I was never a small boy. I was Mr Round. I was huge, so big I couldn’t fit in a kart! Tillett, who made the seats, couldn’t make one big enough for me to fit in. So I started off drifting Ford Escort Mk2s at eight years old, and at that age we went with family friends to Brands Hatch to watch the British Touring Car Championship. I absolutely loved it.
We sat with a picnic blanket to the side of Druids where you can see the cars coming down through Paddock Hill. I remember seeing someone punt someone off into the gravel and thinking, ‘This is brilliant – there’s always crashing, it’s always exciting to watch.’ At that age you get nervous even thinking about driving a car like that – it’s fine going sideways in a field for a bit of a laugh, but I never thought I’d actually be racing in the best motorsport championship in the UK.
