Vehicle Dynamics Quotes

The Lotus is a couple of years newer than the Williams was, and as the pace of development in F1 cars is so quick, I expect it to be another completely different experience, but still one that I know I'm going to enjoy.

I look at safety as, you know, there's active and passive. Passive is how do you survive a crash. Active is accident avoidance. And so that's real-time information to you, as a driver, and to your car, to the wheels of a car that will get you out of a bad situation.

Everything officers go through in any chase anywhere in the country, but amped up 100 times! I'm right in the thick of things in a car going like 80 miles an hour, and doing 360s in the middle of the road. It was a wild ride.

Driving at high speed where safe and legal is part of my life. As well as a higher top speed I wanted even better stability in my FX and that meant work on the aerodynamics.

Since I started driving in F1 in 2006-07, the cars have got slower and easier to drive.

I've always been attracted to cars, and driving is a completely measurable experience: if you qualify last on the grid, you're the slowest, and if you qualify first on the grid, you're the fastest. So no one can say you're slow if you're fast and no one can say you're fast if you're slow.

If there are differences in the race pace it is normally because the tyre is overheating on my side.

The connection of the car to the driver is the seat. You are strapped in tightly in it. On the motorcycle, you can move around. The G-forces feel different. It's probably harder to change from the car to the motorcycle.

I think what I've found is that in IndyCar, the balance is a bit more all over the place compared with Formula 1! You have to get used to that and work around it. Again, as a driver, you can help the situation by the way you brake and apply the throttle to make the balance better.

Nothing's ever too fast. Maybe sometimes on the road some people are too fast if they don't know how to control the car, but in racing, the faster and more power and grip, the better it is.

In my day it was 75 percent car and mechanic, 25 percent driver and luck. Today it's 95 percent car.

I took a whole stunt course and pretty much got certified as a stunt driver. It's ridiculous how easy it is once you understand the car and know how to do it.

Everything you need to get that relaxed driving that brings consistency only comes with practice.

I'm a really good driver. I've been driving since I was very small, and I do like driving fast. I remember the first time my dad taught me that when you go into a corner you change down then put your foot right down on the way out. I'm very competitive about driving.

I still believe that Mercedes and Ferrari are the two strongest power units but then Honda is a lot stronger than they get credit for I think.

I drive like my body and my limitations leave me to do it. After my accident, I discovered that to do a roundabout in the road car, you don't have to grab the steering wheel, you can use friction to turn.

Every lap I'm learning more about an IndyCar, because it's not an easy car to learn. It's tough to get your head around it and know how to use it in the best possible way.

The trick at Le Mans is to get the car 'in the window.' Everything is critical: the tyre pressure, the brake temperature, and that means you have to push the car a lot to get it into the window - it's about getting everything to work right and getting the car to flow through the corners.

When I entered Formula One in 2002 basically all I had was my talent, but now I also have the technical knowledge which enables me, together with my engineers, to fully exploit the potential of the car.

As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible.

When I got to Ferrari I learnt to be less aggressive, and how to set up the car for my driving style.

When you're doing Sebring in the back straight at 185 or 187, and the car's moving, you gotta know what to do with it, how to read it. Just the science of understanding shocks - forget spring rates - is mind-boggling.

We share the emotions of driving race cars. It's cool to have a dad who understands what you mean when you talk about oversteer or traction. But it's not a help at the race.

And I'd get back to the cars being physical challenges to drive - to tame the beast. The cars we have at the moment are fantastic bits of engineering, but it's a little too comfortable, a little too easy. I think I'd go back to making the driver a bigger variable.

Every driver is different, so I just hope whatever I do is going to be good enough, because it's not that I just want to be with McLaren. I want to win with McLaren.