The BAC Mono is an exquisite creation, designed by the Briggs brothers, Ian and Neill from Liverpool, purely for the purpose of maximum driver engagement. This makes it a car many of us at evo are rather fond of, not least because of what it can do but also because of what it stands for.

But straight-line performance is actually just the Mono R’s warm-up act. And it is nothing, nada, zilchorama, compared with what it can do around corners. And under braking. Especially with a set of Pirelli slicks fitted, which is what BAC are keen for me to try it on most. Why slicks and not the new Trofeo Rs, which is what the R comes on as standard? Although the Trofeos work perfectly well on the road, they aren’t as grippy on a track as the no-longer-available Kumho Ecstas were, apparently, because unlike the Kumhos they haven’t been engineered to work on a car as light as the sub-600kg Mono R. So for circuit work (and for the setting of lap records especially) slicks are the only way to go.

Driving the Mono is a bit more cerebral than that, of course. For starters, you need to work out what the 13 different buttons on the steering wheel do, and which of the various screen menus that appear on the square-jawed wheel are important, and which ones aren’t. The most vital button sits in the middle of the wheel and has a big ‘M’ on it, for Mono, with the word ‘power’ written beneath. Press this, and after a couple of seconds of digitised whirring and fizzing the starter motor turns and the engine catches almost immediately.