“[Honda] are on the up, but you shouldn't read too much into that. Things are a lot better than they were. Last year they had a car that wasn't good enough; the year before they had a car which wasn't good enough. Now they've got all the right people in the right places.

“Honda has lots of money, and enormous ambition and determination; they've got two jolly good drivers, and most important of all they've got Ross Brawn, who's the right bloke to pull it all together. It's like the oil tanker analogy, though – it takes a long time to turn it round, and it's going to take a long time for Honda to get it right.

“It's happening at the right time, though, because next year there are entirely new regulations, everybody is starting off with a clean sheet of paper and Honda will have just as good a chance of winning as everybody else.

“Jenson is a super bloke, and he's got the potential to be world champion – if you can win races, you can win the world championship, and he's won a race, so there's no doubt about that. He is yet to have a car in the whole of his career, though, which has enabled him to exploit his true potential.

“Hopefully next year he will have, but in the meantime he's having to go through a very difficult patch, and he has my complete admiration because not once has he slagged off the team in public. He's been very loyal, he's been very cheerful and he's been very supportive, which is what he should be, but it's very difficult if you're in his position to be like that. I've got an enormous amount of time for Jenson – he does a great job.”

Whilst stating his belief that Button is a future world champion in the right machinery, Walker was also very clear about who he felt had performed the best of this year's crop, with a three-way tie at the top of the drivers' standings at the midway mark, and as many as four men who could very feasibly lift the end-of-season laurels.

“Robert Kubica, without a shadow of doubt,” he responded, when asked who has impressed him most thus far in 2008. “He's still very new to Formula 1, as is the team, and he's done an absolutely superb job. He's been leading the championship, he's won a race and he could win the championship.

“My overriding thought is what a wonderful season we're having, and how great it is to have four different drivers at this point of the season after the British Grand Prix, separated by only two points.

“Everybody is asking me who's going to win the championship, and I say I haven't the remotest idea, because at the present moment it could be [Felipe] Massa, it could be Hamilton, it could be Kimi Raikkonen and it could be Robert Kubica in the BMW; three different constructors, four different drivers – it's anybody's guess.”

As to Goodwood, finally, Walker's enthusiasm for an event that brings together the great and the good of international motorsport from across the decades could evidently not be hidden.