Damon Hill Quotations

I am very much aware that if I am getting good press at the moment I could just as easily be getting bad press. I cannot have the good and forget the bad. You have to accept it both ways.

The problem comes when you say that danger is part of the equation. Then you don't do any more work on safety. That shouldn't happen.

Winter testing is essential but there comes a point where you have had enough of all the rehearsals and the pretend racing. You just want to get down to the real action.

There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.

The sport would not survive today if drivers were being killed at the rate they were in the 1960s and '70s. It would have been taken off the air. It is beamed into people's living rooms on Sunday afternoons, with children watching.

Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.

To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

I am not allowing myself to get carried away.

It was five years since I'd won a race, so I was a bit bewildered.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

People ask me to describe myself, but it's a very personal thing. You don't feel comfortable.

Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.

I had a lot of time to think, and that is not good for your mind. And when it actually happened, it was not so much a celebration but the relief. It was an exorcism anxiety. After each race there is a procedure in which you get taken off to the podium and the TV interviews.

If I am pushed I will push back, that is the way I am. I am very British. We don't like to be pushed around. When the chips are down we might have to step into grey areas.

Realistically, we could aim for the top three in the constructors championship. Realistically, we could look at winning more races. Three race wins would be very satisfying.

Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.

The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do.

I try to keep myself on an even keel by trying to be as critical of myself as I am of other people. I try to separate my performance from myself.

I am surprised people took so long to pick up on the fact that my contract expires at the end of this year. Eddie has to decide who he wants to drive, so there is no secret anywhere. I am not concerned. It does not sit with my objectives to be competitive.

I think at times I appear to be miserable when I am not... I might be having quite a good thought at that moment, but it seems I look miserable. I am not.

If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way.

If someone is being absolutely critical of me as a driver, what could they say? I am also critical of myself to try and keep things in perspective. That is very important.

He didn't enjoy (Bahrain), it was patently obvious.

Pipelines in general used to be located primarily in rural areas, but as populations and communities grow and develop, more people are nearby.

I was happy in Hungary, but I would have been happier if it had been a great race where I'd come out on top-like at Spa, where I enjoyed myself. I really didn't enjoy myself in Hungary. It was more like slow torture.

You have to do everything possible for the safety of the competitors, spectators and the people who work in F1. But we mustn't emasculate it. We mustn't take away the spectacle. At the moment, we have a good balance, but I will never give up working and pushing the FIA to make changes in the interests of safety. Everywhere you look, there is an opportunity to hurt yourself and we don't want F1 to be marred.

You learn by experience, and overcoming setbacks make you stronger and means you are prepared for any eventuality. Now I am who I am, slightly batty in some ways, but in other ways fairly level-headed.

I have always liked a challenge.

I am a brush, the car is my track and the artist my canvas

After you've had Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna as team-mates you don't give a **** who the next bloke is

Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.

When you get into a pack of cars, then you feel the problem worst, handicapping the driver and handicapping our ability to race. When there's a crosswind, the cars suffer badly as well, which makes them even more difficult to control. They are always fun to drive, but motor racing should be about the best drivers racing the best cars, which offers the best challenge, and my feeling now is that we have come to a bit of a cul-de-sac.

Failure should be nothing more than an embarrassment, like ending up in a gravel trap, rather than spending weeks in hospital.

There is a lot to be said for self-belief. It is a good part of the equation and I don't think that it was with us this time last year. There was more self-doubt then, whereas now we are starting to believe that we should be up there at the front.

At the start of the year, I felt that given the machinery, there were bound to be places where I would win because of sheer chance. I didn't want to rely on that because I knew I had to show my ability. So I looked at the season and made an assessment as to where my best opportunities might come.

Compressor stations are generally safe. We have requirements to make sure the communities these are operating in are safe.

People don't want to pick up their papers and see that everything went to plan and this was what was expected. So there is a hype factor because the journalists have to make more of it. I find it amusing. Look at the way they report on the England football team... I don't think anyone really believes all of it.

This is not normal for an operator to have so many incidents in such a short amount of time.

This is out of the ordinary. We took this action because we wanted to get the operator to focus on exactly what could be going wrong.

The whole experience is rising to the challenge every time. You never know what might happen. You might be talking to the future world champion.

It worries me sometimes the way some people get so worked up that they have to push and shove to get an autograph. If they are there, I will try and sign as many as I possibly can, but when people start pushing, you have little kids being crushed and I'd rather not be involved creating that kind of trouble.

I nearly won the British Grand Prix in 1993, but missed out when the engine gave up on me. That moment was one of sheer disappointment.

If you lose the history of F1, that could be damaging to the long-term future of F1.

I don't see myself as an international megastar. I still put the rubbish out late at night-sometimes in only my underpants. Mind you, nowadays I have a good look around to make sure there is no one there. I just think this whole star thing is a gas and I think the neighbors think it's pretty funny as well. We've got some great neighbors.

The last time I felt so confident and excited about a coming season was in 1996-the year I won my world title. There is a real air of expectancy surrounding the entire Jordan team, and I am itching to get down to business and race the new car in this weekend's curtain raiser in Melbourne.