Inside the Jag, I can see that the choreography is stunning. The Jag hits the brakes the nanosecond the Focus starts its J-turn. At first I think this reflects astonishingly quick reactions by Steve Stringer, the Jaguar driver. Then it occurs to me that humans don’t have reactions that fast – the couple of tenths of a second it takes to react would have put us in the back of the Ford. Steve later explains that he can’t wait for the Ford to start spinning. Paul always steers very slightly the other way before the J-turn and that is the signal that he is about to spin around. That is seriously impressive: Steve is reacting to something that has not actually happened yet in order to keep the closest possible distance between himself and a car that goes from almost 30 mph in reverse to zero and back past 30 mph, all in a few seconds.

Later I am asked if I feel sick after my ride. Not at all. Like all top drivers, the stunt team are very smooth in how they operate the controls – they are effectively making a car dance, and dancing is not about sudden movements. It looks ultra-dramatic from the outside, but on the inside, all you see are fluid movements as the cars are coaxed into losing grip. It’s about making the car glide across the road surface – just not in the same direction as the tyres, or at the same speed as the wheels.

Courtesy UK Autoblog