“Do you know, why I really love my helmet that much? Because it makes me 15 centimetres taller!”

When I look fast, I’m not smooth and I am going slowly. And when I look slow, I am smooth and going fast.

I was very interested in that. It is very important to have confidence as well as to build up experience.

I was looking at the history of the sport and I couldn’t understand why there have been so many good South American drivers, especially Brazilians.

If I could have pushed hard and attacked. But then I would have had a good chance of making a mistake.

Without going to what I think is my limit. I always say that my ideal is to get pole with the minimum effort, and to win the race at the slowest speed possible.

I’m brave to say that I won’t take this sort of risk.

I don’t like to go over curbs, because I don’t want to be hard on the car.

A German team could be quite good. But maybe they are a little bit too convinced that they are the best.

So in fact the only thing you can judge in this sport its the longterm. You can judge a career or a season, but not one race.

When I test I never go right to the limit. Only because when you are below the limit you can go at the same speed all day, and that’s the only way you can be absolutely sure about what you are testing.

So I know at the beginning of the race, from all that I have analysed during the practice, whether I will win the race or not.

Sometimes it also helps you to understand the mentality of the people in the team a bit better.

I like the mentality of the Americans. It’s like when you talk about money.

I have always had this mentality because I hated to break anything on the car.

I think maybe the English don’t want to try something and look stupid, because they are a bit reserved.

That is an important part of my success. Another big part of my success is that I hated not to finish a race.