Martin John Brundle, born 1 June 1959 in King's Lynn, Norfolk, competed in Formula One from 1984 to 1996 across twelve seasons with teams including Tyrrell, Zakspeed, Brabham, Benetton, Ligier, McLaren, and Jordan. He achieved nine podiums and 98 championship points during his career, with a career-best sixth-place finish in the 1992 World Drivers' Championship while partnering Michael Schumacher at Benetton. Beyond Formula One, Brundle won the World Sportscar Championship in 1988 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1990, both with Jaguar, as well as the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1988.
Upon retiring from racing, Brundle joined ITV as an analyst when the broadcaster began Formula One coverage in 1997, initially working alongside Murray Walker and later James Allen. He moved to the BBC's commentary team in 2009 before signing with Sky Sports at the end of 2011, where he worked as a co-commentator alongside lead commentator David Croft.
Brundle's pre-race grid walks became customary and began at the 1997 British Grand Prix. In 2005, the judges of the RTS Television Sports Award described him as "an outstanding operator at the very peak of his game — with an extraordinary ability to simplify and entertain in an often complex sport," also noting his "fearless authority on some of the most sensitive issues," including his pursuit of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone on the grid at Indianapolis. The Times, discussing F1's return to the BBC in 2009, described Brundle as "the greatest TV analyst in this or any other sport."
The grid walk takes place in the period between the formation of the starting grid and the race start procedure, when the pit lane closes and teams work on cars in their grid positions. During this window — the area is cleared of most personnel at ten minutes before the start — a broadcaster moves among the cars and personnel, opportunistically securing brief interviews. The informal nature of the segment, with its unpredictable encounters and occasionally rebuffed approaches, became a source of entertainment in its own right. Brundle won the RTS Television Sports Award for best Sports Pundit in 1998, 1999, 2005, and 2006, in part reflecting the popularity of the format.
Brundle was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours for services to motor racing and sports broadcasting. The grid walk format he popularised on ITV and Sky has become a standard element of international Formula One broadcast production, with equivalent segments appearing across broadcaster coverage of the sport globally. He also provided commentary as himself for races depicted in the 2025 film F1.