Features

Martin Brundle's place among TG's CAMRRAD winners is assured, thanks to two massive F1 accidents, both of which he walked away from. Well, trotted away from, back to the pits, to carry on with the business of being an F1 driver.

Coming so close to violent death would have made we mortal humans want to have a bit of a lie down. But Brundle is a Real Racing Driver, not a human. We'll get to the prangs in a minute. Brundle was even more of a hero in Group C sports cars.

He was world champ in 1988, and in 1990 and 1991 (driving a 700bhp V12 Silk Cut Jaguar) he did two 300-mile enduro races single-handed at Donington and Silverstone - every other team used two drivers.

At Silverstone, he finished third after 79 laps - and that last lap was the fastest of the race. An early throttle-cable change meant that he was always pushing hard to make up time - he had to be lifted out of the car in the parc fermé afterwards. Ross Brawn was the Jag tech chief that year and Brundle's effort earned him a seat at Brawn's Benetton F1 team for '92.

Do a YouTube.com search for 'Martin Brundle crash' and you'll see him flipping his Jordan end-over-end through the dust at Melbourne in 1996. Brundle's only thought afterwards, once he'd had a quick look at the two piles of mangled trash that was his Jordan F1 car, was to get into the spare car. He had no right to be alive, let alone jogging down the pit lane.

But Monaco in 1984 was even worse. Qualifying an old-fashioned F1 car - with none of the sissyish driver protection kit that makes today's F1 drivers such pussies - Brundle smashed his way along a crash barrier.

Then he dashed straight back to the pits and hopped into the spare car. Team boss Ken Tyrrell came on the radio and told him that he had eight minutes left in which to qualify. Martin said "Great, which track am I at?" Give that man a CAMRRAD badge.

Introducing CAMRRAD...
...the antidote to Ralf Schumacher. Each month we select a hero who's not only quick, but brave, badly behaved or possibly good bed. Or, like James Hunt, all three. In his memory, all CAMRRAD inductees get a 'Sex: Breakfast of Champions' badge worth 99p.

Bill Thomas