Paul O'Neill Q&A

"Absolutely mate. It's just unbelievable when you do something you never thought you'd achieve. All the tabloid papers were putting me down, but I never fought back at them, I just tried to let my driving do the talking. The cheer that I got around the circuit was mega. Dan Eaves was standing on the tyre wall clapping. Matt Neal came jumping over the barrier. I pulled up at the traffic lights on the way home and there were these guys in a Mini next to me pointing and cheering 'come on boy'. It'll keep me going for the rest of the year."



"I didn't look at it until the last four laps when I knew I had a chance of winning. Nobody spoke to me on the radio so I knew I was doing a good job. When I saw [Yvan] Muller shaking the car from side to side I thought he was warming the tyres, but then I thought 'hang on, this is the race not qualifying!' With three laps to go I just started blubbering so my pace dropped off by about three seconds. I went off on the cooling down lap because I really couldn't see!



"At the hairpin. I just lost all control of the car and almost went into the tyres. It was mad. It was great though!"



"I heard people say that before and it was actually like that. I thought something will break, something will happen. There's a shift light on the dash board that comes on green, yellow and red, but I wasn't using the lights at all, I was short-shifting so much. I was just chundering along hoping that it would all keep together. But I came round the final corner in P1 and everyone was standing on the pitwall and it was just mad. I'd never done a pitstop before either and that was unnerving. The balance of the car was weird, it was pulling me left, right and centre because of the torque steer on cold tyres. So it was an all-new experience."



"It was mint. I've got a lot of respect for them, they were as tearful as I was. They were loving it. Those guys have been winning races for years and years, but it must have been because it was someone different I suppose. It was the best day of my life."



"Yeah my gran and my uncle and auntie and my mates were all there. It was absolutely brilliant. They were all so chuffed. I'd also done a bit for the marshals on Sunday morning, when I went round to see them and do some fire training. I had a Marshals' Club sticker on the car in the race and they were all jumping out of their posts at the end."



"Not at all. All I was there to do - I don't care about anyone else - was to get within a second of my team-mate and I think I've done a good job. I have been doing that and now I'm trying to push to the front. I'm trying to push all the time, sometimes you spin and have accidents and that's the way it's going to be. I really feel that the team is 100 percent behind me."