Will the Audi PB18 ever see the light of day? Maybe

“Certainly the roads are converging very quickly,” he tells TopGear.com about the intersection between motorsport and road cars. “When we went into Formula E – and we’ve done it with a few different racing programmes before – it was a precursor to actually coming in with a road car.

“FSI for example, won Le Mans in 2001 and in 2002 and beyond, it’s now on every Audi road car. Laser lights, too. So yes, this PB18 is a concept at the moment, but I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” he adds. He points to the car that won Le Mans five times between 2000 and 2005.

“A lot of people forget that the R8 was a racing car first. And of course, we know what the R8 is now . There have been those crossover points, but it gives it a lot of credibility. They’re pushing hard. They want to make a statement, and that statement is in something like this.”

The opportunities afforded to electric cars, at least according to McNish, are plentiful. “You have a different floor space to play with,” he says, reaffirming that the PB18 has the potential to be a drivers' car. “Everybody’s pushing towards autonomy, the car driving you. Here, you’re in control. That communication is right back with us – it’s just got a different power source than the cars we’re normally used to.”