Mate Rimac cannot help but be distracted. Cars are flying around the corner behind me as they turn on to the hill climb at the racetrack in front of Goodwood House. The deafening roars and the rapt crowd are testament to the power and lure of the internal combustion engine.
Rimac is not, on the face of it, unlike many of the young people watching this event, the Festival of Speed. Twenty years ago he had posters of the fastest machines on his bedroom wall. Yet now, at the age of only 34, he is in the middle of the car industry’s effort to ditch petrol and move to batteries.
