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For good measure, the powers that be published their findings and attached my name as someone who ‘worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant’. It didn’t leave much to the imagination about my day job.

Chapter 27

Street Fighting

I didn’t pay much attention to the history of Bucharest until I saw the street circuit wind its way around a building that made the White House like a Barbie Mini Mansion. Romania’s Parliament was housed in the second largest building in the world, originally built by its deposed dictator, Ceausescu, as his personal palace. The madman laid waste to 7,000 houses, churches, monasteries and a hospital to create a lavish neoclassical leviathan crammed with hundreds of chandeliers, more gold leaf than you could shake a stick at and nearly one million cubic metres of local wood. He left nothing in the budget for the roads, which were as pockmarked as the surface of the Moon. Golf courses were in short supply too.

‘What’s the hotel like, son?’

‘It’s great, Dad. Klaas booked it; it’s the best.’

The tapping of keys suggested he was Googling. This could take some time.

‘It’s a long way from a golf course; I fancy taking my clubs. Is the food any good?’

‘So far I’ve had a burger and fries.’

‘Burger? FAT BOY. Well, I might fly out …’

‘Let me know. I plan on winning this one. The track’s a real shithole.’

‘It does look wild. Your sort of place, I should think. Give me a call after qualifying.’

* * *

The FIA GT Championship was holding a street race around the capital with a grid of race-tuned versions of every kind of supercar from Aston to Lamborghini, Maserati, Ferrari, Corvette and, not least, my humble Ascari KZ1.

Ascari’s newly formed team included old sweats like Spencer mixed with new talent in the form of the highly organised crew chief Neil Leyton. Gurus all, their car was so immaculately prepared you could eat your breakfast off it. Even though we were being penalised with excessive performance ballast, she was fast and nimble.

I was on top of the world. Georgie was expecting a baby and we were getting married. The popular myth in motorsport was that kids and family slowed you down, but they had the opposite effect on me. Points made prizes, and prizes quite simply paid the bills. I was feeling aggressive, ready to tear it up.

With the car on stands I had a slightly better view of the pit lane. I could see how many cars were due to go on track, and how many were changing tyres for another run at the pole time. I was sixteenth out of forty. With only five minutes left in the session I couldn’t afford to get caught in traffic during my final shot on new tyres. On a street track, qualifying was the race. It was nearly impossible to overtake once the flag dropped.

The pit lane opened and the racers filed out on cold tyres.

Spencer frowned. ‘You sure you don’t wanna go?’

Not yet.

Waiting for the others to get further around the course increased the risk of running out of time if someone clouted the wall, but provided space for a balls-out attack on the tight streets. Five cars had already been smashed to pieces in this qualifying session alone.

I’d made a costly error in the morning; I slid on to the dusty marbles, clipped the wall and tore off a rear wishbone. It was doubly frustrating because there was never enough practice time on a street course. The grip level changed all the time as the cars laid down rubber, so I lost vital set-up time when we missed the second session. I was going into qualifying blind.

In the final seconds before departure I visualised the perfect lap one last time, braking later to make the most of the new tyres, stretching them to breaking point, squeezing past the tight walls and rolling the dice through the tricky final corners.

The clock never stops. I signalled Spencer to drop me on to the deck, pulled off and lit up the waxy new tyres.

The circuit was covered with oil stains, white lines, road markings and grit. The surface was a patchwork of concrete, stone-clad bitumen and