Martin Brundle Quotes - A History

Since joining the ITV commentary team for 1997 (a truly inspired move by whoever found out that he was lacking a seat for that season), Martin Brundle has established himself as one of the most respected and interesting sporting pundits in the media.

"As a former Formula One driver, I have earnt the right to have an opinion about the sport, and probably know as much about it as anybody else. I have attended approaching 400 grands prix, 158 as a driver. I have spilt blood, broken bones, shed tears, generated tanker loads of sweat, tasted the champagne glories and plumbed the depths of misery."

(MB, Sunday Times, 9/9/07)

But it's not just that the man has wisdom; he has wit in great quantities as well, and it's this that inspired the creation of the first Martin Brundle Quotes Page, maintained with distinction by David Crick.

http://vidcad.tripod.com/martin_b.htm

The site covers his early years alongside Murray Walker.

"He lost the back end of the car, then the engine and now he has to walk back to the pits and tell Eddie Jordan all about it."
(MB, Hungary, 1997)

"You can't say that, Murray! Remember that Porsche race we watched this-morning: you said 'watch car 45', and the next lap his rear wheel fell off."
(MB, Luxembourg Nurburgring, 1997)

"That didn't work! That didn't work, Michael! You hit the wrong part of him, my friend! I don't think that will cause Villeneuve a problem."
(MB, Jerez, 1997)

"If you can drive, you can drive. It doesn't matter what it is. You can drive a wheelie bin fast if you've got a feel for grip and balance, and an understanding of where the limit is."
(MB, Italy, 1998)

"I've got a good tabloid story to tell about Damon Hill: he's admitted to trying on Frentzen's underwear. I'm not going to tell you the rest of the story because it spoils it and makes it all seem too obvious."
(MB, Belgium, 1999)

David was joined in 2000 by Callie Sullivan, who created the successor site, Martin Brundle's Racing Lines ( http://brundlequotes.com/ ) in 2002, as Brundle matured into a legend alongside James Allen, slogged away at the BBC next to Jonathan Legard, and then had that strange year in 2011 trying to do lead commentary with David Coulthard as his sidekick.

“However hot you imagine it is, I think it’s a little bit hotter than that. It’s like putting on an overcoat, climbing into your airing cupboard with the heating on and then doing press-ups for an hour and a half if you’ve got enough space. If you do, tell your wife or girlfriend beforehand so there’s no misunderstanding when you come out what you’ve been up to.”
(MB, Malaysia, 2004)

“This Parc Fermé situation where they’re not allowed to touch the cars: it’s now clear that for decades, pulling the cars apart after every session created reliability issues.”
(MB, Italy, 2005)

[Rob Smedley radios to Fisichella that P14 is “good for tomorrow”]
“I’m not quite sure which bit of tomorrow that’s good for, but I admire Rob for keeping pumping up his merry-go-round of drivers that keep passing through his cockpit.”
(MB, Italy, 2009)

And now Callie has been priced out by Sky, there's a gap in the market to be filled; and here we are now. At its core, this a continuation of the two sites; but hopefully I can do a little more with it. The title should be a clue; I'm a particular fan of Ted Kravitz's dry humour with limited airtime from the pit lane, as anyone who heard his incredible ad-libbed zinger on Eddie Irvine at Monza would be:

(Eddie spends a minute ranting and swearing about how crap DRS and KERS is.)
"The life of Eddie Irvine these days. And who knows, if he'd have had DRS and KERS and all these buttons he was talking about, he might have won a championship for Ferrari. Instead of not. I'll see you in Singapore."
(TK, From The Pit Lane, Italy, 2011)

I also enjoy Eddie Jordan, his incredible shirts, and his uncanny ability to ask questions where the words on their own are completely incomprehensible, and yet whoever he's talking to still can understand more or less what Eddie's trying to ask him and give a reasonable answer. Also, many of the F1 voices we enjoy have blogs, or newspaper columns, or pass comment on things in some form or another; I'll be keeping an eye out for anything interesting in those as well.

So that's the goal; everything the old site was doing, and perhaps just a little bit more as well. I conclude by thanking David and Callie for all their efforts over the years in maintaining the pages.