t love it, because it’s a bit too good.”
“He [Vettel] showed me a joke on his phone – a very clean joke – socially distanced, he’s got two-metre arms if you haven’t noticed.”
“That turn in point for turn one is a bit of a car cruncher, a bit of carbon fibre confetti normally.”
(Latifi takes a while to form up)
“He’ll have some warm rear tyres when it all eventually kicks off and the five lights go out and your magic line comes out, Crofty.”
(on Grosjean’s crash)
“I’ve not seen a Formula One car catch fire like that for a very, very, long time.”
“My god, it’s torn the car in half. No wonder the fuel came out of it!”
“The car’s gone through the barrier, and that’s then been sort of used as a wrench, as it were, to literally rip the car in half. That’s unbelievable…”
“He’s more or less stepped out of the front of that car. That’s… that’s a miracle.”
“It’s pierced the barrier like a tin opener, and that’s just literally levered the car apart.”
“Apparently Romain’s got some burns to his leg. Not a huge surprise there, I don’t think.”
“It’s just a ribbon of tarmac of opportunity, 1, 2, and 3.”
“Hamilton, then, in a different postcode by the time he got down to turn one.”
“He [Grosjean] did lose a boot. Well, they’re slippers, really, aren’t they?”
(the order for the restart is, quite arbitrarily, taken from the second safety car line)
“Apparently, you’re fourth on the grid now, Valtteri.”
“How I would mind-manage this, and did mind-manage this, […] “OK. We’re all in one piece. Law of averages say that’s not going to happen any time soon. And actually, Romain’s fine. Let’s get on with this.””
“Max said after qualifying in P3 “great, at least I’ve got the clean side of the grid”, except he’s now in P2.”
“This is the high risk bit, going around the outside, because you could be wearing a Formula One car if you’re not careful.”
“We haven’t actually had a racing lap yet, have we, a complete racing lap?”
(restart)
“Look at Lewis bolting off the last corner: “come on, team, this is a non-contact sport!”
(End of lap 9)
Crofty: “Here you go, Martin, you’re had a lap of racing.”
Martin: “Nearly there!”
(Hamilton crosses the line)
Martin: “Yep, we’ve done it, we’ve done it.”
(Sainz passes Leclerc, before Leclerc re-attacks)
“There’s a little marker for next year when they’re team mates, and here’s another one!”
“I’ve always been a fan of Carlos Sainz, and I’m pleased I’m being proven right.”
(Kvyat has a bad stop after his penalty)
“The thing about Kvyat’s stop is they had 10 seconds to think about it, and it still wasn’t very good!”
(Sainz pits)
“He was pretty wayward on the exit of the last corner. He’ll be pleased to park those.”
“He’s just nursing those tyres: (calmly) welcome to the race, my friends!”
(the two Renaults FINALLY swap)
“Day late and a dollar short on that call, I think.”
“A lot of things you expect in life, aren’t there, but they don’t always turn out to be the case.”
“We need a kettle for these delayed races, Crofty. Could just do with a cup of tea.”
Crofty: “Simon Lazenby has just run in – you really have got some power tonight – and handed Martin Brundle a cup of tea, and I’ve never seen you more disappointed!”
Martin: “It’s a thimble of black tea. But I like milk, one sugar, and stirred clockwise. But it’s better than nothing.”
“I think Valtteri is a little bit bored with this race.”
“Lewis is sharing his sweeties out over a number of laps.”
“These hard tyres are incredibly durable. They will go 100 miles!”
Ted: “Norris has been told this is “the Germany situation”.”
[…]
Martin: “Is that a Brexit thing, Ted?”
“Last season Ferrari dominated here, and now they’re not in the points, either of them.”
“Presumably they’ll hang P45 on his [Perez’s] board at the last lap in Abu Dhabi.”
“I would think Gasly’s car feels like a supermarket trolley at the moment with a dodgy wheel.”
(Perez starts smoking)
“Alex Albon can – literally – smell third place.”
(then Perez catches fire)
“Switch it off, son! Switch it off!”
“Poor old Racing Point. One upside down, the other burnt to a cinder.”
“Well. That was a race to remember, wasn’t it?”
“He’s [Grosjean] going to be sore tomorrow.”
Crofty: “Now, that, Martin Brundle, is a trophy.”
Martin: “Isn’t it ever? […] Make sure the lid doesn’t fall off and break your toe or something. […] He held the trophy over to Max – “feel the weight in this!””
SAKHIR
QUALIFYING
(on Grosjean’s accident last week)
“It’s going to be a slow, and very, very painful death, if you can’t get out of a burning car.”
“As the light goes green, and nobody’s interested.”
“That will be an airplane crash if that goes wrong.”
“Looks like November 5, doesn’t it, with the amount of sparks they’re giving off.”
“The chicane, which is a bit of a hop, skip, and a jump.”
(onboard with Verstappen)
“Like a video game, isn’t it?”
“With no Lewis Hamilton or Romain Grosjean in the field, Kimi Raikkonen is 8 years older than the next oldest driver.”
“Well, that’s why they have suspension, isn’t it, so they can go over bumps?”
Martin: “Apparently, anybody can win in a Mercedes Formula One car(!)”
Crofty: “I think you could win in a Mercedes Formula One car.”
Martin: “I think I’d be a bit hot and sweaty going to the grid, if I’m honest.”
“That [lap] was, I believe on old – well, “used”, tyres. They’ve done 6 miles.”
“I’m realising we’ve got to turn the turbo boost up on the commentary – you start talking about something and it’s over, the lap’s over!”
(Perez, Bottas, Russell, Stroll 1-2-3-4)
Martin: “Mercedes engines to the fore.”
