My first race -- Christian Horner

FF1600 Winter Series, Brands Hatch, 1991 

It was the most scary experience I’ve ever had. I’d come out of 100cc karting and had won a Renault scholarship, but to do Formula Renault 1 had to go to the Winfield School in France and do some Formula Ford races to upgrade my licence. I did three in a Manor Motorsport Van Diemen and here I was in my first, pitched in against all these old Brands heroes like Andy Charsley and Chris Hall in Rays and Jamuns.

I remember being nervous about the start because you tend to roll downhill at Brands. It was a big moment for me, but I got through it. It was the roughest racing I would ever experience.

…and my last race — Formula 3000, Nürburgring, 1998

I knew halfway through the year that I was going to stop — and it was not a particularly spectacular final race for me.  Juan Pablo Montoya won the race and the title in what had been an extremely competitive year. I qualified and raced towards the back, and drove the last five laps thinking these would be the last I would ever do. I just enjoyed it, knowing that when I stepped out of the car I would concentrate on being solely a team owner. My skill lay outside the cockpit; I’d gone as far as my talent was going to take me. But what I went through put me in good stead because I can relate to drivers and I know how to get the most out of them. That was the case in F3000 with Tomás Enge, Björn Wirdheim and now with David Coulthard in Formula One. — DS