Martin Brundle admits he was ‘so angry’ with 250-race team when he was forced to retire from Formula 1

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Many younger Formula 1 fans will recognise Martin Brundle for his iconic grid walks before the start of each Grand Prix and some of his most famous commentary lines.

Martin Brundle has been working alongside David Croft for years now but previously had spells with ITV and the BBC.

His first full season behind the microphone rather than the wheel of a Formula 1 car came in 1997 alongside the legendary Murray Walker.

Brundle battled Ayrton Senna during his junior career and they both made the step up to F1 in 1984, Senna with Tolemand and Brundle with Tyrrell.

The Brit didn’t finish that first season and due to a technical infringement, he was disqualified from every race he took part in.

He had to wait until the start of the 1986 campaign to score his first point before a season racing for Zakspeed in 1987 and a one-off appearance for Williams the following year while winning the World Sportscar Championship.

A spell with Brabham led to Benetton signing Brundle in 1992 where he had the best season of his career, finishing sixth in the drivers’ championship.

Brundle was denied his only Grand Prix win by Michael Schumacher who was his teammate at the time and after two years he was released to race for McLaren.

He raced for three teams in his final three seasons in F1, spending a year with Ligier and finally Jordan before his forced retirement.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Brundle shared why he was ‘so angry’ with Jordan as he was forced to give up racing for a career in the media.

Martin Brundle ‘so angry’ with Jordan for ending his Formula 1 career

Asked about the transition from racing driver to commentator, Brundle admitted: “I never wanted to be a broadcaster.

“I was so angry because I wanted to be on the grid in 1997 driving for Jordan and I ended up working with Murray Walker on TV.

READ MORE: Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard believe one current F1 driver is now the ‘modern-day Michael Schumacher’

“As the cars went to the grid, I was like, ‘Stop, you can’t go yet. I’m not ready!’

“Here we are, almost three decades later and weirdly, my entire motorsport career seems to be a fact-finding mission for my broadcasting career.”

Jordan – who raced 250 times in F1 before being taken over by Midland – instead went with Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella, with Brundle’s old teammate Rubens Barrichello joining Stewart.

It was the start of Jordan’s ascent with both drivers finishing on the podium before the team claimed its first victory the following year at the Belgian Grand Prix through Damon Hill.

Eddie Jordan missed out on a future world champion after dropping Martin Brundle

A fascinating report from Grand Prix in 1996 has outlined the details of how Brundle ended up losing his seat at the end of the season.

He finished 11th in the championship behind Eddie Irvine with just eight points and the report suggests that engine suppliers Peugeot weren’t happy with him.

Jordan had an option to extend Barrichello’s contract which they didn’t activate and instead needed a pair of new drivers for the season.

READ MORE: Martin Brundle shares how Charles Leclerc is privately feeling about Lewis Hamilton signing for Ferrari

It’s understandable why Schumacher was brought in with the report suggesting he had an $8m budget from Bitburger than Jordan could invest into the team.

In today’s money that deal would be £12.5m and that would explain partly why the German was hired.

Jordan then ended up with Fisichella but was also interested in Jean Alesi, Olivier Panis, Jos Verstappen, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen.

Fortunately for the Finn he stuck with McLaren and was rewarded with back-to-back titles just a few years later.