Driving a priceless Porsche prototype up the Hill | Thank Frankel it's Friday

Some marshals spot my frantic wavings and start to push me down the hill, but without some people miraculously turning up in the next few minutes with an external battery pack, my run will be over quite a long time before it’s even begun. And I had so been looking forward to it. For this, emphatically, is my kind of car.

It looks like what it is: a Porsche 911 GT3 R race car of 2010-2011 vintage, but this one was built with a little optional extra included: a Williams flywheel hybrid system that lived inside a vacuum inside a carbon fibre box where the passenger seat might otherwise have gone. It boosted power from around 480bhp to about 640bhp and but for a 23^rd hour mechanical mishap, would have won the Nürburgring 24 Hours. So, huge power in a pure race version of my favourite car... and now I was going to miss it.

Were it just me going up that would be one thing, but I’m in fact part of a specially choreographed plan to introduce the brand new hybrid 911, being seen in public for the very first time, anywhere in the world. So I’d go up first, followed by someone else in the now 10 year old 918 Hybrid, and then to much fanfare, Mark Webber would blast off the line in the new car. Hmm.

But like bewinged angels from on high before I even reach the turn around, Porsche mechanics descend upon me, one armed with a battery-bearing trolley and start to push me up to start. The engine is already hotter than I’d like it to be, and has no fans to cool it but I am back in business.

With two cars left to go before my run, they plug me in and give the thumbs up. I press the button and the legendary Mezger racing flat six motor blasts into life. The car in front of the car in front squeals away from the line. What could possibly go wrong now? The last car ahead disappears in a thin haze of tyre smoke. It’s my turn. I’m summoned to the start, so pull a paddle and hear the Porsche’s racing dog box clank into gear. I ease up to the man with the flag. All I have to do now is wait for him to raise it and we’ll be on our way. And wait...

Somewhere on the hill, something has happened and my start has been delayed; I can see the water temperature gauge on the steering wheel is already in the mid-90s. But the Porsche people have gone, their job done, and if I switch off, it’ll never start again. I wait some more. It can’t be serious or the red flags would be out. Maybe someone’s doing an extended suite of doughnuts, or has broken down and is simply waiting to be pushed off the hill. The temperature hits boiling point and still the flag is down. What to do? I can see the 918 directly behind me, Webber in the new Carrera GTS hidden out of sight behind that. 102 degrees C is shown, then 103.

What would Porsche want me to do? Risk wrecking their precious motor, or risk wrecking the global launch of the latest version of the world’s greatest sportscar. What would you do? 104 degrees...

At this point the in-car video shows me tapping furiously at the temperature gauge, as if anyone outside the car were even able to see it, let alone understand its significance. I’m going to shut down. Bizarre though it is, I’d rather ruin a new car unveil than a Mezger flat six.

But then I see the man with the flag press a headphone closer to his ear. He takes two steps back, raising a thumb of one hand and the flag in the other. I need no further encouragement.

I’d decided long ago how to do the start. The clutch is a switch, in or out, so the best way not only to ensure the car doesn’t stall but also actually be kind to said clutch is to dial up a bucket of revs, drop it and make sure the only things spinning is the slick rubber clothing the rear wheels.

Up go the revs, out comes the clutch, forward goes the Porsche accompanied by the appropriate howl of delight from under the engine cover. The car slews sideways but, as with 911 road cars, if this happens under power it is rarely anything to worry about. I correct it, keep my foot hard down, correct the resulting smaller slide the other way, establish full traction and start thinking about the next gear. I can already see the temperature is back below 100. We’re off.

All that drama and we’re not even half way to turn one. Welcome to the unique challenge of driving at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. Forget Molecomb: in some cars the most difficult thing you’ll do all weekend is get it to the start line in fit condition to continue.

Photography by Pete Summers, Jordan Butters and Toby Wales