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Le Mans is such a great race because you can never do anything alone. You have to work as a team member. And being a team member makes you a better person.

Le Mans takes the best out of everyone. Winning is important but it's not everything. It's such a big and great event in motorsport. You do more kilometres in that one race than Formula One do in a season, and probably a higher average speed. We average about 220km/h including pit stops and cover nearly 5000km.

Winning in Monaco is always special. That track has always been good to me. I won there in Formula 3000, battled for the victory with Williams in 2006 and now I've won two of the last three grands prix there.

Yes, with Le Mans, obviously, the approach needs to be different. You have a race only once a year, so in the whole focus, the whole energy, you know that you cannot change the world and have a race two weeks later.

I've enjoyed winning races in both 500cc and MotoGP and enjoyed leading the world championship and contesting it right up until the end.

I like that feeling of letting loose, of not planning every step. The best performances are the ones that you just let happen.

I know I'll never feel that sensation of racing and winning again and that took a while to get used to. The Tour was a race I never thought I could lose.

I drove long distances like the 24 hours of Le Mans for years. But even this racing is now over. I retired.

I have a lot of confidence in myself, and I love that challenge as well. I love going to every competition as the favourite. It's something I relish.

The trick at Le Mans is to get the car 'in the window.' Everything is critical: the tyre pressure, the brake temperature, and that means you have to push the car a lot to get it into the window - it's about getting everything to work right and getting the car to flow through the corners.