At every British Grand Prix, I feel a tremendous sense of expectancy from the crowd which, in turn, gives me the feeling that I have a duty to give them my best. This year, I came to Silverstone without a point, yet the support was undiminished.

Support like that adds a certain amount of pressure, but how could you not enjoy the feeling of people wishing you well? The problem comes when it's time to repay the favour by signing autographs and posing for photographs. Although I don't mind doing it, I simply do not have time to sign everyone's autograph book. There simply are not enough hours in the day.

I am at the race, more than anything, to try to do well on the track. I have to spend time with the team, setting up the car and talking to the engineers. As the cars become more and more complicated, so those briefings go on ever longer. When I'm dashing through the Silverstone gates, it's not because I want to get away from the fans - I'm probably just late for a meeting.

In the end, I often feel bad about signing even the few autographs that I can manage, because it means disappointing the many people who didn't get their chance. I know that fans queue up from early in the morning and, as I sign some autographs on the way in, I can't help feeling that I'm bound to miss out the person who has waited the longest. In the end, it becomes an impossible task to give everyone what they want. All you can do is say 'sorry'.

At least that particular aspect of public relations is down to me. At the British Grand Prix, the journalists who cover Formula One all season long have to go into overdrive to cope with the sudden demands of their editors to come up with a bit of sensation. The job they have to do is always the same - go out and find a powerful story that involves the British drivers. Like us, they are under pressure to deliver. We might be the subject of the stories they write, but we normally don't have a say about the content.

Reading newspaper stories about yourself can often be a rather unsettling experience. It feels as if somebody else is at the tiller, as if your career path is being redirected without your control or involvement. This year's Silverstone Special was a good example. A story seemed to crop up in all the papers suggesting that I was on the point of retiring from Formula One. It was a good story, with one problem - it wasn't true.

A few years ago, I would have been quite upset by it, and I can still show a bit of temper if I think a journalist is being deliberately misleading, but, after a while, you start to realise that these stories have a very short life and they are part of the sport's image. By and large, I get on pretty well with the British Press pack, because I know that just as quickly as these stories appear, so they die away. Motor racing moves along at a heck of a pace and one good result will put things back into your control, and give the journalist something else to write about. In any case, there is a much larger picture for a driver to take into account than the one that appears in the paper, one that involves contracts, careers, engines, designers, sponsors and a whole host of other factors that go beyond a big headline.

Whatever might appear in the press, most of the supporters in the grandstand want to know only one thing about me - whether I am going to be in a position to win or not. The bottom line at Silverstone was that I wasn't.

Despite all the attention that comes with my job, I don't really like to think of myself as someone 'famous'. Still, fame is a fact that I can now enjoy, even if sometimes the interest crosses over into territory that I regard as private. I don't think it has changed me very much as a person. I have learnt a great deal and had some fascinating experiences, but I have the same personality and I still try to apply the same logic to what I do and the way I handle myself.

I have been through the mill a few times over the years, though, and had to keep on my toes. When I first broke into Formula One, I developed a defence mechanism to project the sort of person that I thought I should be, because I was not sure how to deal with the delicate politics of the sport. If I didn't know what to say or do, I did what I imagined to be appropriate and some of my comments from that era probably sounded a bit stilted and unnatural, which is exactly what they were. It wasn't because I was nervous about racing a Grand Prix car; I was just a little anxious about all the other trappings that come with being a Formula One racing driver at the front of the grid.

These days, I am more experienced at dealing with problems and situations and that means I can put more of the real me into what I do. I don't worry so much and I am a good deal more confident in dealing with the challenges that come my way. I might not relish them all, but I know now how to cope with just about everything that comes my way.

Thanks to my father, I was able to observe fame and its effects before I became well known myself. It was valuable and useful to have observed the way he handled fame and, because I was neither the famous person nor the fan, I could afford to sit back and learn.

