Martin Brundle’s top 10 greatest races

Martin Brundle is now known to a wide audience for his insights and commentaries on Formula 1. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that he starred in many categories as a driver, from grand prix racing to sportscars, and duelled with Ayrton Senna in Formula 3.

Now 66, Brundle has helped Autosport select his best drives from a career that spanned 158 F1 starts and included victory in the Le Mans and Daytona 24-hour classics, as well as the 1988 world sportscar title.

As usual, we’ve ranked these top 10 entries based on Brundle’s performances, the machinery, opposition and circumstances involved, plus the importance of the drive in question.

10. 1983 Donington 500

Brundle starred in the wet on his way to his first Jaguar victory – “a pivotal moment”

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Car: Jaguar XJS

Started: 2nd

Result: 1st

“I liked driving the XJS,” recalls Brundle of the European Touring Car he raced in 1983. “I learned to love it. It was a handful, massive V12 in the front, and you learned to ignore 80% of what it did.

“You’d hit the brakes and the back would come up, it would be dancing around, you’d be coming down the gearbox, looking like you were never going to make the corner – but you knew you would. It was all over the place.”

The ETCC was on the up, boasting quantity and quality within the leading over-2.5-litre class. The Jags qualified 1-2 but rain arrived on race day.

John Fitzpatrick started the car he shared with Brundle and Enzo Calderari, dutifully slotting in behind team boss Tom Walkinshaw’s XJS at the start. Armed with a softer wet, Walkinshaw raced away from the field in the early stages while the second Jaguar fell behind the quicker BMWs.

Although some of the BMWs hit tyre issues, Jaguar’s chances drastically reduced when Chuck Nicholson, in for Walkinshaw, ran out of fuel following a problem at the first pitstop. He managed to coast back but, by the time Walkinshaw headed out, they were five laps behind.

Fitzpatrick had kept the second XJS in the top five, which became fourth when the sister car hit trouble and then Calderari took third.

“Dropping it in the gravel on lap one would have been highly possible but I was such a child at the time, I just got in and went as fast as I could” Martin Brundle

A safety car period allowed several drivers to make pitstops, including Calderari, who handed over to Brundle a lap behind the Dieter Quester/Hans Heyer BMW with just over a third of the race to go. The then British F3 star swiftly overtook Quester to unlap himself and started taking 2-3 seconds per lap out of the 635CSi.

“Tom had some really soft wet tyres, which he had on his car, but he had an issue, so I then got the tyres,” recalls Brundle. “Dropping it in the gravel on lap one would have been highly possible but I was such a child at the time, I just got in and went as fast as I could.

“It got so wet you had to come off the throttle down the Craner Curves – but the engine would die, so I had to go down there with my foot on the clutch and then drop the clutch and bump-start the engine at the Old Hairpin!”

Walkinshaw also came back into the picture. He got ahead of the leading BMW and engaged Quester in a ‘dice’ that aided Brundle’s charge. With just 12 of the 160 laps to go, Brundle swept into the lead.

The Quester-Walkinshaw fight continued, with the BMW suffering a quick spin that incensed the experienced Austrian and allowed Brundle to take the flag 20s clear.

“Sir John Egan [Jaguar chief executive and chairman] was handing out the winners’ trophy and he was clearly pretty made up about it,” adds Brundle, who believes the drive was key to his later Group C outings. “It was a pivotal moment, the beginning of my Jaguar career.”

9. 1994 Monaco GP

Only Michael Schumacher beat Brundle on what was a difficult weekend for Formula 1

Photo by: LAT Images

Car: McLaren MP4/9

Started: 8th

Result: 2nd

Having impressed initially at Monaco, Brundle qualified only eighth after various troubles, six spots and 1.7s behind team-mate Mika Hakkinen.

But, in the aftermath of the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Senna, plus serious crashes for Rubens Barrichello and Karl Wendlinger, Brundle’s experience came into play as all the drivers stood for a minute’s silence before the race.

“I remember looking at all these kids, the younger drivers, looking like rabbits in headlights and thinking, ‘I’m going to beat you guys today’,” says Brundle, who was driving for McLaren on a race-by-race basis as the team tried unsuccessfully to lure Alain Prost out of retirement.

“I’d been there before – 1994 F1 felt very much like sportscars 1985, when Manfred Winkelhock and Stefan Bellof had died. I didn’t find it easy, but I perhaps compartmentalised it better than the youngsters did.”

