The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [101]
‘What the hell do I do now?’
‘Come on, I’ll go with you. But you’d better do the hard part.’
The blood drained from Christian’s cherubic face. ‘I must phone my wife.’
An unprecedented third and final session was arranged. Judging by the ominous clouds, we had ten minutes to make this happen before rain removed any chance of a fast time.
I asked the mechanics to lower the suspension’s ride height. There were no cameras. It was just me, the car and Jim with his stopwatch.
I flicked on the radio. Chris Evans immediately obliged with a personal favourite: ‘Buck Rogers’ by Feeder. Wiseman got on his air guitar and after fine-tuning the tyre pressures it was time to go.
The adrenalin was flowing and I was zoned. The CCX tended to focus the mind, a bit like dancing the tango with a hammerhead shark.
I’d been running laps with this machine in my head for so long that I needed no time to settle in. I did two and knew that the second was unbeatable. 1.17.6 was two tenths faster than the Zonda – pole position at last.
The Koenigsegg shunt was the only one I ever had on TG. But there were times when I came mighty close.
The Ferrari factory brought two stunning new £130,000 F430s to the track, a Coupé and a convertible Spider. When Ferrari brought an automobile to the track, it was always just so. It started on the button and the V8 maelstrom filled the air.
The 430’s body styling was a touch more complicated than the 360 and produced more downforce, hugging the road like a hovercraft. Wilman was so excited that he took over the stopwatch to get closer to proceedings.
I took the Coupé for a blast and got into the groove. Its mid-rear-engine configuration made it perfectly balanced, a kick-ass weapon of mass destruction. You could pitch her in, tramp on the gas and defecate sound and rubber through every curve.
Switching off the traction systems was easy. You simply turned a dial to ‘CST’, which also sped up the paddle gear-shift and made the throttle more responsive.
It was the windiest day I had ever known at Dunsfold. There was a twister at the Follow Through and my times were a full two seconds short of the older 360, as Wilman was first to point out. The pressure was on me to deliver.
The front of the car abjectly refused to turn into the medium speed stuff. I was certain the older 360 model had never handled like this. As the laps ticked by, Wilman’s expression grew more grim.
‘This car should be faster. What’s the problem?’
I didn’t know. The 430 was supposed to be a second faster than the 360, and I was going flat out.
‘If you think you can’t drive it any faster, just say the word.’
‘I can always find more – let’s give it another shot.’
Wilman clutched his stopwatch and straddled an imaginary chair. Suggesting that I couldn’t drive any faster was intended to get a rise out of me. And it worked.
I couldn’t force any more time out of the slower corners and I was braking so late that I was barely staying on the circuit. My only option was to give it rock all in the fast stuff and hope it stuck.
I was already taking a much wider line on entry to counter the effect of the wind, aiming straight at the tyre wall on the right-hand side until the last possible moment, then cutting back hard to carry speed through the left-hander. I decided not to lift off the throttle at all.
This would propel the car faster and generate more aero grip, whilst also keeping the rear differential fully locked and more stable. I imagined how it would feel, the extra resistance to turning, how it would just clear the tyres and I would finish with an extraordinary time. It sent a fresh wash of adrenalin through my system.
I pounded around the lap in anticipation of the big moment. It suddenly arrived; the tyres were coming up fast. I mashed my foot into the carpet, aimed in and the force of the wind pushed the car into a 120mph four-wheel