Damon Hill gave his Royal Highness the full royal treatment with an impressive, opposite-lock slide through the new right-hander in front of our grandstand

Would the new Silverstone Grand Prix circuit be good for historic racing? So far, I’ve only had a few laps as a passenger in a Ferrari road car, similar in performance to many historic sports cars, but first impressions were good.

With much of my time spent at Silverstone recently, it has been marvellous to watch the major changes shaping up rapidly. Along with 500 others, I attended the official opening of the new GP circuit on 29 April. A highlight of the ceremony came when BRDC President Damon Hill took HRH The Duke of York for a two-seater F1 ride. Damon gave His Royal Highness the full royal treatment with an impressive, opposite-lock slide through the new right-hander in front of our grandstand.

The afternoon included demonstration laps, with passengers driven by the ‘BRDC Superstars’. Under darkening skies, and thinking that a bit of wet weather would make it more interesting, I wandered off to Silverstone’s industrial units to cadge a decent cup of tea from my old friends at Rex J Woodgate, Aston Martin historic car engineers of high repute.

Returning to the new GP circuit, heavy rain was falling and, as the Superstars appeared to be running out of victims, I grabbed my helmet and stepped straight forward. The next ‘taxi’ to come along was a Ferrari 360 Modena and I had no idea who the helmeted driver was.

He asked me whether I had been round Silverstone before. Overcoming my natural modesty, I did admit that I’ve won a lot of races there since 1968, adding that my aim was to see the new Silverstone properly, at speed. He delivered that experience, in full. As we were based down near Stowe corner, we joined the track at Vale, just before Club corner. Straightaway, I knew I was being driven by somebody special. This guy planted the car right on the limit under braking, he knew how to pick the best lines in the wet and he had the confidence to use the throttle while sliding all four wheels through the puddles. I was impressed by his ability to tease so much traction out of the car.

However, concentrating mainly on the new circuit, in just a few seconds we were approaching the completely altered Abbey corner at very high speed indeed – and never mind the streams of water, nor the spray from a group of very quick cars just ahead of us. Controlling the slithering Ferrari with perfect precision, my man displayed total commitment everywhere and he simply scythed past the other cars, one by one, through the new sequence of corners.

This righthander at Abbey is surely destined to become one of those great corners in motor racing. It’s very fast and I’m told that F1 cars are expected to take it at around 185mph. It leads into a fast, sweeping left that, sooner than I expected, arrives at the new right-angled right of ‘Village’. The track is very wide here and it looks a prime spot for overtaking under heavy braking. About one hundred yards after that there’s ‘The Loop’, a fast hairpin to the left, with some interesting changes in camber and that leads into a fast left, ‘Aintree’, which takes us onto the old Club Straight.

The rest of the circuit remains as it was. We passed some more cars through the Brooklands/Luffield complex thanks to the ideal, very wide ‘wet’ line my driver selected through the last part of that section. He then turned in surprisingly late for Woodcote but, yet again, he was right and was instantly back on the power to see us skittering through there with a touch of wheelspin between rapid upward gear changes. Somewhere through that bit I heard him mutter: ‘It could do with more power.’ His fast, bold entry into – and path through – the very slippery Becketts complex was perhaps the most memorable bit of all.

Is this new Silverstone any good for historic racing? Some say it would be hard on antique brakes but it looks better in that respect than the previous GP circuit layout, which apparently remains the choice for major historic meetings. That gives us the mighty Bridge corner but also involves that horrible Abbey chicane. In that case, I’d much prefer the superb new GP circuit.

And who was my mystery driver? It was 20-year-old F3 man James Calado, who a couple of days later put his name in the history books by winning the first-ever race on the new Silverstone GP circuit. I am not surprised. Note the name: James Calado.