This year your lap starts between Club and Abbey. Abbey, now neither a slow nor a quick left-hander, is a right flick, to be taken flat, onto the Farm curve. Then it’s the Arena section – the stiff right at Village, which will be your first real corner this year. Village is followed by the Loop and Aintree and then you sweep out onto the Wellington Straight, heading down to the old complex at Brooklands. You bypass Bridge, a glorious corner of bygone days, quite a way on your left hand side, while on the right the BRDC grandstand looms larger and larger. Brooklands is slow and fiddly, and Luffield takes an age during which you will itch to get your right foot down properly. Before you can do that you need to have four wheels pointing down the old pit straight.
The old pit straight is still lined with grandstands, of course, and at the other end brave punters watch for you to snap right through Copse, one of the greatest corners in motorsport. Then it just gets better: Maggotts, Becketts, Chapel, before you blast out onto the Hangar Straight. If you’re brave, you will have had just the feather-slightest of lifts since back at Luffield. Down you go to the hard braking for Stowe, that expansive right hander that tightens as you go round it. These days it’s not ninety degrees, there, it’s more; you’ll come back on yourself a little as you bomb down to Vale. Vale is slow and steady, but your eyes will now be on the Wing pit complex to your right, or, if you are not pitting, the faster right of Club.
That was the last corner – you are back on the new pit straight, ready for another lap.
