One of the few things in life I've ever been genuinely good at is writing history essays. For some unknown genetic reason, my high school career was marked by an ability to analyze what had gone before. I was as good at describing the origins of the First World War as I was bad at talking to members of the opposite sex. Then I went to Oxford University and life changed. On the two-hour drive from my hometown to the fabled city, I became an also-ran. I was suddenly introduced to people who used words I didn't understand and whose essays were from a different stratosphere. While I read car magazines and worried about the oversteer characteristics of the new 911 Turbo, they read Aristotle and worried about whether he was an empiricist or not. My only consolation was that they were even worse at talking to nubile young blondes than I.
For an ultra-competitive young male, it was an important reality check. Just like the brilliant young racer who arrives in Formula One only to find that his teammate is three-tenths quicker, I had taken on the best of the best and been found wanting. Faced with Ayrton Senna, I had become Michael Andretti.
More than a decade has passed since I first went up to university, but my professional career continues to bring me into contact with some extraordinary people. In the past month, for example, I've spent time in the company of Dame Ellen MacArthur and Wing Commander Andy Green, OBE.
Green remains "the fastest man on earth" having reached 763 mph at the wheel of the Thrust SSC jet car in 1997. And he's an extraordinary character. A brilliantly analytical mind-he has a First Class Mathematics degree from Oxford-is matched by an even temperament and the most astonishing reflexes. This is the man who flies Harrier jets for a living, pilots stunt planes for fun and famously applied opposite lock at 650 mph. The in-car footage from Thrust SSC shows Green applying 90 degrees of counter-steer as the car slides across the Black Rock Desert. "I reduced the thrust, applied the corrective steering and then re-applied the power," says Green, as we chat over lunch. "All I asked myself was: Am I still in control of the vehicle?"
Green has a clipped, militaristic way of speaking that has led some critics to call him dull, but this is unfair. Even though he has been asked the same questions a million times over the past decade, he remains a fascinating companion. "It is all about knowing what performance you have in hand, knowing your limits and recognizing when and where to back off. Record breaking is incredibly easy to screw up."