He started gaining ground immediately. Hakkinen and Damon Hill’s Williams clashed at the first corner, and Gianni Morbidelli’s Footwork also failed to complete the first lap. That put Brundle fifth.

“All the alarms were going off – for water, oil – and when I parked for the podium the car was hissing and buzzing” Martin Brundle

Brundle was the first to make his pitstop. That, combined with his pace on new rubber, leapfrogged the McLaren to third once others had made their stops. He then pounced on Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari, which had been delayed with an off on oil at Ste Devote, by diving into second around the outside at Mirabeau.

There was still a third of the race and another pitstop to come, but the gap to leader Michael Schumacher was 28.7s and the Benetton never looked like losing. Schumacher eventually took the flag 37.3s ahead, while Brundle pulled nearly 40s on Berger and matched his best F1 finish on an emotional day.

“All the alarms were going off – for water, oil – and when I parked for the podium the car was hissing and buzzing,” says Brundle, who suffered poor McLaren-Peugeot reliability for much of 1994. “How that car got to the end of the race I’ll never know.

“I remember Michael telling me and Gerhard he’d almost crashed on the oil that Gerhard had gone off on and I was thinking, ‘I wish you had done!’

“I drove well that weekend. I loved street circuits, they seemed to suit my driving style. I would attack them. I had an accuracy and finesse that worked well on street circuits and in the rain.”

8. 1988 IMSA Camel Grand Prix of Southern California, Del Mar

Lammers led the way in the #61 XJR-9 before Brundle’s roller coaster ride

Photo by: William Murenbeeld / Motorsport Images

Car: Jaguar XJR-9

Started: 1st

Result: 1st

After winning first time out at the Daytona opener, TWR Jaguar’s IMSA programme had failed to yield another victory when the field gathered for the two-hour season finale on the 1.6-mile Del Mar street circuit.

Things didn’t start well in practice when John Nielsen crashed the XJR-9 he was meant to share with Brundle, putting it out for the weekend. Brundle, recently crowned as the world sportscar champion, was thus transferred to the car put on pole by Jan Lammers, replacing Davy Jones.

Lammers made a brilliant start and was 17s ahead when a safety car eradicated his efforts. A second safety car around the first pitstop hurt Jaguar and Brundle emerged behind the yet-to-stop Porsche of Klaus Ludwig and champion Geoff Brabham’s Nissan.

Come the restart, Brundle managed to avoid the spinning Brabham and then overtook Ludwig to put the XJR-9 ahead once more. But running slowly had allowed the strange circuit ‘goo’ that characterised the weekend to accumulate on his Dunlops, and Brundle soon had a charging Bob Wollek’s Porsche on his tail.

During another safety car period, caused by a heavy crash for Brabham, Brundle wanted new rubber but wasn’t due to stop again. He stayed out and, at a restart following a further safety car, Wollek attacked.

Wollek banged into the Jaguar a couple of times before Brundle disappeared down the escape road and the Porsche took the lead as Brundle executed a neat spin-turn to recover.

“I put some mega moves, I remember sliding up the inside of Ludwig – I did the complete ‘nothing to lose’ line” Martin Brundle

“What I completely forgot about until I watched the video recently, Bob was taking chunks out of me all the way down the pitstraight,” says Brundle. “I had no recollection of that! I don’t remember Bob being like that.”

Now Brundle pitted for new tyres and a fuel top-up. He rejoined in sixth, 40s behind Wollek with just under a quarter of the race to go. While Wollek and Ludwig battled for the lead, Brundle charged to third, sometimes slicing as much as 4s per lap out of the Porsches.

Taking chances in traffic, Brundle overcame Ludwig after a brief scuffle and retook the lead from Wollek with seven laps to go at the same first corner where he’d previously lost it. He then raced clear to win by 8.5s from Ludwig, who overcame a struggling Wollek in the closing moments.

“I put [in] some mega moves, I remember sliding up the inside of Ludwig – I did the complete ‘nothing to lose’ line,” says Brundle. “A bit like 1989 Monaco, you wonder why you didn’t drive like that all the time, but you probably wouldn’t get away with taking that many risks.

“The pace of the car when I put the new tyres on was like being in another championship. We had a really good car around there, but there was something on the surface to protect it. When you slowed down behind the safety car it all just got cold and turned into wax.

“I remember driving behind the safety car and saying, ‘I’ve got no grip’, but there was a reluctance to pull the car out of the lead.

