Martin Brundle's Alan Partridge act helped Silverstone wipe the floor with Wimbledon

Telegraph

a day ago

The Grand Prix was viewable on two stations yesterday: Channel 4's coverage is good but there is nobody like Martin Brundle, and his contributions put Sky Sports on top of the podium. His pre-race grid walks remain unmissable TV, balanced always on the knife edge between virtuoso live broadcasting and Alan Partridgian fiasco.
The segment has evolved from being a strictly-for-the-hardcore series of flash interviews with drivers and team directors into a superbly postmodern mash-up where genuine A-listers and, at the risk of being unkind, total nobodies alike all come in for the same Brundle treatment: urgent, affable, and with a rich tang of potential chaos. Its appeal lies in a double jeopardy element because the interviewees often don't know who the hell the pushy middle-aged British guy is and, crucially, Brundle has on occasion been far from certain as to who they are either.
It often has the feel of an anxiety dream or a pub quiz in hell. The time he was talking to NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes but it was in fact an NBA player called Paolo Banchero. The time he didn't know who rapper Machine Gun Kelly was but tried to fish it out of him by saying 'and how's your career going?' while looking frantically for context clues in the fact that Mr Kelly was covered in spiked metal and a lemon skintight vest.
A classic Martin Brundle gridwalk moment with Machine Gun Kelly 😅 pic.twitter.com/EGWssbjin9
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 5, 2023
The time in China he asked the CEO of Ferrari's sponsor 'do you speak English?' (She did). The time he had an each way bet 'Are you Marco Mariachi, Matazzi?' on Marco Materazzi. Nurse, the screens.
Sunday's edition went relatively smoothly: being on British soil is an advantage, with Martin on surer footing picking out your Jeremy Clarksons and the Gordon Ramsays of this world than he is with American hip hoppers, and fair enough, why wouldn't he be? One highlight at Silverstone was national treasure Hannah Waddingham, who told Martin: 'I can go home now. What an unbelievable privilege to meet you, sir.' Quite right too.
He also grabbed Damson Idris (whose F1 film with Brad Pitt has done $200million at the box office already before the weekend), Tom Holland (who remained admirably calm when Martin began freestyling with 'waiting for the track to dry out is like waiting for an avocado to ripen') and, er, Kaleb out of Clarkson's Farm, who started talking about combine harvesters.
Only momentarily did Martin wobble, when it got crowded and he couldn't find anyone he recognised (we can add Aaron Taylor Johnson, current star of box office smash 28 Years Later but completely blanked by Martin about five times, to the list of famous people who aren't on the Brundle radar yet) and it all got very fraught as he dived under a security rope, clearly losing his shape. But salvation hove into view! 'Ah, Ian Wright!' said Martin. Panic over, we're in safe hands. Wrighty was having a lovely time, obviously, and the good vibes were back. Do you see now, Eni Aluko? Do you?
Anyhow, the depth and breadth of stars on display suggests that everyone involved in the marketing of F1 should be given an extra helping of diesel for tea, or however it is they are incentivised, because it blew the other big British sporting showpiece of the day away in terms of star wattage on parade. Over at Wimbledon, the crowd was invited to show its appreciation for a smorgasbord of sporting Royal Box attendees, almost all of whom could walk down the high street, or indeed through an F1 grid, utterly untroubled by unwanted attention from the citizenry: coxless fours this, equestrian that. Brian Charles Lara the exception, obvs. Nice that they get a day out, but come on.
Back to the F1 TV coverage, there was a feature pre-race where actual Brad Pitt did some race car driving under the tutelage of Brundle, and another stunt where Brundle and Oliver Bearman drove original 1950s cars around the track. Very enjoyable, and (to this agnostic at least) a bonus in that the race itself was quite a lot less boring than usual. Winner.
Added to the success of Drive To Survive, it's further evidence that F1 is doing imaginative work in selling itself in different markets and cross-pollinating to audiences beyond the existing fans. Other sports should take note, or even try to find themselves a Martin Brundle.