Once again I’m packing my bag for what’s becoming an annual trip to Bahrain for the Grand Prix. This time, however, my excited anticipation is tempered with alarm at the prospect of being sentenced to the Terminal 5 experience. Should I just take hand luggage (tricky, since that would mean I’d have to wear my crash helmet through passport control, and travelling in a race suit might make even me a little self-conscious), or do I just pack a bag with stuff that Camden Council Refuse Department might charge to dispose of, and send it off to hang out with all those other bags that over the years have gone on the missing list? Who knows, maybe a concerted effort by BA baggage-handling might make those bags lost in the 1970s reappear, with a fine collection of flared trousers, platform boots, beads and rose-tinted granny glasses still lurking within.

Mind you, I could have told BA there was going to be a problem. Look – BAA is a Spanish-owned company. Isn’t that enough? All you have to do is try to imagine Fernando Alonso being given the responsibility of shifting Lewis Hamilton’s luggage and I think you’ll get my drift.

Thank God the Olympic torch is not to be routed through T5. Even if they didn’t confiscate it at security – ‘No liquids, knives or flaming torches, guv’ – it would probably end up in a warehouse in Milan, handing the games to the Italians, with some poor athlete being given a laminated card with 15 different styles to help identification. ‘It’s a bit like that one, but with a gold stem and a bigger flame…’

This year I’m taking a couple of cars to Bahrain for exhibition over the GP weekend, but with the enticement of a few days on the track after the race. For financial reasons the models I’m taking are not my first choices. The problem is the cost of insurance. Not the danger of time on the track, or indeed the prospect of the cars being seized by a marauding gang of camel-riding brigands, but the prospect of total loss on the five-hour plane trip. The underwriters seem convinced that air travel today is on par with opening a branch of McDonalds in Basra.

I’m more alarmed by the loading process myself. I heard of one proud owner opening his airfreight container to find it empty, apart from a few tools and a gear knob on the floor. That was until he looked up and realised that the car had been flown inverted for the entire trip.

Sending cars by sea is not much better. My T3 Ferrari spent some time on a Dutch dock after a near-disaster with the ship freighting it to the UK, and Stewart Homan of Dream Cars once purchased an old Yank to make into a Blues Brothers lookalike but it was sent to Australia by mistake. He settled for a cash payout rather than wait another six weeks. I expect it may turn up in T5 any day now.

There is allegedly an agreement about jettisoning containers when a ship gets into difficulty. A Swedish collector had his irreplaceable 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Seville dumped over the side when things became tricky. It might be worth interviewing the captain in advance of the voyage to make sure he really is a car enthusiast, and that he would tip over the steerage passengers before the vehicle.

Lastly, and sadly, a word on Richard Lloyd and David Leslie, who died in a plane crash on March 30. David’s ability as a driver was matched only by his good-humoured sportsmanship, and although Richard is probably better known for being team principal of GTi Engineering and Richard Lloyd Racing, he was a pretty handy driver as well, with a BRDC silver star and a second overall at Le Mans to prove it.

I knew Richard from driving with him, as well as owning a car that he ran at Le Mans in 1990. He was a meticulous team leader but in the most gentlemanly way, and he also had a delightful sense of humour. The proof is that he allowed Perry McCarthy to drive for him. And they could egg each other on to behave really rather badly. Stealing a barrow of fruit and veg in Mexico, and then attempting to sell it in the paddock, springs to mind…

Richard would often appear unexpectedly at Silverstone to support me or my daughters in some vintage club race, and all of my family are heartbroken at losing him. To his wife Philippa, and daughters Amy, Sophie and Chloe, our deepest sympathies.