A chuckle from the driver's seat. Gil de Ferran has just flexed a big toe on the throttle pedal of the McLaren 720S he's piloting and it has surged. Very powerfully. He glances at F1 Racing, seated alongside. "Watch this."
A click on the right paddleshift. Another. In a flash, we are really moving, curving through the very Ardennes roads on which, in 1968, Bruce McLaren himself took the first grand prix win for the Formula 1 team that carries his name today. Cocooned in this carbon-fibre hypercar - 720bhp and a base price of £208,600 - alongside McLaren's new sporting director, briefly carefree as we enjoy the speed and sophistication of the machine, it's impossible to ignore how far McLaren has come these past 50 years.
McLaren Automotive, the division that produces cars such as the 720S, is booming; McLaren Applied Technologies, the company's own skunkworks, has clients across the motorsport, automotive, public transport and health sectors. And then there's HQ: the breathtaking McLaren Technology Centre - a building that continues to enshrine the vision nurtured by ex-CEO Ron Dennis. There is so much, then, about McLaren, to impress.