Ray Allen

“The F5000 cars were animals but I loved every minute of it. They were magic and we were a bit brave and a bit stupid; mostly stupid I think. You had to really wrestle with them and, at the time, they were quicker than an F1 car in a straight line, but they wouldn’t go round the corners.

“They had a 500lb, five-litre Chevvy lump in the back, which produced 500bhp. You could really chuck the F1 cars into the corners.

“At Monza in the old Mclaren M10B, I was nudging 190mph at the Curva Grande. The guys in the new cars, the best Chevrons and Lolas, like Frank Gardner were going in flat. Frank told me I didn’t have to brake at 400 yards, so I worked on that and managed to get into the corner with a little dab on the brakes at about 50 yards just to settle the car.

“You turned in, got flat on the throttle again and came out of the corner kissing the barriers at 160mph, so you were scrubbing 30mph off in the corner while on full throttle. Now that corner has miles of run-off !”