Driving at Jaguar when visiting Silverstone was Eddie Irvine, about the wildest British sports star of our time. His penchant for beautiful ladies and the high life is legendary. Not exactly Henman's lifestyle as a young father of Rosie with an expectant wife Lucy.
"Eddie and I had lots in common. We're professional sports people competing at the highest level. They're two totally different sports but I think the mental attributes that go with that are very similar. You don't reach these kinds of levels without an enormous amount of motivation and dedication and determination," says Tim.
I am getting the feeling that Henman likes, but is not passionate about cars. He must sense my doubts too. He has said the nice things, and genuinely, about the XKR. Now he needs to inject some credibility into his car talk. For a second he mulls over a story in his head, then leans forward to tell me his claim to petrol head fame.
"I like Ferraris, but they are pretty flash," he starts off. "And that's not really me. I was with a really good friend of mine, who I grew up playing tennis with and was my best man at my wedding. We'd been practicing and had an afternoon off. We drive past the AFN garage in Chiswick on the way back from the airport the whole time, so we decided that we'd go there and see what we could test drive. So we had a look at a couple of things and took out a (Porsche) Carrera 4, and this does sound a bit flash but it's just the way it worked out, but I bought one that afternoon! I've just got rid of that. It was two and a half years old and I'd done six and a half thousand miles."
The Porsche was the first car to reflect Henman's stardom. The first time he played well at Wimbledon he was still driving about in a French family saloon. It raised eyebrows amongst the press.
"It was a Peugeot 306 XSi. I was pretty happy with it," he defends. "I bought it at the end of 1995. 1996 was the first year I did well at Wimbledon and everyone was saying "Oh God, what's he doing driving a Peugeot for? He's so dull. And I was thinking, 'Hang on a minute! This is my first car.'"
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