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I get this a lot: 'Oh, can you take a picture with my baby? Can you hold the baby?' I don't want to hold your baby! I'll hold my baby. I don't like holding someone else's baby. I'm serious! You never know what could happen. It's such an awkward position you're put in, and it's like, 'No, sorry.'
I have to take the positives from 2012 and the negatives as well because you learn more than you do from the positives. It has been a great season last year, a lot of learning, and now it's another approach. The way I will approach this year is totally different, so we are ready to fight for it.
When I arrived in Champ Cars, which at the time used to be called Indy Cars and then got renamed CART and then renamed Champ Cars, I was racing against Jimmy Vasser, my team-mate, but more than him, I was racing against Michael Andretti, Emerson Fittapaldi, Al Unser Jr. - guys that had big names.
I think music can really affect people's emotions and, when I am about to get into a race car, I definitely listen to music with a good beat - that's when you've got the adrenalin pumping. And the time before you go into a race weekend, you have a lot of emotion and adrenalin, and a lot of focus.
I get bored. We seem to have been having a little bit more time off this winter than last winter. I'm always itching to get back in the car. It's going to get harder, so I've got to make sure that I'm doing everything I possibly can do to make sure I can start next season how I ended this season.
I went to SG Formula and became Formula Renault 2.0 Champion. I went then to ART in Formula 3 and became Champion. Then I stayed with the team in GP2 Asia Series, and again, I became Champion. Then the first year of GP2 was really great. I was P4 at the end of the season, which was a fantastic result.
Gone are the days when you could lie on a beach between races and still be in good enough shape to compete. Gone are the days when simply wearing a brand on your firesuit was enough to justify the marketing expense of an Indy Car. Racing an Indy Car is only about a quarter of my life as a racing driver.
Formula One was just cool. I loved racing, all types of racing, but from a young age, Formula One was the noise and everything, and that's what I was drawn to. I already knew when I was younger, the coolest guys are in F1... not that NASCAR drivers aren't cool, but that was always what I had in my head!
I used to go to work with Dad on the weekend. We'd drive past an indoor go-kart track every now and then, and we went there a few times. I was never tall enough, so I always left upset. I think I was seven when I was the right height, and I was like, 'Please let me have a go.' It was love at first sight.
Getting past my early 20s, I feel a bit more maturity and responsibility about that stuff. You get a good feeling from doing something good. You see a kid and you make his day, you realise the power of it. Whereas before, I was like, 'That's cool, whatever.' But now, that's what I'm most appreciative of.
I like to drive hard, and obviously when you get to this level, especially running for points - you've got to make sure when you have a car that can run 10th, that you run 10th with it. You can't sit here and try to make it go from 10th to a win and end up 30th. That's just something I had to figure out.
Portland is a permanent road course built in a beautiful state, which is for me a fantastic area for many reasons. The downside is that the weather is so unpredictable that it's not uncommon to start the race on the dry and end with the rain as it happened to me in 1996 when I won my first Champ Car race.
Le Mans takes the best out of everyone. Winning is important but it's not everything. It's such a big and great event in motorsport. You do more kilometres in that one race than Formula One do in a season, and probably a higher average speed. We average about 220km/h including pit stops and cover nearly 5000km.
I don't see myself racing at 50 years old. I enjoy racing, and that has been my whole life. But one day I will take time to look at other things. I know that everything has an end date, even life, and I also have a family and there are other things to enjoy than trying to be first into the corner and fastest out.
My accident was the result of incredible fate, with me spinning in a place I shouldn't have, with a car coming at a speed it shouldn't have, and hitting me with the sharpest and strongest thing that it has, which is the nose, in the most vulnerable part of the car, which is between the side part and the front wheel.
But I have to say I'm incredibly proud of the Panther Racing National Guard Team, and in my IndyCar career there's not many races where I've honestly left the track feeling that we've executed everything perfectly. And I have to say, I thought they did an absolute phenomenal job. The pit stops were just first class.
I think, in general, the sport's frustrating because I think it's one of only a few sports in the world where you've got so many other variables. Not taking anything away from the winner, but the best man doesn't always win. I think part of that makes the sport really exciting, and part of it makes it heartbreaking.
The most dangerous part of the race is early evening and especially early morning. It's the twilight zone. Either you're going into darkness and the sun is dropping down, or you're coming out of the darkness and the sun is coming up. At the same time, you've got new drivers coming in and feeling their way around the circuit.
I try to get away from the pits as quickly as I can. I speak to my engineer when I get out of the car, usually there's some press to do, then I will go off and have a shower and get my dry, clean overalls and clothing on. I'll have a massage, stretch and something to eat. I don't sleep, but I try to close my eyes for a while.
I ended up signing for IndyCar and it was a good decision. I should have waited another 10 days to actually talk to all of the teams, because I just went in, boom, I got the first offer and I said OK I'm racing. It's almost like it was the girlfriend just gives you a no and then you just get the next one that gives you a yes.
Your trip in this life is very provisional, but the best thing you can do in your life to live in the right way is to take every day as a great opportunity to do what you can and when you're as lucky as I have been in life in getting so much attention and exposure, you learn that you can move mountains with a very small effort.
