So I just got back from driving McLaren’s astonishing new 650S in southern Spain, and once I’d filed the first drive for the magazine, then rewritten it for our website, then scripted and storyboarded the video, and then finally put my head on a pillow, I woke up the next day and started wondering – however much does a launch event like that cost?

And, more to the point, is it actually worth it as far as the manufacturer is concerned – in this case McLaren, obviously – in terms of the extra publicity it will generate?

We’ll come to the second question in a moment, but as for the costs involved they probably go something like this. The launch itself is a full house international jobbie that will be going on for the next month, and the base is the not-especially-cheap Finca Cortesin hotel near Estepona on the Costa Del Sol.

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A room at the Finca costs anything between £600 and £1500 a night, and each night McLaren will be hosting between 10-20 guests, each of whom will be being flown in from various locations around the globe.

So let’s say 15 times £600 a night for the hotel, which by my maths equals £270,000 on hotel costs alone over 30 days. Inevitably, McLaren will have done a deal for a block booking such as this, but even so let’s call it £200,000 for hotel bills and move on.

Except we can’t, because also on the launch is a small army of McLaren support staff – media relations staff, tech public relations staff, tech support, travel media support, pro drivers, photographic crew and, at various stages, all sorts of McLaren top brass who will drift in and out of the program as it rumbles along – all of whom will also need putting up somewhere.

In this case, most of the behind-the-scenes staff were staying in a rather less posh hotel around the corner, but even then you’re still talking about rooms for at least a further 30 people per night. For one month. So call that another £100k – and only then can we move on to the other costs. Such as air fares – my guess would be at least another £150k if the average fare is, say, £400 and there are 300 guests in total to fly in and out, plus all the McLaren staff to get there and back.

So already we’re up to £450,000 and counting, and that’s before you so much as mention the fuel that will be burned by the fleet of 12 650S test cars and 10 support vehicles that will be down there during the three weeks, or the hiring of the Ascari Race resort at 15 grand a day, or the potential repairs to said test cars and support vehicles, or the palming of notes to the local constabulary should a 650S go through a speed trap at Mach 6...