Martin Brundle’s Monza gridwalk delivered its usual cocktail of chaos and charm — with Eddie Irvine supplying the punchline and the panic.
Minutes before lights out at the Italian Grand Prix, Brundle and guest wingman Nico Rosberg weaved through the Monza grid and bumped into Irvine, who did exactly what you’d expect Eddie Irvine to do: talk straight, laugh loudly, and light a small fire under live television.
Asked about soaking up the tifosi atmosphere these days, the former Ferrari man — who raced in red from 1996 to 1999 and won all three of his Grands Prix with the Scuderia — admitted he never really felt it while he was competing. “When you’re driving, it’s all car, all result,” he said, explaining that the noise, the flags, the fever… it only hit him once it was all over. Now, as an ex-Ferrari driver, he gets to actually enjoy it. And he does.
Brundle, spotting Irvine on the grid more often of late, needled him about the frequent appearances — a half-joke about a comeback at 59 prompted a grin and a pivot to access. Irvine credited F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali for sorting him out with passes, before tossing a grenade with a comparison to the Bernie Ecclestone era that involved a very specific anatomical threat. Live TV, meet Eddie Irvine.
Brundle didn’t miss a beat. “You’re going to get me in trouble,” he laughed, quickly wrapping the interview with a mock growl: “You’re a horrible person!” Then came the on-air tidy-up and an apology for the “colourful, spherical” language, delivered with the seasoned reflexes of someone who has danced through Ozzy Osbourne mumblings, pop-star bodyguards and the occasional Hollywood blank stare.
If you’ve watched enough Brundle gridwalks, you know the drill. The segment works because it’s unscripted theatre with F1 royalty — some polished, some prickly, some just trying to find their garage. Add Rosberg stirring the pot and Irvine being peak Irvine, and you get the kind of human, daft and very Monza moment that social feeds feast on.
The subtext here? Irvine is one of the few ex-drivers who can still hijack the room. He was a cult figure at Ferrari in the late ‘90s — part wingman, part agitator, nearly title winner in ‘99 — and later the frontman for Jaguar before stepping away at the end of 2002. He’s not polished and he’s not trying to be. That’s why he’s box-office when he pops up on a grid.
Brundle, for his part, remains F1’s most reliable conduit to the mood of a race day. He’s the paddock’s resident trouble magnet with a microphone, able to swing from insider to entertainer in a sentence and still land it on the right side of live broadcast standards… usually. It helps that he can trade war stories with just about anyone he bumps into, Irvine included.
Monza amplified the whole thing. The place hums differently on a Sunday — drivers laser-focused, team bosses mid-stride, celebrities wandering into shot, and the Ferrari crowd producing enough atmosphere to rattle carbon fibre. In that cauldron, you get moments like this: one veteran racer remembering what he missed, another veteran racer steering a runaway sentence back to safety, and a grid that never sits still long enough to catch its breath.
No great scandal here — just another entry in Brundle’s long list of gridwalk bloopers and belters, with Irvine proving that after all these years he still knows how to walk up, drop a line and walk off smiling. Classic Monza mischief. Classic Brundle. And unmistakably Eddie.
