The two-footed assault on the Huayra's nose is, it transpires, a scientific procedure to check its new front splitter won't fall off and cause a spectacular accident. Satisfied the splitter is stuck on enough to prevent the Huayra becoming a very expensive ground-to-air missile, the man ambles off with a non-committal thumbs up. This does not alleviate my sense of foreboding.

Why is TopGear here? Well, this may sound obvious, but if you're going to sell a 354kph+ car, at some point it has to go over 354kph for the first time. And for all your wind-tunnel testing and computer modelling, that's the point at which you have to let your baby run free and trust that a wheel or, say, a splitter, isn't going to pop off at triple-figure speeds, reducing your priceless prototype and slightly less priceless test driver to a flesh-and-carbon-fibre schnitzel.