Allan McNish Q&A

"I think it proves one thing. If you keep your head down and you keep working away and doing your job the best you can, then things come to you. Obviously I'm very pleased that all the work I have done has actually come to fruition. When I signed the contract for Toyota I explained very much my desires and what I wanted out of it, and they also felt the same way. In motorsport you don't often get a pat on the back, so it was nice to get a pat on the back."



"No, it's not a case of that. Basically at the end of the day, like all racing drivers you've got to perform, and if you don't perform, you don't get the seat. And that's the case, and to some extent it's still the case now, for example if I got into the car and I'm three or four seconds off the pace. I'm pretty sure I'm not, although I'm sure a few people will be thinking that. When Toyota contacted me about the programme they obviously felt that I had the capabilities technically and also from a racing point of view to do the job, or they wouldn't have invited me to do the job back in the beginning of 2000."



"Obviously you look back at things that maybe don't go your way, and you think 'Yeah well, ifs and buts,' but there's no real point in that. You're better using your experience and using it your advantage. I think that now I'm in a much, much better position to handle anything in motorsport than I was then, and that's a fact of life. What went on in the past and what happened, that's ancient history, and now let's look to the future."



"I think that was obviously the start. I came to the Le Mans programme purely and simply to win Le Mans, nothing else. And I had no ideas of an F1 programme, not even looking towards it. And afterwards they told me about the F1 programme, and obviously that was interesting. But I think really the testing work and the racing that I did at Le Mans was the first thing that made them interested in Allan McNish, beyond Le Mans."