“Mercedes were keen on the idea of me racing in Champcar in ’00 because they had a seat available at Forsythe. But I didn’t want to do that and spent time hassling Eddie Jordan to get some mileage in one of his F1 cars. EJ didn’t come up with anything, but he put us onto Paul Stoddart. It was a big risk to go with Stoddy because he hadn’t done much the previous year, but we won a race at Silverstone and did enough to get a test with Benetton at the end of the year.

The F1 test went really well and my Mercedes experience helped me because I wasn’t intimidated by having five trucks in the paddock and I was able to work well with a large group of engineers. I got the Benetton test drive on the back of that test and Flavio [Briatore, Benetton boss] was adamant that I raced as well as tested in ’01, so I signed for Super Nova.

I did a lot of F1 miles in ’01. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t respect the F3000 car as a result. I didn’t enjoy driving it and I was always crashing it in fast corners because I expected the car to have more grip than it did. In the end I finished second in the championship and I wasn’t sorry not to have to drive one of those cars again.”