Learn the secrets of blistering motoring with the world’s No1 track driving instructor

HIDDEN deep in the Leicestershire countryside you’ll find a grey slab of land called Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome.

In 1942 it played host to the RAF and US Air Force. Today it’s quite literally an aeroplane graveyard, littered with decommissioned aircraft from days gone by.

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On a rainy January day it can be a sombre place.

These once-majestic lords of the skies slowly rot while overlooking lakes of unsold modern cars — collateral damage of dieselgate.

Everywhere you look is mechanical decay.

But where there is death, there is life, and since the 1970s Bruntingthorpe has provided a crucial service as a proving ground for manufacturers testing cars before they’re offered for public ­consumption or a life in racing.

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It’s on this 4.2-mile stretch of Tarmac that you’ll find a man called Rob Wilson. He drives a diesel Vauxhall Astra.

He seems like he would drive an Astra too. Dressed head to toe in Marks and Spencer, a cigarette and a smile are never far from Rob’s lips.

He’s got a Kiwi brogue, which has been eroded by 40 Rothmans a day into a soft drawl, gifting him a calm, fatherly tone.

But appearances can be ­deceiving, because Rob is probably the best track driving instructor in the world.

Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen, David Coulthard, Juan Pablo Montoya — if they’re famous for driving fast, chances are Rob taught them how to do it.

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He has even trained Prince William and Harry to handle a car. And those who flock to learn, do so in his bog-standard Astra.

Rob wasn’t always teaching — his Wikipedia page chronicles a blistering life in top-flight motorsport — but unlike the atrophying carcasses of aircraft which litter Bruntingthorpe, at 66 years old Rob is still very much at the top of his game.

He imparts a few key principles which, if you listen, will make you a far faster and more efficient driver.

The first – and most important – is something called “flat car”.

In Rob’s words: “Whenever your wheels aren’t completely flat and pointing forwards, you’re losing time. The key is get rid of any lock as soon as possible.”

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Rob has you straightening out the car in a corner, finding the line which can have the wheels flat as quickly as can be naturally done.

This turns corners into what Rob describes as “a soft V rather than a U-shape” or “a short corner”.

So rather than follow the bend all the way around with some lock — as you’re taught when driving on the road — Rob will have you attacking it from an angle which allows the wheels to remain straight for as long as possible into the apex, then the same on the exit.

Rob’s other key lesson is introducing braking or turning gently.  “A settled car is a faster car,” he explained.

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“Let the car know what you are doing before doing it. So just before braking hard for a corner, nudge the brake pedal gently but firmly, the car will settle. Same with steering - just take the slack out of the wheel before turning the full lock demanded of the corner.

“This transfers the weight to the right wheel for each bend and will have you going round it faster.”

In half a day Rob took nearly ten seconds off my lap time — I went from one minute forty to one minute thirty one.

Anyone with even slight knowledge of racing will understand how much of an improvement that is.

To say Rob Wilson is my new hero would be an understatement.

And I now quite fancy a diesel Astra as a track car.

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READER’S CAR OF WEEK

THIS has to be a contender for the biggest and most unusual reader Car Of The Week, sent in by Dan and Dolina Mackenzie from Barrock, near John O’Groats.

Dolina says: “This is our ­American Peterbilt 379, which we bought in Canada and brought home to the far north of Scotland.

“It was a working truck and plain black, but we now have over 250 lights on it. We have also added a lot of stainless steel and murals of Elvis.

“We do charity work with it and go to truck shows. We have also done weddings. My husband has been a HGV driver for more than 50 years.”

To see your pride and joy here, send a picture and brief description to features@the-sun.co.uk.