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We took our final break and I explained how close we were. Forget Richard Whiteley, we were only one second away from Wogan. Billy sparked up another roll-up. His hands were shaking. I felt a rush of admiration and affection for him. He had sacrificed so much for his country, and still had the balls to be televised in pursuit of a personal milestone.

Back in the car I did a final talk-through, highlighting areas he could improve. I got him to paint a mental picture of the perfect lap and run a commentary. Then a silent thumbs up to the camera and one simple word to Billy: ‘Go!’

Billy lit up the tyres and after a few ‘small lefts’ and ‘small rights’ we made it to the first corner. Our approach was a bit wide, but I risked sticking with it and called for a late brake and shouted ‘TURN NOW.’ I didn’t have to tell him twice. The car scythed through the corner, the front wheels pleading for mercy. Click left, left, straighten.

‘Keep it flat, Billy. Don’t lift, kink left, more left and BRAKE.’

We just missed the tyre wall at Chicago as the ABS braking clawed at the tarmac. Billy applied heaps of right lock and we exited the corner a little too far to the right.

I bellowed at him to keep his foot hard down along the fast back straight. The hair on the back of my neck began to tingle as it often did on a good run in qualifying. It was still a long way to the finish.

Billy skidded through Hammerhead chicane without cheating by cutting the corner, and powered through the gears to the super-fast Follow Through.

‘Really good, Billy – dead straight, straight, straight now, don’t blow it, don’t lift, don’t lift AND TURN …’

Billy flat-footed it through the right-hander, a corner that a third of sighted drivers never took flat.

We approached the perilous 100mph left.

‘A little left, go straight, little left, hold that, OK, it’s LOCKED …’

My thumb hovered over the base of the steering wheel as we screamed through the corner. Billy never lifted. Both of us knew this lap was the one.

We made a sensible approach under braking for the penultimate corner but Billy turned too much. We cut all the way across the grass and by some miracle the car didn’t spin.

One last jab of the brakes at Gambon corner, ‘TURN,’ and nothing could go wrong any more.

Billy crossed the line and I told him to stop.

I cradled the stopwatch for a moment in my hand.

‘That was a good one, it felt like a good one. How fast was it, Stig?’ Billy had become the focus of my thoughts, and for the past week his goal, his dream, had become almost as much mine as his. He had set out to drive a racing lap as well as a sighted man. But he had achieved far, far more.

‘Well, the first thing you need to know is that I never touched the steering wheel on that lap, even at the Follow Through.’

I let that hang for a moment as his chin buckled and another bullet of sweat dropped from his eyebrow. The gravity of his achievement washed through him.

‘And you didn’t just beat Wogan. You’re under the two-minute barrier. Your time was one minute and 58 seconds.’

It was all too much for Billy, but even war heroes are allowed to shed a tear now and again. I hugged him and thanked him for being such a top man.

In the background I could see the long shadow of the world’s tallest TV presenter approaching and decided to make a quick exit before my emotions got the better of me. I handed Billy over to Clarkson.

Jezza armed himself with a fifteen-second briefing from me on the terminology required to help Billy navigate the circuit, introduced himself to Billy and climbed into the car. As I walked off, Billy zig-zagged down the straight before piling off on to the grass. ‘Good luck, Jezza.’

I gripped my fist in celebration of Billy’s success. His time was faster than five sighted celebrities. It meant more to me than any lap I could have driven.

Chapter 20

Taking the Rough with the Smooth

The reason Top Gear felt so exciting and personal to me was because the camera crews gave