Williams FW11

I must say that I owe a great deal to Colin Chapman. A very charismatic man, who was many things to me. I still miss him, even today. He was the person who brought me into the sport, he became like another father to me. He was my mentor, and a good friend. I owe everything I have done in my career to Colin and the Chapman family. It was he who put me into the position where Frank Williams noticed me. I also owe an awful lot to Frank, and Patrick Head for what I was able to achieve with them, 28 Grand Prix wins (the other two were with Ferrari). I drove some wonderful cars designed by Colin Chapman, but it is a Williams I have chosen as my greatest racecar. The Williams-Honda FW11, from the 1980s, is without doubt the best car I have ever driven. We had about 1,000-hp available to us in race trim, and up to 1,200-hp for qualifying. The car was just fantastic. I believe that era to be one of the greatest in modern F1 times. It made racing very exciting, both for the drivers and the fans alike. One has to remember that although we had all this horsepower available to us, the engine was just 1,500-cc. I had many exciting races in the car, particularly at Silverstone in the British Grand Prix. My teammate, Nelson Piquet, and I were fighting for the lead, over a period of laps I made several dummy maneuvers as we approached Stowe. Eventually, I made a lunge to the inside, and went on to win.

My era of racing was dominated by great cars and drivers. The competition was enormous. Ayrton Senna won over half his races, and I came 2nd to him most times. More than half the races I won I beat Ayrton into 2nd place. There was a great rivalry between us but, I must add, a great respect on both sides. We also had Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet, both multiple World Champions, it was just a great, great, era of racing. It was a fantastic privilege to be racing in such company.