Featured Image Credit: Sky Sports
Formula One fans will be well acquainted with the sort of shenanigans Martin Brundle gets up to during his grid walks.
Wandering down the way armed with a Sky Sports microphone he gets all sorts of interviews, often with famous faces who’ve turned up to the races.
Just recently he had an odd episode with rapper Machine Gun Kelly, real name Colson Baker, after Brundle was asked to provide his ‘best air guitar’ and declined since he’d always been more of a piano man.
MGK then asked Brundle for an ‘air piano and air guitar collaboration’ but the interviewer said no, leading Kelly to head off.
Kelly has responded to some of the backlash he received after people called it ‘the cringiest of cringe’, calling out his critics by saying he had been surprised by ‘a random interview when I was just trying to enjoy an event’ and that the car engines were so loud he couldn’t hear Brundle.
It’s by no means the only awkward moment that’s come from Brundle’s grid walks and eventually there was a ‘Martin Brundle clause’ introduced to Formula One.
It was put in place after Brundle tried to speak with Megan Thee Stallion at the 2021 United States Grand Prix and asked her if she had an impromptu rap ready before being ushered away by her security.
Brundle said that following that episode Formula One introduced a new rule that celebrities walking on the grid could not bring security with them.
A spokesperson for F1 confirmed at the time that stars on the grid ‘aren’t obliged to do interviews’ but their security detail are ‘no longer allowed to accompany them’.
Basically, Formula One believes the grid is safe enough that celebs don’t need to bring their security along meaning there’s not a ring of protection to keep Martin Brundle away, but there is no obligation to do interviews if someone sticks a microphone in your face.
Earlier this year Brundle ended up having an awkward moment with actor and model Cara Delevingne after she didn’t want to be interviewed at Silverstone.
Brundle told her ‘the deal is everyone has to speak on the grid’, only for Delevingne to say she couldn’t really hear him over the noise.
“All right, well I’m sure it would have been extremely interesting,” was Brundle’s response to that.
Delevingne later took to social media to say she’d been ‘told to say no’ by an F1 representative who was with her and she still had lots of fun at the races.
Alfa Romeo, the team which had invited her to the British Grand Prix as a guest, later said: “Respect goes both ways: nobody should be placed in an uncomfortable situation or forced to do things against their will.”