“The track was almost unraceable but somehow we raced. It’s in the list because I really enjoyed it.”

7. 1995 Belgian GP, Spa

Brundle extracted the maximum potential from “the Benetton clone by Ligier with a Mugen-Honda engine”

Photo by: LAT Images

Car: Ligier JS41

Started: 13th

Result: 3rd

“The Benetton clone by Ligier with a Mugen-Honda engine was a really good little car and I loved working with the Mugen-Honda guys,” says Brundle of the 1995 season in which he had to watch Aguri Suzuki drive ‘his’ Ligier at six of the 17 rounds.

“We used to mess around with the most intricate throttle linkages. It was beautiful, the engineering we did that year.”

Both qualifying and the race at Spa were hit by rain, producing a mixed-up grid and busy GP. Brundle rose from 13th to 10th on a dry lap one and gained another spot when Hakkinen dropped his McLaren.

Perhaps inevitably, Brundle fell victim to a charging Schumacher, on his way to victory from 16th on the grid, but moved back into ninth when early leader Jean Alesi retired with suspension problems.

David Coulthard also hit the front and then retired, the Williams with gearbox trouble, and Brundle stayed out longer than most. While some dived in for tyres, then came back in for wets as rain arrived, the Ligier made just one stop at half-distance – for fuel and wet tyres – and found itself third.

While well behind Schumacher and Hill’s Williams, Brundle was clear of everyone else, and he got a bit closer to the leading duo thanks to a safety car period for the conditions.

“We kept making all the right calls. We stayed on the wets, the only trouble was that at the end every tread block had a blister” Martin Brundle

Then Hill was handed a 10s stop/go penalty for exceeding the pitlane speed limit and the Williams emerged 13s behind Brundle with 10 laps to go. A spin made Hill’s chase harder but still he arrived on the Ligier’s tail on the penultimate lap.

Brundle could not hold off the Williams and, on his tired wets, only beat the Sauber of a charging Heinz-Harald Frentzen by 2s. Hill had visited the pits five times, Brundle just once. It’s hard to see how the JS41 could have finished any higher that day.

“We kept making all the right calls, it was one of those races where experience came in,” reckons Brundle. “We stayed on the wets, the only trouble was that at the end every tread block had a blister.

“I did a really stupid thing. I came out of Raidillon and moved onto the wet side to try and keep my tyres doing something and Damon came past on the dry side. I tried to outbrake him at the far end and nearly went off.

“We did a good job that day up against bigger teams, faster teams. It was a podium with my mentor Tom [Walkinshaw]; it was nice, really satisfying.”

6. 1983 Marlboro European F3 Trophy, Silverstone

Brundle reckons that beating Senna at Silverstone marked the turning point of his career that got him into F1

Photo by: LAT Images

Car: Ralt RT3

Started: 1st

Result: 1st

“Magic Martin. Brundle breaks the spell,” said Autosport of a victory that has become one of the most famous in F3 history. Senna arrived at the Silverstone race – which counted for both the British and European titles – having won the opening nine British F3 rounds in his West Surrey Racing Ralt.

Brundle’s Eddie Jordan Racing example had been second on all bar one of those occasions, but the Silverstone event was a turning point.

There were 44 entries and those wishing to score British points had to run Avon rubber. Senna, already leading the standings and looking at overall victory, elected to run the European Yokohama tyres, which had a performance edge.

Brundle started the meeting on Avons but wasn’t convinced: “We needed points in the British championship and we were trundling round; the standard rubber was slower than the Yokohamas. We were going to win the British ‘class’, but we felt like we were a support race to the main event. So we said, ‘Let’s go European’.”

His Ralt was instantly faster: “The car was balanced straight away. It had a lot of grip; I remember coming out of the old Becketts and not lifting the throttle again until I got to Woodcote.

“Stowe, Club and Abbey were flat, only when you got to the Woodcote chicane was there a slight breather on the throttle, then straight back down again – Silverstone was so fast in an F3 car back then. We were flat-out, the Yokohamas were good and the brakes were just ballast around there.”

“The huge psychological change that day wasn’t so much that I won the race as the fact I knew I could beat Ayrton and he knew I could beat him” Martin Brundle

The Briton took pole, 0.09s ahead of Senna, both more than half a second clear of the rest.

Brundle led from the off, chased by Senna and Johnny Dumfries. Both pursuers suffered early minor moments, helping Brundle to build a small cushion. As Senna grappled with the mix of different tyre compounds he’d gambled on, Dumfries closed in and the Brazilian went off at Club. He recovered, only to throw it away for good at Woodcote.