My father had a fantastic gift for putting people at their ease. He enjoyed his celebrity, probably rather more than I do. Whereas I am quite suspicious of fame, and of the speed at which a hero can suddenly be brought back down to earth, he revelled in people knowing who he was.

Fame was probably a great experience in the 1960s, when so many changes were taking place and the mood of the country was pretty good. It offered him a licence to enjoy himself and to meet a lot of interesting people and, because he had not grown up with a famous parent in the way that I did, it was a completely new experience for him. From my perspective, the fact that I grew up with that sort of backdrop meant that the simple act of being well known was never going to be enough to satisfy my ambitions.

Besides, the growing pots of money involved in Formula One, and in many other sports, mean that a driver's role has changed now. You have more responsibility to the sponsors, who tend to use drivers prominently in their marketing campaigns, and there is a far more prevalent air of political correctness hanging over sport today. The playboy outlook of the 1960s has been replaced with a far more corporate, clean-cut atmosphere, and the ever-growing media interest in motor racing means that drivers, like actors and politicians, are scrutinised far more than ever. Everything you say and do seems to be reported and commented on. There is less time off.

On balance, the positive aspects of fame outweigh the negative. My public image may not tell the whole story of Damon Hill, but it is not a bad thing to be recognised and known for having done something positive and successful.

In some ways, celebrity gives you a head start, a status that can sometimes make you feel as if you live in a small village. Some people whom I have never met are so used to seeing my face and hearing my voice on television and radio that think they know me, which is far nicer than anonymity. A few years ago, I might have gone into a petrol station or a corner shop and been greeted with a grunt by the guy behind the till, but now people are more welcoming and genuinely pleased to see me. I can have a quick chat while I get my change and then be on my way with a cheery goodbye, as if I visited that shop every day of the week.

Most people are great, but there are rare instances when you meet someone who sees himself as more important than anybody else and who will trample on small children in the effort to get his autograph book signed. And then there was the man who beat them all by nearly ruining my perfect day . . .

In 1994 I won the British Grand Prix, the culmination of a long-cherished dream. It had been an exhilarating occasion, all the more so since my father had never won the event, and I was elated. Afterwards, I was enjoying myself, celebrating with some friends, and we were besieged by autograph hunters in the Silverstone paddock as the evening drew in. For once, I had the time to sign everybody's books and, after a day like the one I had had, I was happy to do so.

As I was signing away, I was cornered by one man who became quite insistent that I should leave everything else and come to meet his friends, who were waiting in another part of the circuit. I said no, as politely as I could, but he didn't seem to take that for an answer, and continued to pressure me into trailing along behind him to some distant corner of Silverstone. I began to get a little annoyed and told him very firmly that I was quite happy where I was, I didn't have the time to go and meet his mates, so please could he go away and leave me in peace. At that point he looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Look, we're all a bit tired, it's been a fantastic day-let's not spoil it.' I had just won my home Grand Prix, and he was advising me not to ruin my day! Classic.

You can never please everybody. Whatever you do or say in life, there will always be somebody out there who holds the opposite opinion. I sometimes feel that I am walking on eggshells when I am in the public eye because I end up worrying that things I say and do might be misconstrued. It is easy to offend people or to disappoint them, but equally you don't want to go round with a cheesy grin on your face all the time. Life for a racing driver is something of a balancing act, both on the track and off it.

In the paddock as well, I have to be careful what I say. With the amount of media attention that the sport attracts, the days have pretty much gone when a driver can fire off indiscriminately on any subject that takes his fancy. There are so many groups of people who have a major influence on a team, be they engine suppliers, sponsors or any of the other companies who support us over a season, that you cannot really say what you think all the time, for fear of seriously offending the very people who help to get your car on the track in the first place. You have to weigh up the desire to be completely honest in your interviews against the damage that such bluntness can do.

That's why you hear so many drivers giving cautious answers, talking about the 'room for improvement' in their engines, or the 'encouraging signals' from the team. We all end up becoming masters of the euphemism and, if you are not careful, that can stifle your natural character. As soon as that happens, the world jumps on your back and accuses you of lacking personality. Sometimes you might as well sit back phlegmatically and accept that you can never win.

