The problem was traced to a fuel pump, and once that was fixed there was another issue with the vehicle’s start-up sequence.

The man behind the wheel for Bloodhound’s first run on the dry lake bed was Andy Green, a fighter pilot who set the land speed record of 1,227.9km/h in 1997.

“There is nothing out there as fast as this car,” Green told the Sunday Times shortly after arriving at the remote site last week.

Around 16,500 tons of stones have been cleared off the pan — mostly by members of the local Mier community — to allow for maximum possible speed, and the project team have been analysing the weather for close on a decade.

“It is the biggest single human effort to actually prepare a racetrack,” said Green. “It is an achievement of biblical proportions.”