Up at the front, Brundle was never challenged, eventually winning the 20-lap race by nearly 16s from team-mate Tommy Byrne.

“It was an easy victory but a very significant victory,” recalls Brundle, who would go on to win six of the next nine British rounds and push Senna all the way in the title fight.

“I still find myself wondering if we’d have got those points would it have won me the championship, but it wouldn’t have because of the double psychology involved. The huge psychological change that day wasn’t so much that I won the race as the fact I knew I could beat Ayrton and he knew I could beat him. Ayrton lost his head a bit.

“It was probably the biggest positive turning point in my career because it set the scene for the next few races. I can put getting into F1 down to that moment.”

PLUS: Ralt’s ground-effect wonder that launched future stars

5. 1984 Detroit GP

Brundle’s first Formula 1 podium is not in the record books – he’s still got the trophy, though

Photo by: LAT Images

Car: Tyrrell 012

Started: 11th

Result: Disqualified (2nd on road)

Thanks to Tyrrell’s disqualification from the whole season due to technical irregularities, Brundle doesn’t appear in the record books for 1984, but his was one of F1’s more impressive rookie campaigns. He’d finished fifth on his debut in Rio but perhaps his best drive was his charge to second on the streets of Detroit.

Brundle impressed during an accident-filled qualifying to line up 11th, 1.2s quicker than exuberant team-mate Bellof, who also suffered a sizeable, red flag-inducing shunt. Brundle ran on the fringes of the top 10 in the early stages, swapping places a couple of times with Bellof, and both Tyrrells moved into the top six as others hit trouble or pitted.

“For some reason Ken Tyrrell decided that Stefan was quicker than me around there, which I didn’t really understand,” recounts Brundle. “Inevitably with our nimble little cars, as soon as we didn’t have a 400bhp deficit we made our way through.

“Ken had said in the morning that if either of you feels the other one is holding you up, raise your hand as you come past the pits as we had no radio. Every time we’d come past the pits I’d come through right behind someone’s gearbox and, unbeknown to me, Stefan would have his hand up!

“So, Ken pits me and puts fresh tyres on, at which point Stefan snots it into the barriers coming onto the pitstraight and wrecks the car…”

“I think Ken thought I was getting a bit too over-confident and six days later I smashed my legs up in Dallas, so he was right and I should have taken more notice of him” Martin Brundle

When Derek Warwick’s Renault retired with gearbox failure on lap 41 of 63, Brundle moved into fifth, 46.7s behind leader Nelson Piquet. Brundle charged after and overtook an ailing Rosberg, and three laps later moved into third when Michele Alboreto’s Ferrari expired.

Despite a cracked exhaust, Brundle overhauled the Lotus of Elio de Angelis, suffering with gearbox issues, and moved into second with seven laps to go. He was now 23.9s behind Piquet but pressed on, taking great swathes out of the lead to cross the line just 0.8s in arrears.

“I was pretty pleased with myself,” adds Brundle. “Ken said to me, ‘Jackie [Stewart] said you shouldn’t have overtaken de Angelis where you overtook him’, but I knew Elio was missing third gear. I knew he was slow coming out of the left-hander, so I just passed him into the last chicane.

“I think Ken thought I was getting a bit too over-confident and six days later I smashed my legs up in Dallas, so he was right and I should have taken more notice of him.

“I don’t exist in 1984, but I’ve got the trophy and got the pins so I think I did exist in 1984. I still consider Detroit my first F1 podium.”

Top 10 Tyrrell F1 drivers

4. 1992 British GP, Silverstone

Old sparring partner Senna hounded Brundle’s Benetton at Silverstone

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: Benetton B192

Started: 6th

Result: 3rd

“I loved Silverstone and the B192 – it was analogue compared to the digital Williams – and those cars were physical,” says Brundle, who was not pleased to qualify sixth for his home race. But he made a brilliant start, jumping team-mate Schumacher and both McLarens. Only the dominant Williams FW14Bs remained ahead.

“Michael’s one Achilles’ heel back then was his starts, and my experience in car set-up was paying dividends in the races,” recalls Brundle, who had recovered from a poor start to 1992.

Despite initially running fourth, Schumacher was outfumbled by Senna on the opening lap. They battled early on but the McLaren improved as the fuel burnt off, leaving Brundle to face his old F3 sparring partner.

