at breakfast.

I work out three mornings a week, usually 8am until 9.30am. I've got a trainer and I've got a gymnasium at home that is fairly well equipped. Ideally I'd like to do four days, but three days is pretty good. I enjoy it and it keeps me in shape, keeps the muscle tone right. As you get older, if you keep your muscle toning up, it holds your body together better; you get less sore backs, less aches and pains.

Depending on what I'm doing that day, I'll either go to London on business or go to my study, where I work. If I'm going to London, I have a car and a driver. I usually use the car as an office, to do my dictation - I'm dyslexic, so I don't do a lot of writing - or make phone calls or read my correspondence. It's a great way for me to conduct my business. Without a driver it would be dead time.

I have a Lexus 430 with a driver and I've got a supercharged Range Rover, which I use to go shooting. And that's all I need. I don't have a garage of cars. I fly more than I drive by quite a margin. I'm what I call a below-average motorist. I probably only drive about 3,000 miles [5,000km] a year. I travel considerably less than I used to. I used to travel 450,000 miles a year by air, but now it's down to about 300,000. I tend to travel privately in Europe and America, then I fly commercial long haul, such as coming to Hong Kong.

On the business front, a large part of my life is taken up by [the Royal Bank of Scotland, for which I am the ambassador]. I'm also deeply involved with Rolex, I'm on the board of Moet & Chandon and I'm heavily involved with dyslexia [charities]. I'm currently working with the government in Scotland and [in England] to try and get better teacher-training put together. I want to see that every teacher-training college in the United Kingdom has a specialist who teaches every teacher who graduates to have early recognition of dyslexia and how to deal with it. So I take a lot of time dealing with government and the Department of Education on that. I'm also president of Dyslexia Scotland. I'm on an advisory board for the Scottish parliament, but I'm apolitical. I no longer vote because I felt that if I was going to deal with government, it should be on an all-party, cross-bench basis.

I don't go to bed late. I still work quite hard. I quite like a Scotch now and again - a nice malt, maybe a Glenmorangie - and I enjoy champagne, or perhaps an occasional Pimms. But I don't drink a lot; because of my business I've never drunk very much. It's just never been part of my life.

I first got behind the wheel at about nine years of age, [driving] round the garage. I sat on top of a two-gallon fuel tank to see over the steering wheel and to reach the pedals. It was just a way to get driving. My first car was an Austin A30 in 1956, when I was 17. It was brand new and I saved up for it from my tips. At that age I was serving petrol and fixing punctures as an apprentice mechanic [at the family business] in Milton [near Glasgow, Scotland]. I got more tips than I got wages serving petrol.

I never thought I was going to be a racing driver. I might have dreamed about it, but I didn't think the reality was going to be there. I did a lot of clay-pigeon shooting before I started racing. I shot for Scotland then Britain, so I travelled round doing world championships and European championships in places like Paris, Berne, Geneva, Milan - Monza, funnily enough. I didn't start racing until I was 23.

When I started racing, to begin with it was little club races in Scotland. I was preparing a sports car for a rich Glasgow enthusiast whose family trust didn't allow him to race, so he let other people race. I was the mechanic and eventually he asked me if I'd like to do a race, which I did.

I came second, so he said, 'You'd better have another one,' and I won that one, so it took off from there. Then there were invitations to drive for other teams and bigger teams, and that's how it all came together.

I don't think [Formula One is] any easier today than it was in my day. You've still got to drive the car to the ultimate limits of its ability, and your own. Whatever gizmos may be on there, you've still got to get to the sharp end of it. The difference is, if you make mistakes today, the penalties are not so heavy. There's no doubt [it was a more dangerous sport in the 1960s and 70s]. Statistics show you that. If you were a racing driver when I was racing, there was a five-year window where there was a two-out-of-three chance you were going to die. Nobody wanted to be associated with [making it safer] because the attitude was you were a gladiator, but I never saw it like that. I never thought I was paid danger money; I thought I was being paid for my skills.

I think [China's decision to host a Formula One Grand Prix] is great and I fully support it. But before China can really embrace Formula One correctly, they're going to have to have a Chinese driver, and that's not going to happen for at least 10 years. There's only 22 [Formula One drivers] in the world and you've got to succeed in every single formula and show yourself to be dominant. It takes such a long time because you've got to have an infrastructure within the country. Ideally, you would have to get a lot of different racing cars into the various categories of the sport so that you've got a platform, a staircase, to go from one level to the next, to the next ... and that won't happen for many years. I'm being conservative guessing 10 years - it could be 20.

Winning my first world championship was a great thrill. Winning my last world championship knowing I would never do it again was equally thrilling, if not more so, because I went out as world champion. It was a good year for me to pick up my bags and go. And it allowed me, at the age of 34, to get on with my life and build a new career in the business sector, which I've enjoyed enormously. My business life today is very fulfilling; I still travel the world. I find it every bit as satisfying as driving racing cars.'