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The British Grand Prix is the one race
where you do feel that you are racing for your country.
It’s almost like 90% of the crowd is there for our team, you know,
it’s incredible.
It’s a very special feeling
knowing that your home Grand Prix has sold out.
Last year it was full of Union Jacks. The atmosphere was electric.
I think London’s looking pretty fresh at the moment,
it’s looking all geared up ready for the summer festivities.
There’s also a very big sporting event on this year
and we have a lot of very good British athletes
which I’ll be supporting.
A great year for British sport.
I think we’re very proud to be British -
and also looking back at what British drivers have achieved
from the early days of Formula One,
like Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, Damon, Nige.
There have been so many drivers that have achieved in this sport
that have been British - and I'm happy to be one of them.
My first Grand Prix win was absolutely amazing.
When it’s actually your first one and it’s your home Grand Prix,
it’s such an exhilarating experience.
Obviously there was an incident with Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher
where they took each other off and I had about 20 laps to go.
What I was then able to enjoy was being cheered
by all those British fans all the way around the track.
It sort of just got to a point that it almost like exploded
as I went across the line and the chequered flag had gone down.
There’s no other win that can really match that
because the crowd goes crazy.
Knowing that they’re all there supporting you
and you’re representing for them, it definitely is a very special feeling.
Getting an MBE, yeah, I was quite nervous.
I got to meet the Queen and one of the things she said was,
"So how does it feel to race round at breakneck speeds?"
and I just thought that was fantastic.
I couldn’t really believe it,
but the whole time I was just focusing on not head butting her
like Mr Bean did.
It’s the Queen, she’s so cool.
I came to the Grand Prix I think one year as a guest
at the time of McLaren-Mercedes.
I got to stand at the back of the garage
and see I think it was Kimi and Montoya pull out the garage
and think one day I want to be doing that.
There was a time when I was standing back there,
dreaming of being in that position.
I’m pretty confident going there we can get a good result.
Just everything’s got to fall into place.
We’ve come from the bad weekend in Valencia
so I’m excited to get the ball rolling again.
This year we go to Silverstone knowing we have a good car,
so with a lot of hard work we’ll bring it home for us. �