Thank Frankel it's Friday: Talking 1921 Bentleys and Spa tuition with Bruno Senna

But I happened to know he was also racing at Spa this weekend, in the first round of the World Endurance Championship, sharing an LMP1 Rebellion with Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer, which sounds to be just about the most formidable driver line-up as exists in the world of sportscar racing at present. And after a short time talking to me about what a state of the art prototype feels like around Spa, he was good enough to ask if I’d be racing next weekend too. 

"Yes", I proudly replied, "at Donington" – knowing this to be the scene of his uncle’s greatest triumph and a circuit at which he’d enjoyed considerable success too. 

"Cool. What are you racing?" 

"A 1921 Bentley." 

I had expected the pause. Most modern racing drivers have no knowledge of any racing car that existed before they were born and even less interest. I did not expect what came next. 

"Wow!’ says Bruno, ‘tell me it hasn’t got its pedals around the wrong way." 

"It has its pedals around the wrong way."

"I don’t think I would ever be able to handle that."

And there, in a trice, was a bloke called Senna telling me that in this very particular regard there was one aspect of driving at which I was better than him. What he didn’t know is what no-one who’s not driven a car with a centre throttle knows, namely that it is wildly easier than it at first appears. You don’t try to change gear with your left hand when you drive a left-hand drive car because your mind automatically instructs the other hand instead and you simply don’t think about it. Centre throttle cars are the same.

What interested me was that by now I had the absolute complete and undivided attention of this former F1 star. And as I told him about the other interesting little quirks of the Bentley – the brakes on the rear wheels alone, the beaded-edge tyres, the crash gearbox and the need to pump the fuel through by hand every lap, his eyes grew ever wider and he continued to quiz me until called away. 

It was a short but, to me, fascinating interlude. You might think a cynic would say he was just being a good ambassador and feigning interest but you’d be wrong: there’s no-one more cynical about such stuff than me and if he was faking it, he should be in Hollywood, not Spa. Sadly, such enthusiasm makes him a fairly rare commodity from those who have recently inhabited the F1 world.

As for his tuition skills, there is no doubt he played a part in me coming home in second place in McLaren’s first ever one-make race. I’ve been racing at Spa for over 20 years and there is no circuit outside the UK I know better. But compared to Senna, I hardly know it at all. His understanding of lines, how to avoid destabilising bumps, how much of which kerbs can be used in what kind of weather and so on was on a different level to what I now accept was the rather ‘drive what you see’ approach I’d taken at this and other tracks. He also took me through all the data that spewed out of the McLaren 570S GT4’s telemetry system every lap. I’ve never used data before and the only time I saw any steeliness from Senna all weekend was when I questioned one of its findings. Suddenly it was his uncle’s eyes looking at me and saying ‘this stuff doesn’t lie.’

I’ll expand further on the racing I did there another time, though I’ll share for now that when said data showed I’d been turning into Eau Rouge at 144mph I almost had to go and have a little lie-down. The old Ford Falcon I usually race here probably isn’t going much more than half that speed at the same place.

In the meantime, I’m just glad the top level of racing isn’t entirely populated by drivers whose only interest is winning and for whom the car is merely the vehicle through which their talent is expressed. Bruno Senna may be an amazingly accomplished driver and related to one of the very best, but he is not only terrific company but also a proper car guy too; to me at least, that’s far more important.