Allan McNish Q&A

"It was just an awesome experience. You shoot off up the hill with all the systems activating, and it's just incredible how quickly the car can go. I went up in 44s, and the record was 42s, and I was just tootling up the hill, not pushing at all. I was really surprised. So on Saturday afternoon we went for it. The car has quite a lot of grip, even though it rained quite badly on Saturday night. I also drove the Toyota 7, their old CanAm car. It was like a light switch - either 800bhp or zero horsepower. It was quite crude in many ways, and was in fact the oldest car I've ever driven in my life!"



"I actually enjoyed the weekend because I saw Stuart Graham riding up the hill on his Honda, and Agostini on his MV, and other people I heard about as a kid, because my parents were into bikes. Suddenly I'm saying hello to these guys, and they're asking me how I'm getting on... I really did enjoy that side of it."



"That's always the case. It's not annoying, but it's as distracting as you let it be. If you let it affect you, then yes, it is distracting. There are always rumours at this time of year, but that's a fact of life."



"I think it's always a bit of a handicap when we're not able to gain any experience. However having said that I actually think it might be a good thing to have a bit of time to restock and work our exactly where we are and how we can improve from where we are. It's like the testing ban at the end of last year - in some respects it was a positive thing for us."



"We've had some inconsistencies - Barcelona, Imola and Montreal - where it hasn't worked quite as well. But generally we can get somewhere near a balance, and we've made a few steps forward with the car. Michelin have brought a good tyre to most of the latter races, certainly in qualifying."



"It was pretty much every emotion that you can have, apart from happy! I was frustrated, I was angry. It was just a big disappointment that we had the build-up to it and then through not fault of your own you are out of the British GP, your home Grand Prix. That was quite hard to take. The important thing now is that the same fault doesn't happen again. It was different from Imola, but the same result. I also lost Australia and Brazil with accidents, so that's four out of the 10 races so far that before we've done one lap it's effectively been over."



"After the race I flew to Italy on Sunday night for the Monza test. There was a hole in the runway - it could only happen in Italy - so I got to Linate late. There were luggage problems, then when I finally got to the hotel, they had trouble finding my booking. Then I found out that my room was on the side of the motorway, so at 5am I was woken up by all the trucks driving past! I drove home to Monaco Wednesday night in the traffic jam from hell, flew back to Monza again, and then they lost my luggage, which finally turned up at Goodwood on Friday night... That week was just a complete and utter nightmare!"



"Sometimes that's the way the cards fall, and I've been in this game long enough to know that it just runs that way sometimes. Then it turns and then suddenly you can't do anything wrong. But you've got to keep your head and try and keep your chin up until that point. You keep doing the same things and then suddenly it just clicks into place and off you go."



"There wasn't necessarily more pressure than anywhere else. Friday was a bit of a wash out, in every way, with the fact that the car is not competitive in the wet. Saturday was a bit drier and we managed to get a better balance for qualifying. We improved the car, but I got held up by Raikkonen coming down to Stowe. Two and a half tenths was the difference between 10th and 15th."



"It made the debriefs a lot quicker! We went one way, and we had no reference on the other way, so therefore it was a bit of a wasted day."



"Yes it was. There were a lot of fans and a lot of people. There were four British drivers that are the focus of attention, and when we go to Sao Paulo nobody cares about us! That is quite nice, and it is a bit of a boost. There was a Scottish flag flying in qualifying in the middle of Club. Obviously I look at them more than the Colombian ones! A little boy wrote to my fan club the week before. He said he was coming down to the David Coulthard fan club meeting, and he was a fan of me as well. I was with David when I got the message, and he said come along to the fan club meeting, so I did."



"I wasn't really gatecrashing! I went to see this little boy, and it was only five minutes of my time. There should be more of that. At the end of the day when you're in the paddock and you're trying to make the cars quicker, I've got to say it doesn't actually matter where it is. However, when you drive out the gate, and dive into the real world, that's when you realise it's the British GP."