It’s not the sexiest in motorsporting terms but I am guessing that we have all done it – and on occasion rather enjoyed it: ragged a front-wheel-drive car.

Okay, so it’s not Juan Fangio balancing a Maserati 250F on its (centre) throttle. Nor is it Ari Vatanen hanging it all out in a David Sutton Escort, etc. Rather it’s more easily controllable in slippery conditions/more space for your rear passengers/more, well, Reginald Molehusband.

Imagine then my youthful surprise as I witnessed Stig Blomqvist’s Saab 96 V4 – painted a bilious green, I recall – set a faster time on the Harewood Hillclimb stage of the 1975 RAC Rally than Björn Waldegård’s in a Lancia Stratos. That the conditions were very slippery and that not all the test was on a sealed surface passed eight-year-old me by – and the real Stig remains my fwd hero to this day.

Of course, I am too ‘young’ to have seen his Saab forerunner Erik Carlsson rewrite rallying’s rules of engagement – though he did once tell me that the real reason he never lifted was because judgy spectators could hear his two-stroke coming from miles off. (He might have been joking.)

Nor did I see Rauno Aaltonen in his Mini pomp – though he did once tell me that most corners were faster than they looked and that left-foot braking was his way of scratching around the few that weren’t. (Was he perfecting that technique when Geoff Mabbs had to haul him from their upturned Mini aflame on the 1962 Monte Carlo Rally?)

But I was deeply immersed, as a reporter for Motoring News, in the BTCC’s Super Touring era. A couple of laps of Donington Park alongside John Cleland in a supposedly outdated Vauxhall Cavalier, given new life by Ray Mallock’s team, was another eye-opener. No left-foot ‘ballet’, just decisive, hefty but still modulating inputs that the car soaked up with aplomb. It was difficult to tell from the passenger seat which end was being driven.

The experience was double-edged. The bet I promptly put down on JC to win the opening round of the 1995 championship came in at 8/1. But in turn I didn’t like to say when genuine nice guy David Brabham, another of my chauffeurs that day, later asked me if I thought his ballasted BMW 3-series stood any chance. We had just met after all.

Cleland had switched from a macho 650bhp Thundersaloon to fwd touring cars in 1989, winning his first title that year in a Vauxhall Astra GTE 16V.

“The Astra was a bit of a letdown after the Thundersaloon but it was a cute little thing nevertheless,” he says. “As long as you kept the speed up and the car had a good bit of turn-in… Understeer is always the problem with fwd. But if you get one that’s nice and pointy, and a bit loose on the back, it’s fabulous to drive.

“We were able to adjust the tail by cracking open or closing the rear windows”

“I started out in Minis – hillclimbs and sprints – but never left-foot braked. Vauxhall had a connection with Pentti Airikkala and he wanted us to attend his rally school where, he said, he would find us a second per lap by teaching us to left-foot brake.” To paraphrase, John did not agree. “And I stand by that today.

“I did the Race of Champions in Gran Canaria one year and Michèle Mouton sat me in a Toyota Celica alongside Carlos Sainz, Stig Blomqvist and Didier Auriol. Not once did I look out of the window; I was watching their feet. Some braked using their left foot, some used their right, some used both – often to settle the car more than anything else – and they all set pretty much the same time.”

The BTCC’s basically fwd game had moved on hugely by the time of Cleland’s second title in 1995.

“The aero package made all the difference,” he says. “Before that, you had always been chasing understeer in the Cavalier – its rear end there only to hold the bumper off the ground. By 1995 we were on Michelins, the splitter was sucking and the front end was sticking all the way to apex; and we were able to adjust the tail by cracking open or closing the rear windows. It was a very different animal. But I still right-foot braked.

“The only time I touched the brake with my left foot was to check if I still had a pedal at the end of the long straight. A kart has two pedals. So does a Formula 1 car. I get that. But to the best of my knowledge touring cars still have three. If I had thought it was going to be faster I would have had Pentti teach me. But as it was, to have done so would have been to introduce something I wasn’t that good at. Plus my way – braking in a straight line and then driving through the corner – was easier on the car.”

Nobody had more experience in this form of racing and racecraft was Cleland’s signature skill throughout 1995.