Ok this is long but want to explain why this is so frustrating for Brundle and F1 fans.
It’s a key part of F1 for the drivers, team managers, engineers etc to be media accessible during the racing season. You’ll hear these people being interviewed in the lead up to races and on the day.
Martin Brundle used to be a driver and then became a commentator. He’s fairly unbiased and has been a supporter for BLM, getting kids into F1 (of all backgrounds, not just the wealthy) and doesn’t love eg cheerleaders at events. He’s just straightforward and not a knob. I’ve been watching F1 for 15 years and any time he’s been on he’s always seemed mega decent. Never heard any scandals.
On the race day the paddock is opened up to some media and some team guests (including their sponsors). Some slebs are F1 fans and want to be there and actually have something to say/ ask, or others are just polite and will give a good attempt at pretending to know about F1 / wanting to learn about it, some clearly don’t care and just want to be there for the networking.
Brundle is a legend and gets to walk the paddock and interview people a bit ad hoc - he’s an old fixture, loved by all the teams, not a gatekeeping type at all. He’s not there to humiliate but part of F1 wanting to welcome new fans if they’re watching. Any F1 fan would LOVE to do a paddock walk. It’s just before the race, super interesting and rare access.
The problem is slebs wanting to be there for their socials/ networking, or any of the sponsors having slebs around for profile raising, shove them in the paddock in key areas, and dont tell Brundle beforehand who can speak and who can’t. I’d actually be surprised if any sponsor DID have those restrictions, I think it’s the sleb’s own PR team saying “no interviews”. Or sometimes a sleb will just be invited without those restrictions, want to network, whatever.
In any case - Brundle is and has always represented rare paddock access for fans. ANY invitee who doesn’t do basic research to know about his live interviews is a dunce and waste of an invite. It is interesting from a sleb gossip perspective as some are super nice and some won’t know who Brundle is and be very rude to him (not knowing it’s live… !). Anyway each time a bad response reflects very poorly on the sponsor, sleb and their team.
So I don’t blame Brundle for being exasperated at all. And I’m bored of any slebs being there for any reason and not knowing a key part of F1 media is the live paddock interviews for the fans. It’s a basic mistake and makes you look shitty.