“I took a bit of a gamble for the race, running less wing to be sure of being quick on the straights,” said Brundle at the time. “And I’m glad I did because Ayrton was running a barn door on the McLaren. To run as quick as he did on the straights with a wing like he had… well, that Honda’s got a lot of horsepower.”

“The podium was mega; my beloved Silverstone, up there with Nigel Mansell and my family cheering” Martin Brundle

Senna cranked up the pressure, even getting alongside into Stowe at one point, but Brundle held firm. Even Senna enjoyed it: “It was a good clean fight. On some corners I could catch him; on others he was going away. I tried to pass him many times, using the backmarkers, but as the race went on I began to worry about my tyres.”

Still he shadowed the Benetton. And on lap 53 of 59 came the chance Senna needed.

“We were following Gabriele Tarquini and he was running pretty quickly,” explained Brundle. “Then we all came up on Damon Hill, who let Tarquini through. I honestly don’t think he saw me because he turned in on me at Copse. I had to back right off, even go down a gear more, and then Ayrton outdragged me to Becketts.”

The podium seemed to have slipped from his grasp but Brundle was back in third before the end of the lap as Senna pulled off with transmission failure.

Despite running out of water, Brundle made it to the flag in third, beaten only by the Williams-Renaults, 4.9s clear of Schumacher. “The podium was mega; my beloved Silverstone, up there with Nigel Mansell and my family cheering,” concludes Brundle. “It was great.”

PLUS: The top 10 Benetton F1 drivers

3. 1989 Monaco GP

Brundle flew in the Brabham-Judd after his third place was snatched away

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: Brabham BT58

Started: 4th

Result: 6th

Brundle came within 0.021s of not making it into the race that is third on this list. That’s how close he was to failing to pre-qualify in the days when some drivers had to go home almost before the weekend had begun.

“We’d got through pre-qualifying, which is the most horrendous thing to put a racing driver or racing team through,” shudders Brundle. “There were some really good cars in there so if you got through you were pretty much guaranteed a decent grid slot. That Brabham/Judd/Pirelli combination was really good.”

Sure enough, Brundle qualified fourth, well behind the front row-dominating McLarens but just a quarter of a second behind Thierry Boutsen’s Williams.

The team “changed everything” – including the battery – and told Brundle not to do any kind of burnout or practice start to look after the clutch, driveshaft and gearbox. That meant the tyres were cold and Mansell’s Ferrari jumped Brundle at the start. But Mansell started suffering with a gearshift problem and Brundle went by on lap 27 of 77.

“I just drove like a man possessed. I had so much more grip. It was like a video game; I just kept catching and passing cars” Martin Brundle

Boutsen had already pitted with a rear-wing problem, so Brundle was now third. Despite both McLarens having their issues – Senna with his gearbox and Prost in traffic – third looked the likely result for Brundle. After 47 laps he was nearly a minute behind leader Senna but 26s ahead of team-mate Stefano Modena.

“I was sitting there extremely happy – ‘This is where I should be’,” says Brundle. “Then it started to misfire.”

Brundle had to pit – and get out of the car because the battery that needed replacing was under his seat. He fell to 10th and put on a fine charge, rising to sixth, helped by Ivan Capelli’s March suffering an engine failure.

“I just drove like a man possessed,” adds Brundle. “I passed two Tyrrells in two corners – I did JP into Mirabeau and Alboreto into the hairpin on the same lap. I had so much more grip. It was like a video game; I just kept catching and passing cars.”

Brundle’s reward was sixth, having set the fastest non-McLaren lap by half a second. But team-mate Modena took third: “There’s nothing to rub salt in the wounds more than to be denied a result you really deserved only to see your team-mate get it instead.”

2. 1992 Canadian GP, Montreal

Brundle remains convinced that he was going to win in Canada

Photo by: LAT Images

Car: Benetton B192

Started: 7th

Result: Retired

Following electrical and fuel pick-up problems, Brundle qualified only seventh but was happy with his B192 on full tanks, as he showed by being second fastest in the morning warm-up, a mere 0.001s behind Mansell’s Williams FW14B.

“I always loved Canada,” says Brundle. “I liked a touch of understeer in my cars, I’d always gone well there and I felt really good.”

Brundle jumped Johnny Herbert’s Lotus on the opening lap and spent the first part of the race in the train behind poleman Senna’s McLaren. On lap 15 Mansell went off in a controversial attempt to take the lead from Senna, which also helped Berger to jump Riccardo Patrese for second and Brundle to move into fifth, behind team-mate Schumacher.