When I first came round in the medical center after my accident, the first face I saw was Ayrton's, with tears in his eyes. I had never seen that with Ayrton before. I just had the impression that he felt as if my accident was like one of his own. He helped me a lot with my career and I can't find the words to describe his loss.
My very first car was a grey Alfa Romeo Alfasud, which I got in 1987. But, in our family, all cars were for sale - so they might be there in the morning and were gone at night. In the mid-90s, I joined Porsche and the Carrera was the car, and the Carrera 4S was the one they gave me. As a wee boy from Dumfries, I couldn't believe it.
Good overtaking is important to me. There are a lot of quick maths involved. I will prepare from the corner before, thinking, 'If I exit this way, and the driver ahead of me is in a certain position, then I'll go for it.' If he is not where I hope he will be, then I won't pull the trigger. If he is, my decision has already been made.
The facilities are amazing here in McLaren. If you compare them to Sauber, who have good facilities in Formula 1, it's another level. But in terms of the people, the way they approach their jobs, is really amazing when you come into McLaren. The emphasis they have is very good and it gives you a big boost when you drive for this team.
During the season, it's a lot of maintaining your fitness, so in the winter time is when the main work is done. During the season, I just try to maintain my speed with different types of drills with my trainer. I also work on some muscles. If there's ever any injuries during races, then I'll focus a lot of my time on the muscle recovery.
My wife has always been positive. In the hospital my brother-in-law was trying to prepare her for the worst, but she said, 'Hold on, I don't want to hear that. He'll be all right. I'm going to ring BMW now and order a car with manual controls because the first thing he'll want to do when he leaves hospital is drive.' She knew her husband!
If I could throw my phone away, I would probably do it. It's always on silent, and I don't like when it rings and people are calling. We could live without those things in the past when we just had a phone on the street somewhere, on the corner or at the house. I have no interest in telling all the people what I do every day and where I am.
When I was 12 there was a big shift in mindset and I realised that if I want to get something out of it then I need to work hard and focus all my energy just for this sport and that's when I started training and taking things more seriously. I became a lot more self-critical and analysed the driving more and more, and that was when I was 12.
The two championship contenders, Dario Franchitti and Will Power, are starting right next to each other in the middle of the grid. Honestly, if I can be fast enough early in the race to be able to get up there and latch onto those two, it will be pure entertainment. It's going to be a pack race, and you never know how that's going to turn out.
What we have to remember is that not everything is under our control. If people are free in any meaningful sense of the word, that means they are at liberty to foul up their lives as much as make something grand of them. That's a gamble we all take. That's the risk of liberty. Nobody wants others to screw up their lives, but each must be free to do so for themselves.
I think the race went as well as it could and I drove well to finish sixth. The chassis is working better and through the corners we are more or less there; we'll move onto Europe and see if we can get further up the grid and keep improving. The weekend went pretty smooth for me until the end of the race, I don't know what happened, but the team will have a look at it.
I am pleased with the race and happy with fourth position. It was a real shame for the team that Felipe had an issue at the start. It was a lonely race but the final 20 laps were very tough. Sebastian was quicker than me, and closed up behind very fast, but the fight was really good fun. I know a few tricks that can really help to defend and they all worked today, and I am delighted to come out on top today.
In Formula 1, the neck is really important. There's a lot of force that's going to your head. We also have a helmet and it's not that light. When it's all about g-force, all of that extra weight in the helmet compounds and puts more and more pressure. To be able to maintain your head in a straight position - especially around the corners and while braking - you need to have strong neck. To train that, it's difficult.
Jimmy Carter, who embraced all manner of schemes to make America a second or third-rate country, came down so squarely in favor of the double nickel [the 55 mph National Speed Limit]...This is the same Jimmy Carter whose limosine with him in it, just a little later in his presidency, was timed at an average of 72 mph for the 21.5 mile trip from Detroit Metro to the Detroit Plaza Hotel. He didn't want to be late for a campaign appearance.
I get moments where you slide and there's an adrenaline shoot, but the moment you scare yourself is the moment you give up. I think what probably scares me more, is that you're involved in something that is quite surreal and you have to be able to bring yourself back down to earth and that's where when you come home and your kids are just excited to have daddy home and tell you about their day, that's one of the greatest things to bring you back down to earth.
Think about the difference between how your local gas station and congressman respond to a spike in oil prices. One has the price placard outside changed to reflect the reality of the market within hours. The other sends out a press release, tries to organize a hearing, and at the end of amount accomplishes nothing. Meanwhile, the gas station has already made at least thirty additional adjustments to the realities of the market while your politico fails to get anything more than easy media.
That was a frustrating race for me. I pushed as hard as possible at the start on the medium tyres whilst everyone around me was on the grippier soft compound rubber. Once I moved to the soft tyres I was able to set the race's then fastest lap so things looked good with our strategy. Unfortunately the engine anti-kill triggered when I came in to make my final pit stop which cost me a lot of time. It's frustrating as we should have finished strongly. My focus is now Barcelona where I've delivered very strongly in the past.