It might have been wet, but we didn't care. Not at the end anyway. It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend, everything went according to plan and we had the result we had all been looking for for the last three years.

I think it's something like 48 years since Aston Martin last won at Le Mans, so it's been a long time coming and that just added to the 'specialness' of the whole weekend. From an Aston Martin Racing/Prodrive perspective, it's been two years of nearly getting there, of having a fast car but not quite getting to the end. This year was just a fantastic result - not only finishing first, but having all six Astons finish the race and having another one on the podium, in third, with the Christophe Bouchut car. It was just a great, great result, especially with the new owners having just come in as well.

As I think I have explained to you before, I bumped in to Prodrive's George Howard-Chappell at the Autosport Awards and mentioned to him that I was free for Le Mans. His ears pricked up and he said that we needed to stay in contact. It wasn't long before a deal was done, especially after he explained to me the background of where they were taking the programme.

I went up to Prodrive and had a look at what they were doing and felt, right there and then, that this was our race, our year. We had everything we needed to succeed, so it was just a case of going out there and focusing on the job. Preparation is everything when it comes to Le Mans and the car ran faultlessly for the whole race. I think there were only three cars in the whole field that actually didn't go behind the pits, and they were the first three in GT1. That's how tough it was. But we were very well prepared and the team did a fantastic job.

A lot of people acknowledged that this was probably the most competitive the race has been for years. We couldn't make one mistake or we would never have won, the pressure all the way through the race was immense - but enjoyable at the same time because we had a car underneath us that we could push hard.

We were back and forth in the lead with our other team car all the way through to the break of dawn on Sunday when, unfortunately, they had a problem. However, we were then faced with the remaining Corvette, which was really only a lap-and-a-half behind, so one small mistake and they would have been in front of us.

Our preparation started in qualifying, which was a little bit of a lottery with the weather. Instead of going for a time, we concentrated on race set-up, because we always felt that qualifying was going to be a bit of a lottery. Every little bit of time we had, we ran on full tanks and tried to concentrate on that. We weren't too interested in pole position, but it was still great to have an Aston - one of the Larbre cars - in top spot.

The weather also played havoc with the start and finish of the race as well. To be honest, it probably helped us at the start in the sense that we made the right choice to stay out on slicks. It was a bit tricky to drive on until the track dried, but then everyone else had to come in a change tyres again, so that gave us a bit of an advantage. At the end of the race, however, it was a different story.

I honestly can't remember the last time I drove at Le Mans with that amount of water on the track. It would have been very, very easy to have aquaplaned off the circuit, so it made it pretty tense. I felt the weight on my shoulders with Aston Martin, Prodrive and all the British fans just waiting for that win for Aston Martin. At the time, the pressure was pretty tough, so I just focused on my hands because they were the only part of my body that actually felt secure.