Test Day

Every May the motor industry stages a Test Day at Millbrook, the high security test centre and proving ground in Bedfordshire. This is where for the rest of the year car makers take still-secret new models in camouflage wrap to put them through rigorous test programmes: on the twisty 'hill route', the two-mile dish-shaped high-speed bowl, on a variety of rigorous surfaces and other facilities that subject the prototypes to all the varieties of conditions and surfaces they will encounter on roads - and off them - around the world.

For this one day in May the prototypes are hidden and invited journalists come to drive a wide assortment of cars, and to network with motor industry contacts. The day started fine and sunny, but by the afternoon a series of thunder storms and rain of biblical proportions swept through Millbrook.

Fortunately I had just finished driving one of these McLarens when rain stopped play. A £215,000 supercar and a flooded test track are not a good combination!