It is a battle that most of us were not prepared for. Drivers come into Formula One because they want to race on the biggest stage, not because they crave some sort of stardom. You are used to having an audience for what you do, from your days in the junior formulae, but actually having a group of devoted fans who follow your career and actively support you above anybody else is not something that many drivers bank on. Suddenly you have to deal with autographs, interviews, fan mail and attention when you go to the supermarket or arrive at an airport, and it all comes as something of a surprise, unless, like a growing number of the young drivers now coming in, you started working on your image long before you ever got into a Grand Prix car.

One of the problems is that fame hits you hard only when you get to Formula One. The well-established career pattern of golfers, footballers or athletes, for example, allows the public to get to know them and they get used to being in the spotlight. In motor racing, even though Formula 3000 and Formula 3 races get decent-sized crowds, the wider world has very little knowledge of your career until you climb into the seat of a Grand Prix car. Until then, in the opinion of almost everybody, you might as well have not existed.

Even within Formula One, there are different levels of celebrity. There is a great deal of difference between the attention that drivers get by participating in the sport and the focus that falls on them when they are in the position to win races. Then there is the attention that goes the way of whichever drivers are fighting for that year's world championship. When you are in that position, the scrutiny is absolutely remorseless. Everywhere you go, people want their pound of flesh and, at a time when you need to be concentrating as much as possible on doing your job, you find yourself thrown under the microscope like an insect on a slide. After a while, it can all become a little bit oppressive.

The brunt of fame landed on my shoulders when I started racing for Williams. The intensity was more than I had ever expected and I felt that I needed to do something quickly to justify the amount of coverage I was receiving. I had been racing for only a short period, but my picture seemed to be in the papers all the time and, rather than boosting my ego, it actually piled the pressure on me. I was aware of the disparity between my profile and my results, but there seemed to be nothing I could do about it.

Any young driver who gets his break with a big team has that problem. It is a bit like being the manager of the England football team - you have to do something so your performances can be fairly analysed, but long before you ever get the chance, you are judged and dissected.

It took time, but I have now learnt to deal with that attention and even enjoy it. A lot of that peace of mind comes down to the fact that, in the end, I did produce the displays that I needed to win over most of the critics and close that gap between prominence and performance. I have had more than twenty race victories, and a world championship, and that is a record that always has to be taken into consideration, even by my critics.

Mind you, one look at the papers after some of my problems earlier this season put a damper on that particular brand of confidence. In Formula One, you are frequently seen as being only as good as your last race, which certainly wasn't working in my favour after the British Grand Prix. I spun off, the first person to retire from the race, and found myself in an even worse position than in the previous season, when I had one point after Silverstone. Now I had none, and I wanted to get away from motor racing for a couple of days to minimise the disappointment.

When I am not driving, I like to be at home, with the doors closed, and spend time with my family. Racing drivers belong to a privileged profession, well paid and well known, but I think we still have the right to set aside a part of our lives for ourselves, our family and friends. If you want to remain sane, you cannot spend your whole life being a racing driver.

At home, I can relax and turn off, do something else and leave racing cars behind for a little while. Like most other people, I like to have some time when I don't think about my job and, even if it is very different from most people's, it is still a job. I like to take an interest in whatever my children are doing, but I would be absolutely horrified if I were to get home and find them quizzing me about motor racing for hour after hour. The good news is that it hasn't happened - yet.

My sort of fame has been an education, as you see all sides of human nature. I have witnessed great generosity, and equally I have seen some acts of extreme greed, and I have learnt the precious lesson of distinguishing between those two. Fame can be transitory and it can be inconstant, and I have learnt to value my privacy. I don't want to hide things from people or be aloof, because my supporters have been very important to me over the years, but there are certain things, such as the time I spend with my family, that I do not want to trade for fame.