That's more like it! A lap of Laguna with Brundle

Over at Laguna Seca all was well. A more different historic meeting to Goodwood’s Revival you could not imagine. The quality of the grids wasn’t a patch on what Lord March can muster and there were hardly any world-renowned drivers on track. Nor was the racing, in the most part exactly thrilling. And yet it was a thoroughly enjoyable event. Delightfully informal and free of officials saying you can’t go there or do that, it had the feel of a local club meeting, on a vast scale.

Its also a fabulous circuit at which to watch racing. The sight of Ferrari 512s and Lola T70s baffling as they hurtled through the Corkscrew was worth the trip on its own. I was driven round the circuit by one M Brundle in a Jaguar XKR-S as he saw how close he could stick to the rear bumper of one-time F3 rival Davy Jones. Very close, was the answer despite his having never seen Laguna Seca before. Brundle is a man in whom the competitive spirit still burns. He reckons that if he’d won loads of Grands Prix and titles he wouldn’t feel that way. But I reckon he’s wrong. To me there are two kinds of racing driver: those who do it to win, and those who love the simple business of racing. Brundle belongs in the laffer category, which is why in the next 12 months he’ll race at Goodwood, Daytona and Le Mans with his capable son Alex.

He’ll recall a day at Silverstone in 2000 when he drove an F1 car from each decade for this magazine. But what I recall is his face after a few laps in a Connaught. Though it must have been slow and imprecise compared to what he was used to, rarely have I seen a man look happier at the wheel of a car.