“I think the easiest way to answer that is if you’d asked me 15 years ago, at the age of 65, would I seriously be considering changing teams, going somewhere else, and doing another four, five years or whatever, I’d have said, ‘You’re absolutely mad’.
“I think a few things happened at once. My dad, who was a vet, he was a huge car enthusiast, he had a little workshop with a lathe, a milling machine and stuff. He used to tinker around and always modify his cars and play with them. I guess that’s obviously where things rubbed off on me.
“Anyway, he wanted to retire when he was 60. He kind of semi-retired at 62, moved up with my mum to Yorkshire, then did locums until he was 65, then he was fully retired. He kind of… if I’m honest, it’s slightly emotional to say it, but he kind of lost his way a bit in his retirement.”
READ MORE: Our writers share their views on where they’d love to see Adrian Newey next after his Red Bull departure
He continued: “It was kind of a combination of that, and then two of the people I respect the most, Bernie [Ecclestone] and Roger Penske, I asked them both, ‘What’s your secret?’.
“They’ve kept going and going, and for their age they’re phenomenally agile, mentally agile and physically agile. They both said that old thing that the brain is like a muscle, it needs exercise, so you need to keep doing that.
/GettyImages-2153654149.jpg?w=218&resize=218,150&ssl=1 "RB ‘not in a hurry’ to confirm 2025 line-up as Bayer says team ‘lucky’ to have junior options")
