‘I WOULD ADD LEWIS TO THE LIST OF GREATS’
‘We drove around his pool of blood for 50 laps after’
MARTIN Brundle dashing around the grid will form a rich prologue of the 1,000th Grand Prix show as it has done for the past 22 years.
‘It’ll be written on my grave,’ says TV’s leading pundit of his a-word-here, a-word-there grid walk.
And before we move on to weightier matters such as how Brundle believes Lewis Hamilton is likely to be crowned a seven-time world champion by the end of next season, what does he make of his pre-race gallop?
He draws a breath, perhaps betraying the fact he could never shed it even if he wanted to, which he just might.
‘The problem is that nine out of 10 people say they love it, and it’s my trademark, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘It’s really my alter ego doing it. I interrupt people.
‘I cut in as a driver is having an important conversation with his engineer. If legends like Niki Lauda and Alain Prost are talking, I butt in. It is so not me. I have never watched one back. But the grid walk has produced some unbelievable moments. At the title showdown at Suzuka in 1998, I remember Mika Hakkinen was pulling his helmet on and gave me a look as if to say I of all people should know better than to approach him then. But I asked him if he could win the title there and then. “Yes, I can,” he said. And 90 minutes later he was world champion.’
We come to speak to Brundle an hour or two before he flies off to his 500-and-somethingth Grand Prix — in Shanghai tomorrow — in his 36th year as a F1 professional, first as a driver who started 158 races and then as a broadcaster since 1997.
‘I can’t wait to go,’ he says of the trip to China. ‘I’m as passionate about Formula One as I’ve ever been.’
He was born into the milieu with his mother and father, who owned a car dealership, steeped in motor racing. Aged five, Brundle went to his first race in 1964, rising before dawn to get from home in Norfolk to Brands Hatch with his Uncle Keith. He later stood on makeshift wooden boxes at Copse Corner to watch races at Silverstone.
Having narrowly missed out on the 1983 Formula Three title to Ayrton Senna, Brundle entered Formula One the following year. He had several big smashes, perhaps most memorably when he climbed out from a crash some thought had killed him, at Melbourne in 1996, to drive the spare car, calm as you like.
One injury that still pains him was sustained in practice at Dallas in 1984. He broke both feet and ankles, the left ankle so badly that amputation was feared. ‘I put my wife Liz and the family through a lot of worry and I am thankful for their understanding more than for anything else,’ he says.
Others did not walk away. Of those he knew well, his Tyrrell team-mate Stefan Bellof died in a World Endurance Championship race in 1985. And nine years later he was racing in the San Marino Grand Prix at which Senna perished.
‘We drove around his pool of blood for 50 laps after the accident and that enrages me to this day,’ says Brundle.
‘The show must go on, sort of thing. I remember seeing Ayrton’s private jet with the door open and the steps down and thinking that’s not going to happen. I also remember the silence after the race, people doing what they had to do without making any noise. It was barbaric, but only through today’s eyes.’
I ask Brundle, 59, who his heroes were as a boy? ‘Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill, for their amusing sketches on BBC Sports Personality of the Year, like the Two Ronnies.’
And the best? ‘It’s the person you most revere in your own era. Jackie would put Jim Clark up there. Stirling (Moss) would put Juan Manuel Fangio up there. I would put Senna up there.
‘Mika was the fastest over one lap I ever raced against. Ayrton had God-given talent. Michael (Schumacher) was the most complete. I would add Lewis to a list of all-time greatness.’
‘ I do think Lewis or Fernando (Alonso) would have got closer to Mercedes if they rather than Sebastian Vettel had been driving for Ferrari last year.
‘Lewis is so streetwise wheelto-wheel. Seb loses his head a bit. He needs to be out front.’