O’NEILL: I WAS NEVER CUT OUT TO BE A RACER
It is one of the most enduring – and endearing – images of the British Touring Car Championship. Paul O’Neill clambered from his Vauxhall Astra in 2002, sank to his knees and kissed the Oulton Park Tarmac.
The local boy had just won his first BTCC race only three-and-a-bit years after stepping into the cockpit for the first time. But the outpouring of emotion, which extended to tears on the podium too, was more significant than just a maiden triumph at the top level.
For O’Neill, it was the realisation that he did belong and he could perform among the best. It was a turning point in his life in helping him to work out what he was and what he wanted to become.
Ultimately, it had shown the world he wasn’t just a Spice Boy.
O’Neill’s half-sister Mel C and the Spice Girls had spiced up the world in the late 1990s and that enabled the siblings to look after each other. Mel’s financial support helped open doors for O’Neill in the motorsport world.
She’d opened the doors, but O’Neill wanted to walk through them and announce himself as his own man.
Winning at Oulton Park was a major step towards that.
The proud Liverpool FC fan went on to be a fixture on the BTCC grid through to the end of 2011, and has been back for sporadic appearances since.
However, his decision to swap the gearstick for the ITV4 microphone has given his career a whole new direction and allowed him to following in the footsteps of his true motorsport hero, as you will discover here.
Question: Where did your passion for motorsport come from? Did you always want to be a racing driver? Did you go karting? Was it in your family? Mari Christofoletti Via Twitter
Paul O’Neill: “No-one in my family knew anything at all about motorsport: they do now, though! No-one introduced me to it at all. I had loved cars anyway as a kid, but then I had a car crash with my dad when I was young and from that point, I was just obsessed with cars.”
MN: Having a road crash got you interested cars? Surely it should have put you off!
PON: “It’s true: to put yourself through the motorsport ringer, you either have to be a very special character or be damn stupid! It is bizarre, though. I went into the windscreen in that crash and bounced back into the passenger seat, and I still have a huge scar from it on my forehead.After that point, I started to watch racing.”
MN: This explains a lot: it was a bang on the head that got you into motorsport…
“I guess you could say that!And the person who got me excited about motorsport was not
