DEREK BELL

The Legend

The Lavant Straight disappeared in a blur, the mind-bending part being that I was driving a road car. According to my son Sebastian, who was acting as ballast, we touched 173mph. That blew me way. It was only my third, albeit final, lap of Goodwood in a car that I had sat in for the first time only moments prior to venturing trackside.

That’s one of the perks of being an old-boy racing driver: owners of interesting kit often ask you if you would like to have a go in their cars. I find it hard to say no, which is why I found myself being strapped into a Koenigsegg Artega R during one of the Duke of Richmond’s recent ‘special’ track days.

I mention this only because I have driven quite a few hypercars of late, and have emerged from each one with wide eyes and adrenaline coursing through my veins. It isn’t the outright speed that impresses – I did 246mph at Le Mans in 1971 in a Porsche 917K and nothing will ever top that – but more that these cars stop, steer and handle so well. I remember a time when driving exotica was akin to a battle of wills. That simply isn’t the case any more. The Koenigsegg battered the senses, but I would have stayed out all day if I’d had the chance.

So where do such cars go from here? Well, it would appear that track-only machines are whitehot right now. Ferrari got the ball rolling ages ago with its FXX programme, and now all the major brands have circuit cars on their books. It’s becoming an increasingly crowded market, but I was delighted – and surprised – to learn of a new upstart with an old name that is set to take the fight to the blue-bloods.

I was at the RAC in Pall Mall when David Brabham announced the new BT62, of which just 70 will be made in honour of the number of victories accrued by the once-famous Formula 1 team – the one co-founded by his father, Sir Jack Brabham. What’s more, they will cost £1m a pop.

I confess to having a lot of love for the cars made by ‘Black Jack’. That’s because I won several races in them in both Formula 3 and Formula 2, en route to Formula 1. And I like David enormously, having known him since he was a young pup. He drove for Derek Bell Racing in the Formula Vauxhall Lotus Challenge series in the late 1980s, and I watched him develop into a superb driver with victory at Le Mans among many major scalps.

I was astonished that he and his team managed to develop such a car in secret, and I hope it brings the family name back into the limelight on the global stage. I must admit that I struggle to get my head around the concept of a hypercar that you can neither race nor drive on the road, but clearly there are a lot of high-networth individuals who feel differently. I would love to have a go in one, that’s for sure.

Of course, nothing beats a single-seater for outright purity of driving. So I was thrilled when my old mate Jacky Ickx asked me to join him at the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique and do some demonstration laps in cars from the Porsche factory museum. I wasn’t about to say no, not least because my mount for the weekend was the 804 grand prix car as campaigned in period by Dan Gurney.

I hadn’t competed at Monaco since I finished third in the 1967 Formula 3 race that supported the Grand Prix, but it all came flooding back. The Porsche was geared for Rouen, and had a recurrent misfire, but it was just fantastic when on song. It was also fun being out on track with Jacky, who was driving the Porsche 936/81 in which we won the 1981 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Speaking of which, after Monaco I hot-footed it over to the Musée des 24 Heures du Mans, which was staging a special tribute to legendary team manager John Wyer and the many cars that raced in Gulf colours. John had a major impact on my early career, so I had to attend. I was thrilled to see one of the blue and orange Mirage GR7s that I raced in period. That, and the GR8 aboard which I claimed my first win at Le Mans in 1975 alongside Ickx. Everywhere you looked, there were fantastic Gulf-liveried sports prototypes, right up to a McLaren F1 GTR similar to the car in which I contested the great race for the final time in 1996.

It all served as a reminder that without people like John Wyer, my career would have been a very different one. A shorter one, most likely. But then in sport, as in life, you cannot make it to the top alone. I knew that then, and I’m even surer of it now.

‘I STRUGGLE TO GET MY HEAD AROUND THE CONCEPT OF A HYPERCAR YOU CAN NEITHER RACE NOR DRIVE ON THE ROAD’

DEREK BELL Derek took up racing in 1964 in a Lotus 7, won two World Sportscar Championships (1985 and 1986), the 24 Hours of Daytona three times (in 1986, ’87 and ’89), and Le Mans five times (in 1975, ’81, ’82, ’86 and ’87).