I am very much aware that if I am getting good press at the moment I could just as easily be getting bad press. I cannot have the good and forget the bad. You have to accept it both ways.

Winter testing is essential but there comes a point where you have had enough of all the rehearsals and the pretend racing. You just want to get down to the real action.

If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way.

To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

I had a lot of time to think, and that is not good for your mind. And when it actually happened, it was not so much a celebration but the relief. It was an exorcism anxiety. After each race there is a procedure in which you get taken off to the podium and the TV interviews.

There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.

Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.