Crofty: “Did you mean that because there’s four of them?”
“This really looks like he’s almost on fast forward through there.”
(Leclerc goes 2nd)
Martin: “Where did that come from!?!?”
Crofty: “Who knows? Who cares!?”
Charles Leclerc: “This lap was… was very good. Was very good.”
[…]
Martin: ““… even if I say so myself.””
(Leclerc stands outside Mercedes)
“He’s going to let their tyres down or something.”
RACE
(to Romain Grosjean)
“You went into the barrier; you opened it like a tin of soup.”
“It was a word I used in commentary – it was a miracle he got out of that.”
“You can’t say congratulations enough to the FIA, the the teams, the clever people in the teams, who make the cars the way they are.”
“Max seems under control… and then gets on the skittles, and he’s straight in the barrier!”
(Maldonado of the day?)
“Imagine how Perez felt about that – the guy that’s nicked his job for next year, he’s just put some manners on him, Perez against Vettel.”
“A 58-second lap… some of the sectors at Spa are that long.”
(Perez passes Albon)
“”I want your place now and I want your car next year” was the message he was delivering there.”
“Mercedes think they will lap 26 cars (not 26 times). All the grid, and another six cars twice.”
(eight cars, actually)
“You have to say Williams are often a little bit quicker than Mercedes on the pit stops. Or even quicker, I should say.”
(Martin completely gets mixed up between the Mercedes radios)
“Sorry, I’ve got the wrong one there. I’ve got the wrong one. Apologies.”
(VSC)
“I like your analogy of the Scalextric set all on the same side of the track.”
Crofty: “George Russell prefers a virtual safety car than a full safety car.”
Martin: “And some!”
(Russell has to make another stop after Bottas’s fronts were fitted to Russell’s car)
“What’s happened is they’ve got some of Bottas’s tyres on – or indeed, ALL of Bottas’s tyres on.”
“Bottas’s tyres are of an unknown vintage. We think they’re 21 laps old.”
“Russell was like “you can go as far right as you want, I’m going further right.””
“Valtteri’s on a blind date with his [tyres], isn’t he?”
“If Valtteri Bottas didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.”
“We’ve been denied a thrilling, thrilling last few laps as well, haven’t we?”
“What a difference a week makes. Racing Point had a car upside down last week and another in sight of the podium blowing up.”
“Superb. Superb. There will be nobody, even if they’ve been bereaved today, that will be sad to see Sergio Perez win this race.”
ABU DHABI
QUALIFYING
“17 races in 23 weeks. And it’s been pretty rapid fire.”
(Crofty and Ted discuss the fact only Honda have not had an engine penalty this season)
Ted: “Did you get that, Martin?”
Martin: “No, I was reading something, actually(!)”
[…]
“Let’s hope that’s not a commentator’s curse there, Ted, cause they’ve got to get through qualifying yet!”
(Leclerc’s helmet says “Danke Seb” on it this weekend)
“What is he thanking him for exactly?”
“Lewis was kind of like a toboggan on top of that sausage kerb there.”
“That would have been uncomfortable for Lewis and very uncomfortable for the car.”
(Latifi spins)
“The rear tyres said “you’re kidding me, I can’t do that.””
“This corner, turn 17, hits you right in the face.”
(Albon’s lap is deleted for track limits, running WAY off the road)
“Let’s have a look… well, there’s not too much doubt about that one, is there?”
“We were always worried about the tunnel that cuts underneath the track, you know, whether we’d have a shunt in there, whether people would, you know, damage their cars, ’cause if you had a big shunt in there you would block everybody else coming out, but… it’s never happened, has it!”
“It’s like being at Le Mans, when you can go faster at night than you can during the day.”
“I don’t think Lewis was expecting the Alpha Tauri down the outside there. In fact, it was quite clear – he wasn’t!”
“The car almost turns on its own axis there.”
RACE
“… and Charles Leclerc, who has to take his 3-place grid drop after crashing into last week’s race winner… was it only last week!?”
(Ricciardo and Magnussen’s radios wish them well in their final races for their teams)
“Lots of love going on. Don’t know why they didn’t do that in the garage.”
“We have 20 cars remaining in this race!”
“Leclerc a day late and a dollar short on the brakes there.”
“In this romantic world of Formula One these days, we’ve got Charles Leclerc trying to pass Sebastian Vettel whilst wearing a helmet with “Seb” on it!”
(Ocon is behind Ricciardo)
Mark Slade: “Do you have pace in hand?
Martin: “It’s going to be “yes”, isn’t it?”
(“as it stands” Constructors’ Championship)
“I really like that graphic. It stops your brain hurting, doesn’t it?”
“The track layout looks like it should generate plenty of overtaking, but it doesn’t, does it?”
“It’s [DRS] like a sticking plaster, or a band aid as our American friends would say.”
“He’s not going to get any money back on those tyres.”
“Patience is a virtue.”
“A little love kiss there to let him know he was coming through.”
“This is definitely Charles Leclerc, despite having “Seb” written on his helmet.”
Sebastian Vettel: “OK, I’m going slow now. Tyres are going down.”
Riccardo Adami: “OK, copy, stay out.”
Martin: “20 laps to go, Seb. I bet he can’t wait to get out of that car!”
“What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday evening we never stopped talking about George Russell. Now, George, 14th, he is.”
(Crofty moans about the race being dull)
“I’m just happy to be here.”
“Never trust a computer.”
“The corner’s in the same place every lap.”
Crofty: “Give me some positive news, Martin Brundle.”
Martin: “About what?”
(Portugal may be on next year’s calendar)
“I was hoping for King’s Lynn docks, that would have been handy for me and George Russell!”