Thanks almost entirely to British Airways, I turned up a day and a half late to the Aston Martin DB12 launch which, when said event was scheduled to last two days, was something of an inconvenience.
Perhaps worse, and thanks to two consecutive 3.30am starts (one to catch a flight that never took off, the other for one merely delayed by several hours), I was also as exhausted as I’ve been before climbing into a new car. By the time I made it to the south of France, all the Aston folk could do was fill me up with Diet Coke, press a DB12 key into my hand and say, ‘See you at the hotel in five hours.’
Why the pathetically self-indulgent tilt at the sympathy vote so early on? Simply this: while I’d never have chosen to arrive in such an unprepossessing condition, now that I had it did occur to me that there could be few stiffer tests for such a new sporting GT than for it to try and keep me awake, alert, entertained yet also soothed and comforted when in that state.
