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‘How many laps do you think you need, Stig?’

‘That’s as long as a piece of string. At least six or seven; as many as it takes to get the tyres working.’

‘OK, six laps. The owner’s over there …’ His brow furrowed. ‘He’s giving me chapter and verse of his life story; he’s only just bought the car, yada yada, and the deal is we have to pay for these tyres if you screw ’em. So, less laps is good. Can you do less laps?’

‘I can try. It depends on track conditions and how accurate you want the time to be. Can I use launch control?’

‘Um … Yeah … Will that screw the tyres?’

After grappling with rubber it was time to talk fuel. We needed some. I didn’t fancy driving this guy’s brand-new baby on the open road in case someone drove into the back of it, so we dispatched him to the petrol station. He returned with a gouge running down the length of the right side, having had a minor disagreement with the concrete plinth beside the pump. I still had to watch those tyres, though.

I wanted the Bug to do well on the track, but in spite of its unrivalled power-to-weight ratio it still weighed a ton more than a Ferrari 430 and it proved hard going to stop, point and squirt it out of the tight corners at Dunsfold. On the straights, it was phenomenal, but out of the corners the all-wheel drive hunted fruitlessly for traction before being blown out by the massive engine torque.

The Bug was the King of the Road, the most awesome car ever made. But my granny could have popped her dentures in the cup holder and driven a more electric lap with her mobility chair.

I arrived early another morning for a different powertest altogether, grabbed a coffee and hooked up with Wiseman.

‘We’ve got the Big Daddy today, Stiggy. We’ve got the Koenigsegg.’

‘Sounds great. What is it?’

For driving on the edge, nothing was more fearsome or difficult to pronounce than the Koenigsegg CCX. This 806 horsepower Swedish landmine was the brainchild of the company’s founder Christian von Koenigsegg, who dreamt of making a car that would break world records. In 2005 the CCX scalped Guinness records for both the fastest and most powerful production car in the world. In 2006 they brought the car to TG for a crack at posting the fastest time on our leaderboard.

As Jim filled me in, Jeremy appeared from the other end of the office in a haze of smoke. ‘Be careful in that car. Look, I know you’re a good driver but, trust me, this is like nothing you have ever driven before. It’s a beast. The cornering is … something else. Just wait; you’ll see what I mean.’

That was odd. Jeremy never did that.

Jim and I made our way down to the start to see how things were shaping up. The camera crews were busily making their way around the track in their little black vans. I could make out a large square object hogging a big section of the parking area. A flurry of men in dark overalls hovered around it NASA style, probing things. They opened an enormous engine cover, and for a moment it looked as though the car might transform into an aircraft-carrier.

It sat on fat 20-inch tyres that neatly fell in line with the square side profile, but the car seemed noticeably shy of downforce. There was no sign of any wings that would generate high-speed grip, and the bodywork was too flat. As I quizzed Christian von K, the car’s ethos became clear. It was designed to avoid drag at all costs, in order to go as fast as physically possible in a straight line and break the world record.

Christian could easily have passed for Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s cheery cousin. He was passionate about his baby, showering me with facts and figures to illustrate its prowess. He was living out a boyhood dream to build a dominant supercar. His team anticipated another striking performance around Dunsfold, but as the Bug had discovered, the track could be a cruel mistress.

I peered into the engine bay to have a look at what would shortly be pushing me along the strip at 170mph. Once you hit the track you were either totally committed or you shouldn’t