2000. Alastair deliberately collides with a competitor at Silverstone after foul play.

Quite early on I established a reputation for biting back. If you’re a wimp then they’ll know this for the next race and bully you off the track. So I put a couple off the road and did a bit of damage. The people that I’d done this to would come and shout at me after the race, which was good because others knew not to mess.

One classic was at Silverstone on the club circuit. Coming down towards the clubhouse there’s a bridge. Before the bridge the track is eight lanes wide and then gets narrower through a left-hander. You need to be on the right-hand side for the left-hander so I came down the straight with a guy beside me and the cars are parallel but I was on the right, which meant I was the winner, I had the next corner: I’d got him and he knew it.

It’s like slow motion almost, you’re looking at him driving next to you and could actually wave and say: “I gotcha, you're beat.” I used to say hello because there’s nothing else to do on the straight.  I’m a natural multi-tasker and on a rally there’s nothing I like doing better than the navigation, the driving, the radio, and fixing the problems with the car. The more input the better off I am.

Anyway, he drives into me so that I have to either crash into the abutment, or pull back. So I backed off and allowed him to go in front, but when we got to the corner, as he pulled in, I deliberately hit him fair and square in the side.

I hit him…BAM…and he buggered off across the field. By the time he got back on I was still in 5th place and he was back in nowhere.

But he was Johnny-lots-of-mates and I was Billy-no-mates so I was sitting on my car with my one friend and he came over with his mates and began having a go at me. I just shunned him: 'I had the corner mate and you drove me out.' And then a guy came down from the Steward’s office and he looked at the damage on the car and made notes and now Johnny and his mates are all going: 'Yeah yeah yeah.' And then word came down to him to see the Clerk of the course, not me.

The Clerk of the course spoke to me afterwards, who had seen the whole thing and witnessed how he tried to drive me into the abutment. He smiled: 'You shouldn’t have retaliated but in the circumstances, we’ll let it be.'

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure