On fear: 'But fear is an irrational business. The things that really scare the s**t out of me are earwigs, which used to infest our home in Ireland. I'd rather do 180mph around Monza than even see an earwig, let alone have one crawling around on me. I don't like snakes, either, but they are about the only two things that scare me, except for weddings, of course, and commitment, but that's another story.'

On his ambition to become Britain's number one driver: 'It's not significant at all. I might just as well still be doing British F3. It carries no weight at al…

On his role at Jaguar in 2000: 'My job this year was to complain a lot about what was wrong. Hopefully, I won't have the need to do so much complaining.'

Writing in his Formula 1 magazine column (May 2001) about the Italian traffic police: 'They're a lot less anal than the British when it comes to speed.'