The top five continued to circulate together until Senna’s McLaren gave up the ghost. Brundle then jumped Schumacher as they lapped Morbidelli’s Minardi and rose to second shortly afterwards when Patrese went out with gearbox maladies.

“I have zero doubt I’d have gone on to win that race. I was just flying, I was in one of those lovely grooves that I’d had in numerous sportscar races, an invincibility” Martin Brundle

“A year or two later Michael invited me to dinner; ‘I’m really sorry I used to hold you up in races because I now realise how futile that was’. It took me aback. He wouldn’t let me through but I was clearly faster than him that day.

“Gerhard overrevved his engine and I was catching him. I loved the track, the car was amazing, the tyres were great… I thought, ‘Finally, I’m going to win one of these things, because everything is perfect’.

“I went through Turn 5 and something just disconnected, like it had chewed a gear up, and then it was alright. I radioed in and then the next lap through it failed completely. The bolts had been put in the diff the wrong way around and worked loose.

“I have zero doubt I’d have gone on to win that race. I was just flying, I was in one of those lovely grooves that I’d had in numerous sportscar races, an invincibility. That would have been a turning point because I don’t think Flav [Benetton boss Flavio Briatore] could have got rid of me if I’d won the Canadian GP.

“I went to the airport and sunk the biggest whiskey and downed it in one.”

1. 1991 BRDC Empire Trophy, Silverstone

A stunned and utterly spent Brundle (right) manages to keep it together on the podium

Photo by: Sutton Images

Car: Jaguar XJR-14

Started: 2nd

Result: 3rd

Perhaps fittingly, it’s in a TWR sportscar that Brundle feels he put in his greatest drive. The Jaguar XJR-14 moved the goalposts in the category, but events at Silverstone in May 1991 made him work incredibly hard in a solo drive lasting more than two hours.

Top 10 sportscars never to race at Le Mans

Brundle’s focus was on his Brabham F1 season, so he couldn’t do the whole campaign. The plan was for him to drive both cars, led by Teo Fabi and Warwick, which is how he had finished first and second at Monza two weeks before.

“I put it on pole, much to everyone’s chagrin, because I was the part-timer,” recalls Brundle of his 1m27.478s Silverstone effort in Fabi’s car. Brundle was set to start the other XJR-14 but the throttle cable broke almost immediately and Warwick was transferred to the healthy Jaguar, leaving Brundle to try and recover the six lost laps alone.

“It was a flying venturi, it just stuck to the road,” says Brundle of his favourite racer. “One of those cars that just worked.

Brundle’s favourite racing car

“I just drove it absolutely flat-out from start to finish. I always felt more empowered in Tom’s cars because he believed in me. I was his man and he was my man.”

While Fabi/Warwick cruised to victory, Brundle routinely took 3-4s or more out of the rest of the field.

“The team thought they were doing some good by showing me P14 – ‘You are now joining the race’, as a well done – but I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?! I’m exhausted.’ It broke my heart.

“To entertain myself I started taking Bridge flat-out, then I’d challenge the car somewhere else – ‘I bet you can’t do this or that’ – and it did. I amused myself by talking to the car – I don’t know what I thought I’d do if I was right!

“I went around the outside of one of the Mercs at Becketts. It’s one of the three races I threw caution to the wind. I took no prisoners but I don’t remember touching anything.”

Not only did Brundle set the fastest lap, it was a mark that he would not better in his F1 Brabham come the British GP that July. On his way to third he took two laps back from the winning sister car and three out of the second-placed Mercedes of Karl Wendlinger/Schumacher.

“I was exhausted, I couldn’t get out of the car,” says Brundle, who completed the race with no drinks bottle. “I sat there crying – I’d run out of something and kept apologising to people. They had to lift me out of the car. The car was so hot and so physical, so much downforce.

“In the post-race stuff, somebody asked me, ‘How did you find it driving the whole race by yourself?’, and Michael – the first time I’d ever met him – looked at me and said, ‘You drove the whole race yourself?’ There was almost a nod of recognition!

“That race helped Ross [Brawn] and Tom justify me going to Benetton for 1992. That’s one of the drives people come up to me most about and say, ‘I was in the crowd that day’. It was a great day.”

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Eddie Jordan Racing man Brundle sprays the fizz after the race that he ranks #6

Photo by: Sutton Images