Meet the parents

The sun shone at Paul Ricard 15 years ago, almost to the day. I’d gone to drive Aston Martin’s DBR9 race car, which by then was into its third year of trying to win the GT1 category at Le Mans, something it would finally achieve that summer.

I’d also driven the DBRS9, the GT3 version of the donor DB9. It looked no less mad than the DBR9 and had carbon-fibre bodywork, so could it really be that different?

Oh my goodness. The DBR9 was exquisite, superbly set up and developed. It felt small, sublimely composed and always on your side. It was also three times the price. The DBRS9? It was a brute. It felt like a car that had inadvertently stumbled into the wrong job and spent its life protesting the fact. The only way to drive it was to fight it, which was fun in a way, but not without jeopardy.