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He was noticeably reserved when we shook hands, so I didn’t shoot off with screeching tyres. I showed him where the track went at a gentle pace. After a few hundred metres I turned into the first corner. We were doing no more than 40mph.

‘Stop the car, stop. I’ve gotta get out of here.’

Good old Jack, I thought. He’s taking the piss. But he wasn’t. He was deadly serious.

I had a feeling that if I let him get out it would be impossible to get him back in it. I didn’t fancy explaining to the producer why we had no footage of Jack’s lap for his interview with Jeremy. And I was foolish enough to think I could help him.

I slowed down to about 15mph, just too fast for him to open the door and jump out without breaking his legs.

‘It’s OK, Jack, I’m slowing down. What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t do this.’ He was turning green right in front of me. ‘I’m getting flashbacks from an accident I had when I was eighteen.’

It was time for Stigmund Freud to look into Jack’s psyche and redis-cover his lost driver. I asked him what had happened, whether he’d hit another vehicle. It turned out he was a passenger when his friend lost control and flipped his car over.

I peppered him with questions; I needed to understand his phobia, and I needed to keep him talking. By the time we completed the first lap I had it sussed. His friend had lost the back end through a tightening corner, over-corrected and the ensuing tank-slapper, where the car rocks violently from one side of the suspension to the other, was enough to barrel-roll them into the hedge. Not nice.

I explained how he could control that situation by steering gently into the slide or simply by steering straight, rather than fighting the wheel and making things worse.

After a few more laps Jack had settled down and turned a slightly more gentle shade of yellow. It seemed safe to stop and swap seats without him running for the hills.

He built up speed and confidence with each lap. Even at the Follow Through, where he nearly fainted when I drove it at 50mph, he ended up belting through at 75.

By the time he finished I was more than a little proud of him. He overcame his fear. Jack looked as disgruntled as usual, when he climbed out and Wiseman asked him, ‘Did you enjoy that?’

‘No, not at all.’

I think he was happy to be heading for the relative comfort of Jeremy’s leather sofa.

David Walliams was another kettle of fish. As a Little Britain fan I thought, wrongly, that I knew all about him. First off, he is a big lad. Just getting a helmet to fit and curling him into the Liana wasn’t easy.

We didn’t really seem to hit it off. Maybe he was nervous, or I wasn’t getting the message across very well. Or perhaps he was suffering the after-effects of a bad vindaloo. But I didn’t give up on him.

Walliams put the hammer down, but whereas Jimmy Carr would disappear off the circuit without a prayer of making the corner, this lad would nearly make it, then just lose it at the last moment. It was agonising to watch; he was so close to getting it right, but his excursions were denting his confidence.

I tried to help him fight fire with fire by recommending that he brake even later for the corners where he was spinning; I thought it would force him to brake harder and therefore make the corner.

The camera crew were set up ten metres to one side to capture him going across the line. I stood between them and the final corner.

Walliams piled into the second to last bend, braked late and skidded sideways and on to the verge, kicking up a plume of dust as he regained the track. Beautiful. I dared to think that my plan had worked.

Then he completely missed the turning-in point for the final corner. He was going way too fast and heading straight across the grass toward us.

He just needed to lift off the accelerator. I jogged backwards as he closed in and tried explaining this with hand signals.

The brain can only process so much new information. Once it reaches overload in a crisis situation, logic leaves the building. In this scenario, Walliams