When you are fitted in a racing car and you race to win, second or third place is not enough.

It’s going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I’ll risk saying that we’ll be lucky if something really serious doesn’t happen.

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.

There are no small accidents on this circuit.

Of course there are moments that you wonder how long you should be doing it because there are other aspects which are not nice, of this lifestyle. But I just love winning.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

When you are fitted in a racing car and you race to win, second or third place is not enough.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

The danger sensation is exciting. The challenge is to find new dangers.

It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.

I was already on pole, then by half a second and then one second and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car.

Money is a strange business. People who haven’t got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

Because in a split second, it’s gone.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

Fear is exciting for me.

Women – always in trouble with them, but can’t live without them.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.

I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence.

Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.

I don’t know driving in another way which isn’t risky. Each one has to improve himself. Each driver has its limit. My limit is a little bit further than other’s.

Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.

My biggest error? Something that is to happen yet.

Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.

If you have God on your side, everything becomes clear.

And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.

You will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race. The helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.