I was a welder for about three or four months, and I was lucky enough to get out of it because there was a guy who wanted to support me and pay for my racing.
Kevin Magnussen
F1 has been my dream since I was a kid. I am here. That feeling of having achieved that and a step in my life's dream of winning the championship - there is no way I wouldn't work extremely hard - I put the time in.
But amongst the drivers I don't have friends at all. They are not my friends. It would never work to have a friendship, so I don't make any effort to make friends.
Success to me obviously isn't having accidents or getting penalties but finishing races as high a position as possible.
I don't see myself as a tough person off the track, I see myself as friendly, open and calm.
I love racing, I love racing everything really - karts, anything - so I do need to keep doing that. But the focus is on Formula One.
When I go to small races in Denmark, it's what I imagined what F1 would have been like back in the 60s and 70s. After the 70s it became a bit different. But 50s and 60s at least, people were only there because they love it.
What matters to me is that I get the most out of myself and my racing.
I am not aiming to be unpopular. I am aiming to get good results, and sometimes you need to stick your elbows out to get those results.
With this opportunity that I have with McLaren, the way I look at it is if I can't succeed straightaway with McLaren now and be good enough for them then I won't ever be good enough.
I'm lucky to have very close friends that I've had since childhood.
The way I see it is: You've got to take it to the limit, not over the limit, for sure, but you've got to take it to the limit with your driving style.
If you come to Formula One you have already proved that you are able to adapt and learn and be fast.
I don't care what the other drivers think of me. They can say what they want.
I focus on the team and I block out all the outside media stuff, because it's so irrelevant and uncontrollable.
There's so many different medias on the internet, taking it from the big medias and making their own little article out of that and changing it into something that it isn't. There's never one story from an interview, there's always so many different stories.
I don't look at social media, I have some people who look after it so whenever I want to post anything I send it to those guys so I don't have to look at the apps.
I don't want to die in a race car.
I am living my childhood dream of racing in Formula 1 and I've put my whole life into achieving that dream so it is only natural for me to be giving absolutely everything I've got, to achieve success in racing and the day I no longer do that I will retire from racing immediately.
In Malaysia, with my dad, the only time I really spent time with him was when we had dinner back at the hotel, in the room, just me and him. That was good, to have him there, just before going to bed, to have a chat.
I grew up with my mum, so I'm very, very close to her. But I'm close to my dad as well, and we talk about racing a lot, as we share that passion. I guess that's quite normal.
We share the emotions of driving race cars. It's cool to have a dad who understands what you mean when you talk about oversteer or traction. But it's not a help at the race.
Maybe I am uncompromising on track. The stewards judge whether I'm fair or not, it is my job to extract the most from the rules and circumstances. I admit sometimes I go over the limit but sometimes I don't and I get results.
Haas is a small, but a very efficient team - I am having a lot of fun!
I didn't go to school that much! I was racing go karts and testing nearly every day, so school wasn't the first priority.
I thought I'd become a welder if my racing career ended.
It's frustrating that you only have one or two, maybe three drivers that you can root for who are winning.
I have fans rooting for me, all the other drivers in the midfield have fans rooting for them, and they never get to see that driver fighting for wins. Of course it would be a lot better if you had a broader range of drivers who were in the fight for wins.
I'd like to do a full season of IndyCar if I was going to do it I think. But whether I'll get a chance to do that, I don't know.
I'm not getting penalised for pushing, I'm penalised for going over the limit of what's legal and what's within the rules.
I think I've benefitted a lot of times from having my dad as a racing driver and I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for him because McLaren probably wouldn't have looked at me.
Surely, early in my karting career it was tough because many people were jealous and thinking I had special treatment from the stewards and was getting special treatment. But generally I'm just happy to be a Magnussen.
I obviously hope that I can continue my career with McLaren but that might not be possible and if it isn't possible then I need to continue racing.
I'm a racing driver and I need to race, that's what I do.
I'm with McLaren, I'm contracted to McLaren. They might wish to continue, they might not, but before they take a decision I can't really do anything. So I'm patiently waiting for them.
I'm not here for anything other than world championships. I don't want to be here driving around and finishing races and scoring points. I only want to win and if I can't do that - if I can't see that I have a future with wins and championships - then I'm not up for Formula One, I'll do something else where I can win.
There's a lot of things in Formula One that can stress you and it's important to have good family and good support from home as well. I'm really glad that I have that.
It's no secret that I live in Woking and I go to the MTC every day. So I've spent every available day working - either with my engineers, with the team management, or with the trainers at MTC; building those relationships, getting to grips with the car, the style of driving, the cockpit and control systems, and improving my fitness.
You never reach a point where you feel completely 'ready' - there's always more you can do. But I think every team and driver is going to be feeling uncertain going into the pre-season.
One of the things that's really struck me at McLaren is just how much influence you have as a driver - I can test something in the simulator, or we can work on something in the cockpit, and they'll really listen to my input and, the next time you get in the sim, or the mock-up car, it's been changed at your recommendation.
I don't like compromises. I will give everything.
I love my family, and there's so many things in life I enjoy, but when I'm in the car there's nothing else that means anything.
When you put your helmet on and you're in the race, I find that's just everything there is in the world.
If I had one wish, I would say to be born in the '30s and be young in the '50s and '60s. It hurts my racing heart when I see things so far from what it was back then. I envy those guys so much.
I think about F1 all the time... it's just my passion.
When you go to club racing in Denmark, people spend money to buy a race car and go and race, and many don't actually really have the money, but they spend it anyway because they love it and that's why I like those kind of things.
I think Stirling Moss represents everything that a racing driver should be and first of all, it's passion.
If you're in P10 and you're getting caught from behind from P11 or the other way round... there's that one point to gain... and there's not really a lot to lose.
I wouldn't say I am the most popular driver among the drivers, but I don't need to be. What matters to me is the results and what the stewards say.
