WIDE OPEN PACE

How much does Aston Martin's new D12 move the game on from its DBII predecessor? We're about to find out as we put its 'super tourer' claim to the test on a challenging drive from Monaco to the top of France's highest road

- JOHN BARKER

'SORRY, WHAT DID YOU SAY?' I ASK, BACKING OFF a little. 'I think we must have missed our turn,' Aston Parrott says again. I back off some more and look around. Hmmm, he's right; the jagged peaks aren't where I expected them to be. As we coast along, down the road the tail of the third sports bike disappears around a corner, like a fish wriggling off the hook.

Ten minutes earlier we'd been wandering around a French village eating ice creams, having failed to get something proper to eat, again. This time we were an hour early for dinner. Last time we were half an hour late for lunch. As we drove away from the village, three noisy sports bikes came up in the mirror and overtook at the first opportunity, one of them indicating thanks or maybe approving of the DB12 with a shake of the foot, before howling off and cranking into a series of sweeps. It was clear that they were local and knew the road, so I wondered if we could tag along.

Turns out we could. It's a big car the DB12, a fairly heavy one too, and yet each time I leaned on the grip a bit more, the car responded, nailing the precise line. The surface was smooth and warm and the Aston jinked sweetly through a sequence of fast flik-flaks like a car half its size. Confidence up, on every short straight the throttle hit the stop, the 671bhp, twin-turbo V8 whirred and a solid thump of power brought down the gap. After a couple of kilometres we were on the tail of the last bike and had a great view of him leaning hard into the turns. He was dropping back a little from the front two and I was just wondering if a trio-splitting overtake would be rude when a noise broke the spell: 'I think we must have missed our turn...'