The new Ford GT does the slowest ever lap of Silverstone...

Have you ever dreamt of driving round the asphalt at Silverstone? Sadly it’s an experience beyond most of us, what with those pesky, well-funded racing drivers taking up most of the racetrack’s time throughout the year.

However, there might be an alternative. What if you were to map out a Silverstone-esque route on public roads, and drive, um, at snail pace around those instead?

Enter Ford, whose GT car will feature at the aforementioned circuit this weekend in the season-opener for the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship.

It will be their first race in Europe following a debut at the Daytona 24 hours that was hindered by reliability problems, something the team will hope to get on top of before their grand return to Le Mans in June.

So, with time of the essence, what better way to get their eye in for the first WEC race of the year than to coast round an admittedly rough approximation of Britain’s most famous racing circuit?

No, the layout isn’t exactly the same. No, the actual Silverstone doesn’t have quite as much traffic as central London. And yes, the car is stuck inside a transparent trailer.

We trust that the immeasurable powers of your imagination will overcome these minor foibles...

Ready... set... go!

The lights turn green, and we’re off. When the #95 Aston Martin won the LMGTE Pro class of 6 Hours of Silverstone last year, it had an average lap time of just under two minutes. Our sat nav says that today’s journey should be possible in just over an hour and a half. So not quite in the same league.

The convoy hits congestion, and lots of it. The tight roads are also making manoeuvrability a nightmare, and driver Pat has to rely on all of his skills to guide the truck through the busy streets.

A left turn looks to have put us in the clear, but no: a bus has broken down in the middle of the road, which forces a deviation from the racing line. We get through without any scrapes, but significant damage is done to the lap time. Not good.

We’re through the worst of the traffic now, but we’ve been slowed by a series of tight corners as dictated by the direction of the ‘track’. In certain sections, waiting for oncoming vehicles makes this exercise eerily reminiscent of figure-of-eight racing.

Luckily we find our way onto Farringdon Road; a carbon copy of Silverstone’s Wellington Straight if there ever was one. The average speed picks up, and we begin to recover some of the time lost behind that stricken Routemaster.

Another technical section which requires all of the experience of the driver. Fortunately the support car is able to help out here, hanging back to create some space beyond the lights across from Pentonville Road so the truck can merge more easily. Team orders of the highest calibre.

Then comes an unexpected obstacle: speed bumps. The truck rolls carefully down Caledonia Street and just about makes it to the other side, its precious cargo in one piece. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, but there’s a long way to go yet.

Unusually we’ve had to make a pit-stop half-way through the lap. It’s not to refuel or replace the tyres though: the batteries in the on-board cameras need changing, which means a 15 minute delay a stone’s throw from Angel Tube Station.

The GT continues to attract plenty of attention from passers-by, although clearly not everyone is familiar with the World Endurance Championship. “Is it a Formula One car?” asks one pedestrian. A disapproving shake of the head covers all the bases...

Leaving Angel behind, we take a turn south in the direction of the river again. An hour and a half in already, our target time has gone out the window, but any hope of sneaking home under the two-hour mark also disappears when a pair of width restrictors come into view.

The support car squeezes through but the gap isn’t big enough for the truck, and it’s left with no choice but to leave the circuit and come the long way round. In our minds, it’s the equivalent of a trip through the gravel trap. Undesirable, but, in this case, necessary.

And if that wasn’t enough, it then begins to rain. Hard. At least now we have an excuse for the even-slower-than-expected time we’re on course to set.

Another landmark comes into view, and having picked up some momentum through Whitechapel we hit our top speed of the day: a gravity-bending 20mph.

Having avoided a disaster with the bridge’s tendency to open at the wrong moment, traffic dives to the kerb to let an ambulance whistle past, sirens ablaze. We decide not to follow on behind for the obvious moral and law related reasons, but also because a decent lap time has long been out of reach anyway.

This is going to be the slowest lap of Silverstone by quite some margin.

We’re into the last sector, and the team is keen to cross the line before the cameras run out of juice again. Before then though there are roadworks to negotiate, plus Elephant and Castle’s no-longer-a-roundabout roundabout, which now flows anti-clockwise to add to the confusion.

Thankfully there are no more mishaps, and a final burst brings the finish line into sight.