Out of my depth in the Gulf McLaren F1 GTR | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

I’m not sure how the drive came about (probably a deal with a sponsor in exchange for an Autocar cover story) but clearly if there was anyone on the magazine who should be put in charge of this stripped out, bewinged, slick-shod carbon-fibre monster, it should be the Road Test Editor. Also me.

Imagine then, that you are Michael Cane, team manager at GTC Engineering, the crack race squad which is running the car both today at Pembrey and shortly at Le Mans. The most senior road tester at the world’s oldest car magazine is coming to drive the car. You could probably do without the distraction but at least the car is going to be in highly experienced, supremely capable hands. And then I turn up.

What the team didn’t know was that at that time I had done a grand total of precisely one race in my entire life. And it wasn’t in a 6.1-litre, V12 McLaren. It was in a 1.4-litre, four-cylinder Caterham. And I’d fallen off. They didn’t know I’d never been to Pembrey so had no idea even where the track went, nor that I’d never driven any car at any speed on slicks.

I wonder to this day if any of them knew just how frightened I was. By which I mean vomit-behind-the-race-truck frightened. And that was before a light drizzle moistened the circuit. “It’s too dry for wets,” I was told, “but so long as you keep the heat in the slicks, it’ll be fine.” I had literally not one clue even how to get the heat into the slicks in the first place, let alone keep it there thereafter.

I’ve often wondered whether I’d even have gone through with it but for one thing or, more precisely, one person. As I was being strapped into the central seat, looking out in blind terror at the numbers dancing about on the LCD display in front of me, their star driver Mark Blundell leaned in and took pity on me. He told me the car was very easy to drive because the engine was so phenomenally flexible, that I didn’t have to use all the revs and just to take care on corner exits because it was rather too easy to overdose the rear slicks with torque and throw it into the barrier. He was definitely trying to help; whether he actually managed to is another question altogether.

I wanted to cry. I’d not have been more out of my depth had you’d dropped baby me in my water wings in the Pacific directly above the Mariana Trench.

Today, with several hundred races and well over a hundred track tests of all manner of racing cars from turbo-era Formula 1 machinery to aero-engined Edwardians under my belt, I’d have had a completely different approach. Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, by far my biggest problem was my disabling fear. If I’d just thought – ‘well it’s a very fast car and you’ve driven plenty of those before, it’s just three pedals and a steering wheel’ – I’d have been fine. But the combination of slick tyres, an unknown circuit and variable weather completely cowed me.

I think I’ve actually blanked the drive itself because I can barely recall it at all. I know I didn’t crash but not much more. I know too that I crawled round but only because years later when I was editor of MotorSport, I had a spat with its owner Ray Bellm over something I’ve long since forgotten and he was kind enough to use the occasion to remind me of the inadequacies I’d displayed behind the wheel of his car. It’s the only time I can remember wishing I actually had crashed a car.

Do I regret driving it now? It was an experience and I firmly believe you almost only ever regret the things you don’t do. And though I can’t remember which was the next slicks and wings racer I drove, thanks to the Gulf McLaren F1 GTR, I would have been a sight more prepared for it and enjoyed it a whole lot more. So no: je ne regrette rien. If in doubt, do it. The mantra by which I lived then, and still do today.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.