The only problem with the Nissan GT-R is the lengthy period of metal recalibration required when we have finished driving it and climbed into something less capable, which is just about everything else here. I am not the hero, you mumble to yourself as you make your way across the paddock to a mere Porsche or a Mercedes or a BMW.

The car is the hero’ perhaps Nissan ought to print that on the back on the sun visor, so you can flip it down for your last couple of laps or final five minutes on the road in the GT-R. Because if you forget, and try to do in other cars the things you can do in this one, you are not going to prosper.

It is a sign of the GT-R segment-busting abilities that we could have put it in any of four groups; it matches the M3 on price, the blown, four wheel drive Japanese saloon on philosophy and the 2+2 layout it suits this group best, but whichever group it wound up in it would always have some attribute that didn’t fit. In this case it is the lap of time; its 1min 0.6 sec is 2.6sec quicker than Porsche.

It is closest rival in this group. It beats all super cars bars the Gumpert and the Galladro, the latter only besting it by a tenth. Even the Atom can only beat it by a tenth, and it destroys the other two tracks cars. The numbers aren’t enough. The Gumpert and the GT-R share a feeling of being constrained by this circuit; both require the Nurburging or even Le Mans before you can really stretch them.

The GT-R devours straight; the brainless bit between the exit of one corner and the turn-in for the next swallowed in a single bite. Then you brake later you thought possible, before the trick damping and four wheel-drive centrifuge you through the bend.

Criticism? A little more steering feel and engine noise would be nice, and a little less of the feeling that you-the driver- are the slowest, stupidest component and are just holding everything up. But then you remember that the Lamborghini, rapidly shaping up as the GT-R’s chief overall rival here, costs very nearly three times as much, has terrible brakes and unlike the Nissan- doesn’t fell it will do this for 24 hours straight.

We expected the GT-R’s over firm ride to count against it on the road, yet this early (but official) UK car felt way more compliant than the cars driven in the Japan or the unofficial imports we have driven in the UK.

In fact over snowdonia’s awesome roads, with their long straight and dizzying shallow switch backs, the GT-R felt pretty , despite (or more likely because of) sideways rain and what looked like rivers rolling down the mountain sides and across the roads. Nothing else travels this fast, with such utter composure and security. Nothing.