Michael Schumacher is obviously going to be the star of the future, but I know less about him. I remember when he arrived in Formula 1 he made a big impact, not least when he and Ayrton had a set-to during a test at Hockenheim. I always said that he was very talented, very quick and brave and perhaps now he is settling down to become a good, if not yet great driver. Winning his first World Championship has helped his cause, but only time will tell whether heâs got what it takes to become a real ace. Unlike some champions heâs not had to struggle as he made his way through the ranks. Whatâs more, he has not had the opposition during his career that many of us had. But all credit to him, youâve got to take your opportunities when you can and he certainly did that in 1994 with Benetton.
I am delighted for Damon Hill that he has been able to come on as strongly as he has. Heâs certainly grown in stature and is getting better all the time. When you drive for a top team with the best equipment and you have the opportunity to win consistently, you can improve a lot as a driver. When I did four races with him as his team-mate in 1994, I honestly believed I helped him and that gave me a lot of pleasure. To my mind, he has all the ingredients to win a World Championship, and I really think heâs ready to win it. The pressure he is under is immense â only drivers at the front know what the pressure is like â and I think the way he and his wife Georgie have come through it is brilliant.
Perhaps the biggest satisfaction I have derived from my success has been the relationship that I have developed and maintained with the people who follow motor racing on television and in the grandstands around the world â the fans.
After the Australian Grand Prix in 1986, where I lost the World Championship when my tyre blew out, I received hundreds of letters from all over the world. Many said, âIn our eyes, Nigel, you are the champion because you were the best this year. It doesnât matter that you didnât win it.â This was the biggest accolade I could have received, because it came from the people who really count. I was immensely proud of their recognition. To this day I have a special relationship with the fans. They let me know, by letters or in person at the race tracks, that I have touched their lives and I try whenever possible to show them that it works both ways. Perhaps more than any other driver in Formula 1, I relate to the fans and I go out of my way to be in touch with them.
I am a racer and an entertainer. When I race I create excitement. Itâs a trait which I sometimes wish I didnât have, because people always expect the impossible. The fans enjoy watching me race because they know that I always give 100% and never give up. As long as Iâm in the race, thereâs a good chance that something exciting is going to happen. I make them laugh and cry and make them chew their finger nails with anxiety, but above all I try to make them feel that there is someone out there on the track with whom they can identify and who is giving it everything heâs got.
In Formula 1 there is a rather snobbish tendency among the insiders, especially the press, to look down on the fans. Formula 1 is quite a closed world and the fans sit on the outside, fenced off from the paddock. But what links all of us, fans, drivers, journalists and insiders is a shared passion for the sport and we should never lose sight of the fact that without the support of the fans, we would all be out of work.
Being a professional sportsman, I feel a tremendous responsibility towards the public. If they are good enough to buy a ticket and support me, I feel I must try to deliver for them both on and off the track.
I was born in England so naturally I have an affinity with my home country. I have a large following there and I have been lucky to be able to share a great deal of success with them. The English fans are extremely loyal; many have supported me since my early days in Formula 1 and I see a host of familiar faces whenever I appear in England.
Much of my success in motor racing came at a time when the national teams in other sports were doing badly. I won my back-to-back Formula 1 and IndyCar world titles at the same time as the English soccer team failed to qualify for the World Cup and the cricket team was also going through a rough patch. Nobody likes to see their national team do badly in any sport. It lowers a countryâs self-esteem.
I became conscious during this period of being one of a few English sports stars out on a world stage who was actually delivering for the fans back home. Along with Nick Faldo, Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell, I felt responsible for carrying the torch. The public wanted someone to win for them and I was at the front of the line.
Having that kind of responsibility can be terrifying. Going into a Grand Prix weekend I would be aware that millions of people were looking to me to fly the flag and this would pile up on top of the expectations of the team, the sponsors and myself. But I have always maintained that pressure comes from within. You may be under pressure from all sides, but the secret is to control it, close your mind off to it and as you focus your mind on the job in hand, apply only as much pressure on yourself as you feel is required. A top sportsman must be able to control his emotions in this way and to keep all outside influences in perspective.
That said, I actually enjoy having a weight of expectation on me and it is something that I take very seriously. I rise to a big occasion and I thrive on the excitement of trying to win a major international race, whether it be the British Grand Prix or the Indianapolis 500. You canât have the satisfaction of winning an event of this kind without having experienced the terror which comes from the possibility that you might fail and let down the fans. I have had so many years of carrying the flag successfully that I am now less terrified of failure. Although I would never rest on my laurels, I feel Iâve been there long enough that I should be allowed some leeway to get it right again.
Nowhere have I ever felt a greater weight of expectation than in front of the home crowd at the British Grand Prix. When you perform before your home crowd the sense of excitement about the whole weekend is even more intense than usual. Right from your first laps of the track on a Friday you can feel the energy of the crowd. All the way around the circuit, it is as if they are in the cockpit with you or adding power to your engine, It lifts you and gives you strength to push harder to achieve your goal. When race day arrives the atmosphere is positively electric.
Perhaps the most amazing atmosphere I ever experienced was the British Grand Prix in 1992, when over 200,000 people packed into Silverstone. We had set some quick times in testing before the weekend, but nothing prepared me for the speed which we found during that weekend. At every corner of every lap during qualifying I could feel an energy and a passion, willing me on to take pole position. It all came together perfectly. The car felt right, I felt right and I had this extra force on my side which seemed to put extra power under my right foot on the straights and extra grip in my tyres around the corners. I managed a wonderful lap, which put me comfortably on pole, two seconds faster than anyone else was able to manage.
Afterwards I was in the transporter with Williams technical director Patrick Head and my engineer David Brown when Riccardo Patrese, my team-mate came in. He walked over to where we were talking and grabbed hold of my crotch.
âHey, get off,â I yelled. âWhat do you think youâre doing?â
âNigel,â he said laughing, âI just wanted to feel how big those balls really are because that lap was unbelievable.â
Thatâs quite a tribute coming from your team-mate because he is the only one who knows what the car is capable of.
The whole weekend had that magic about it. After I won the race, everyone went crazy and the crowd invaded the track. It was an incredible spontaneous outpouring of emotion. On the podium I almost cried I was so proud of what we had achieved. I felt completely at one with the crowd. They had willed me on to win and I had won for them. Now we