Martin Brundle to Sky

Martin Brundle will reportedly sign on the dotted line on Monday as he gears up for a move from the BBC to Sky for next year's F1 season.

When it was announced that Sky TV had secured the rights to show all F1 grands prix live as of next season, rumours regarding Brundle's future immediately arose.

And, after months of speculation about whether he'll stay or go, it now appears the 52-year-old is on the verge of agreeing a move.

According to The Telegraph, Brundle "is believed to have been persuaded not only by the double-your-money offer from Sky but by the promise that he will be the star of its F1 coverage, heavily involved with much of the extra programming it is planning in an effort to convince fans to sign up to its subscription service."

The newspaper added that he is "expected to sign" on Monday and "will be paired with David Croft in the Sky commentary booth" for next year's F1 Championship.

As of next season, Sky Sports will show all grands prix and related live while the BBC will only be broadcasting 10 races live while showing extended highlights of the other 10 hours in a delayed format.




Can't say I'm surprised tbh, a shame

A pity that the Brundle and Coulthard partnership is breaking up, I've enjoyed them more and more as the year has gone on

But still, it's a good line-up, and still no sign of Ant, which is great!

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X (@ed24f1)

SchueyFan Wrote:
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> A pity that the Brundle and Coulthard partnership
> is breaking up, I've enjoyed them more and more as
> the year has gone on
>
> But still, it's a good line-up, and still no sign
> of Ant, which is great!

It's a shame DC is going. I wouldn't mind Ant tbh it's always nice to have ex-drivers input.

Anyway, the BBC may choose to stream the Sky commentary as part of the deal, as mentioned on ESPN.

Until I hear more I'm not saying goodbye to good old Martin yet, but I'll be massively pissed if I have to endure F1 without him.

When I say that about Ant, I mean that I hope he gets completely left out in this musical chairs!

Also, don't forget that the race commentary will be the same for Sky and BBC, it's just the presenters that will be different.

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X (@ed24f1)

I couldn't give a toss if Jenson himself was commentating from his car, its still a complete joke that in Britain, if we want to watch F1 legally, we have to buy a sky sports (or even sky) subscription!!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

I don't get that either Chet, it is basically a monopoly on the market.

I would have thought having most of the football was bad enough, but to get the massive chunk that is F1 viewers, surely of the most watched sports events, this will mean they have a monopoly?

I thought that was illegal, as with media coverage and owning xxx% of media!?


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Apparently Leigh Diffey is moving to the BBC. Quite a bizarre choice, I must say. He used to commentate in V8 Supercars, but now works for Speed in America doing GrandAm, F1 etc.

He's quite a brash, shouty, sort of commentator, I don't think he'll be liked by UK F1 fans, to be honest.

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X (@ed24f1)

Don't forget that Radio 5 will still be broadcasting live, so don't think the ant & crofty partnership will be breaking up in a hurry!

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If you read the first post, the reports say Croft has signed for Sky, so I think that partnership definitely will be breaking up!

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X (@ed24f1)

just rumours at the moment Nothing definate yet, although im not sure where this will leave bbc if brundle and croft leave. Their 5live options looks like Coulthard, Maurice Hamilton, Davidson and Chandhok on certian weekends, although I don't think their budget would stretch to Coulthard for radio.

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They also had John Watson at Singapore, so maybe they'd think of employing him on a more regular basis?

Davidson can't make it to every race due to his Peugeot commitments, so they'll need a few 'reserves'

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X (@ed24f1)

If the BBC do end up producing their own commentary for the highlights and the 10 "free" races we get you can be sure that be 2013 there will be no one left watching Formula 1 on the beeb because

1) Commentary will be useless
2) 5Live's over
3) No one will care about watching it on the BBC when there will be countless of us F1 fans finding a Sky Sports stream and watching it online.

BBC might as well have just given it to Sky fully rather than cause this kerfuffle.

Well this screws up my Expat shield approach to F1 coverage. Now how is this murikan watch F1 without stupid Speed? My parents are already looking into cutting out TV all together to save money.


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Yes, thank you for noticing I am the most amazing being in the galaxy.

Brundle said earlier on Twitter that he hasn't agreed to anything and that he's still mulling over his options.

I'd much prefer if the Beeb bit the bullet and just took the Sky commentary. There's no point in crying over spilled milk - naturally we want the best commentators there are available if possible, and Brundle is certainly one of them. If sharing is an option, then all parties would be stupid to turn it down and the only losers would be the F1 fans, be they Sky viewers or BBC viewers.

Brundle once admitted that he felt he underachieved in his career because he wasn't ''ruthless'' enough behind the scenes, when he put himself forward to replace Jonathan Legard, maybe it was him redressing that feeling from his racing career, and again should he go against the fans wishes and join sky, then maybe its him doing whats best for himself again.

Telegraph was wrong,I didn't sign £1m Sky contract today. Calmly working through it, will end up doing what satisfies me most professionally - MBrundle

Brundle confirmed for Sky: [www.autosport.com]

I respect his reasons, but still - boo, hiss, etc.

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does anyone know what this means for people like us in australia that use the bbc feed, i wonder if channel 10 will fork out the money to pay sky sports to use their telecast


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I don't mind. As long as I get F1 coverage with MB one way or another I'm happy.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

My only concern over this is getting the access to live streams online, and if there are any known ones which are reliable.

Can't argue with his reasoning behind moving over to Sky. It would be just as important to him to be there commentating on the races as they unfold, as it is to most of us to be able to watch them in the first place.

All of this just makes me realise how much more time I'm about to start devoting to watching F1. With the races the BBC don't show live it'll just be about watching the live Sky broadcast(hopefully) and then watching the BBC highlights afterwards, but if the BBC don't go with the Sky feed and insist on doing their own race commentary, I'll probably watch the race live on the BBC and then watch a recording of the live Sky broadcast just to hear Martin's commentary... Long F1 days!

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2011 10:52PM by EC83.