Indy Car

I take my hat off to those racing in IndyCar now, I could have moved my family over there and made a life for myself in the US. But the risk-ratio reward was simply too high for me.

Formula 1, I felt, was at an acceptable level but IndyCar was, and is, probably 20 years behind in terms of safety.

The main reason is simple: speed. There is no need, in my opinion, to be racing at 225mph, wheel-to-wheel, around mostly oval circuits. You don't need to be doing that to entertain the crowds. We have street circuits in Formula 1 with close walls... but the speeds are much slower.

I hope Wheldon's accident and the subsequent media attention that has been put on the IndyCar Series would accelerate development in safety.

I always had a dream to go to race in the United States myself, I can remember as a young driver sitting in a shared flat in Milton Keynes with my mechanics watching practice for the Indy 500 and being blown away by it all.

Then Nelson Piquet crashed. My enduring memory is of my hero, visor open, mangled feet dangling out of the cockpit, skidding down the racetrack. My dream vanished in that instant.