When Martin Brundle received the letter saying that he received an OBE in the list of honors of the King New Year by 2025, happiness was inevitably the primary emotion.
Although there was also a feeling of relief that was for services to motor racing and sports transmission and not just sports transmission.
For the youngest and diverse audience of F1, Brundle is the icon of the network walk and not the driver who ran in the sport from 1984 to 1996 and achieved nine podiums.
“I never wanted to be a radio station,” Brundle told Mail Sport. 'I was so angry because I wanted to be on the network in 1997 driving for Jordan and ended up working with Murray Walker on television. When the cars went to the grid, I was like “Stop, you still can't go. I am not ready!” Here we are, almost three decades later and strangely, my whole career in motor racing seems to be a research mission for my transmission career, “he says.
Even now, he looks at himself as a driver who makes a little television, but, of course, Brundle is very successful in front of the cameras with his multiple RTS Television Sports Awards for the best sports expert simply an indicator of the 65 -year position among the teammates.
Walker's advice in 1997 was simply to let Brundle know that “we are here to inform and entertain” and it is a mantra that Brundle still lives when he has the microphone in his hand.
Martin Brundle has revealed his relief that his obe was for motor racing and sports transmission
The F1 icon is ready to start its year 41 in sport as a driver and an station
Brundle has been catapulting it to the consciousness of Tiktok's generation through his Walkalk viral interviews with characters such as Real Madrid and France from France Kylian Mbappe
He has had periods in ITV and BBC and has been an accessory in the F1 coverage of Sky Sports since 2012. Brundle reveals that he is on live television for approximately 100 hours a year.
But it is 15 minutes before a race when he has the task of interviewing anyone, from pilots to actors, soccer players who have catapulted him to the awareness of Tiktok generation, even though he refuses to have the application on his phone.
“The grid walk really bothers me because that's what I am known for now,” Brundle admits.
'The whole matter is still a mystery. I won many races as a pilot and was on the podium F1. I was Sportscar world champion, winner of Le Mans, he beat Ayrton Senna many times in F3: he was a reasonably practical racing driver and I am a reasonably useful commentator, but all that I am going to remember is to be ignored on the network by the Megan Stallion and other people who had never heard until that moment.
“It's quite fun, but I can't hit him: heading around 66, I am lucky to continue in live sport and that's why I was satisfied with the OBE because it was not an OBE just to walk through the networks.”
28 years since his first rodeo, Brundle still refuses to see them back.
'It is not my natural habitat to interrupt people, and be shameless and rude because that is what has become. I know when I have done a decent job or I was ashamed in front of millions of people. I can't stand to see it although it really should. But in my heart, I know when I have done well.
The viral stories are abundant to think that Paolo Banchero was Patrick Mahomes to an interview with Kylian Mbappe telling the Mbappe bodyguard 'I am in charge of here.' Do not forget to refer to Joe Jonas as “one of the Jonas Brothers” while trying to discover which one was talking with.
Brundle admits frustration for being known by the walks despite his success as a driver
Ended on the podium nine times in Formula One and was a winner in Le Mans
Brundle confused the basketball player Paolo Banchero with the NFL Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes in the Miami Grand Prix in 2022
The Sky Sports presenter admits that “it is something fun” that many fans will remember for being ignored by people like Megan Thee Stallion, in the photo, during the grid walks
'You have moments of car accident and inevitably, the difficult ones like Machine Gun Kelly end up being viral. The greatest shock I had was to interview Florence Pugh, who was lovely. Often, you are looking in Google before seeing how people look, but when I saw her on the grid, she had a pink rumeta cut and that is not what she was looking for, “he says.
'More and more, we will get a list and photographs, for example, in Las Vegas, we had 72 to -listers and 62 in Miami. There are so many of those who have not heard, but they have 100 million followers on Instagram and I find him intimidating, “he emphasizes.
'With the Incident of Patrick Mahomes, I have a longer advantage for US races because their athletes are very high and one of the three people in my ear told me that it was Patrick. I'm not going to rinse them, but I realized as soon as Paolo (Bancheros) looked at me and started talking that he was not Patrick.
'I remember that Stormzy said' you are a man and look at him to see if that meant something pleasant. Ultimately, if you try to make these things happen, they will not. So you must be yourself and will eventually start you because someone will come.
But for now, that emotion remains and during the time of 10 to 15 minutes of live television without writing and not realized they keep it standing, there are no signs of stopping soon.
“The only thing that excites me as the races is the grid walk at that time when they indicate to me,” says Brundle. “It is still stressful and about 30 percent as exciting as driving on the network, which is quite high because races are a mass emotion.”
Time with drivers in the grid is less frequent now, but there is a moment that still lives fresh in memory.
'In the past, I remember talking to Mika Hakkinen just before becoming world champion in Japan in 1999, he says. “It is a unique sporting opportunity: you are not going out in the middle of Wembley or the central court a few minutes before the action and be like 'Roger, Roger'. We have this special access to athletes literally moments before they work. I suppose that all nonsense with other people are a means for a really end. '
Brundle admits that the grid walk is a 'mass emotion' and remains an 'nerve breakdown experience'
The presenter believes that other sports are desperate for being the age and the audience range of F1
Brundle is in pencil to work in 16 of the 24 races during the Formula One season 2025
That 1999 season had 16 races, while this season will have 24. Brundle is in pencil to work in 16 of them, although he insists that there are still no signs of fatigue.
'If you return to the time of Stirling Moss, they had eight races per season and would send the cars to the boats through the Atlantic. Even when I was running in the 80s, we had 15-16 races. I thought there would be fatigue with so many races, but I haven't had that feeling yet because there is much to talk about these days, “he says.
'From afar, the most important thing I have seen in 40 years is Netflix's impulse to survive, which has moved sport in terms of consciousness and everything goes to heaven. Other sports would kill for the audience we have and the diversity of that audience. The average age of spectators has dropped 10 years and finally we have deciphered the United States, which energizes sponsorships.
'Many sports keep the same audience, which ages and more. Some older people say it is too much show. In my day, I don't know if Alain Prost's tastes, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Keke Rosberg would have bothered Drive to Survive. They were great characters and names also known at that time, but the sport was much more dangerous and more gladiator, “Brundle adds.
Apart from the viral moments of the grid grid, it is one of the things that still intrigue it more about the changing dynamics of sport.
'The drivers are now like a great band of big boys. That confuses me and the old like me. How can you be the best friends and compete with the wheel? But they are good children, good characters and what you see is what you get with Carlos (Sainz) or Lando (Norris) or George (Russell) or Charles (Leclerc). All are accessible, media experts and are proud of Formula One, '' he says.
And so for Melbourne, for the beginning of the 76th F1 season and its 41st year in sport.
Brundle admits that it is confused by how this generation can get along while competing
Brundle reveals that he likes to mix and combine on the network to serve the wide F1 fan audience
Any preparation for the first network walk of the season I ask?
“We will try to be left over on Saturday night,” says Brundle. 'I like to mix and combine it because we have a great church of an audience: you have spectators who know more than us, others who are casually interested and others who end up looking at a Sunday because it is raining outside.
'The objective is to try to give everyone without talking to people or anger them and the Network Paseo is the same. You will know when I am in trouble if I am looking for a 'random person from Martin' who calls a MRP with five minutes to the end, because then anything can happen '.
Anyway, be attentive.
Sky Sports is the exclusive home of Formula 1 in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Do not miss the beginning of the 2025 world championship live from Melbourne, Australia, from March 14 to 16, only in Sky Sports and now.