The lap starts with one of the slowest corners on the track and it’s very tricky to get right, partly because the braking zone is downhill which increases the likelihood of locking up. Interestingly, there are a few different lines you can take – some drivers will try to stay tight to clip the apex and others will be as much as a car width away from the apex. Regardless of the line, if you make a mistake here you can lose a lot of time and, even though it’s only the first corner, it really can make or break your lap. It’s also one of the main overtaking areas because you’ve got the DRS zone along the start-finish straight.

From the moment you exit Turn One, you don’t ever really have the steering wheel straight through the following sequence of corners because each one flows into the next. You want to avoid compromising your entry into a corner, so you need to quickly move over to the right-hand side of the track to open up your entry for Turn Two and that then feeds you into Turn Three – a very tight left-hander. By maintaining a tight line through Turn Three, you can take advantage of a wider entry for Turn Four and maximise power on exit out of a corner where, historically, drivers have pushed track limits by running wide on exit.

Turn Five is a fifth-gear left-hander but, like the corners before it, you’ve got to think carefully about how much speed you want to carry through it. This is because after the exit you need to be able to immediately get over to the left-hand side of the track to maximise the entry into Turn Six – a third-gear right-hander. It’s important to remember that you can gain the most time in slower corners, so you’ll probably see drivers sacrificing a little speed in Turn Five to be able to carry more through Turn Six where there is more time to be won.

Coming downhill from Turn Six, you carry a lot of entry speed into Turn Seven and it’s very easy to lock the front right here because the track falls away from you. It’s a double-apex right-hander, so don’t be surprised to see cars drift out wide to the middle of the track and then come in to hit the second apex. As you get mid corner the track starts to rise, so you can get on the throttle quite early to try to maximise your speed all the way up the hill to Turn 10.

On the run up to Turn 10, there’s a flat-out left to right. It’s really impressive to watch an F1 car through here and the exit out of Turn Seven has a huge bearing on how fast you are through this section. Oh, and if it’s wet, corners like these, which are flat out in the dry, will suddenly become a real challenge for the drivers.

This combination of corners is similar to Turns Five and Six. You’ve got a high-speed left-hander that feeds into a slightly quicker right-hander so, again, you’ve got to compromise between how much speed you carry through the first corner and how well you position the car for entry to the subsequent corner. Turn 11 will be very quick so I expect drivers will lift off the throttle rather than brake for this corner.

Despite the run from Turn 11 to Turn 13 being flat out, there’s a slight right-hand kink that lies between them. Although it looks relatively straightforward, it might become challenging for drivers when their mirrors are full of a car behind them with the DRS open! The key to this corner is to minimise steering input and lateral force on the car to prevent speed being scrubbed off.

The braking zone for Turn 13 is uphill and it’s a definite overtaking opportunity, but there is only one line you can take through the chicane because the kerbs are quite big. Expect to see drivers trying to overtake here but straight lining the chicane because it’s so hard to get the car stopped and back on line to avoid hitting the kerbs, while keeping clear of the car they are trying to pass! There’s a lot of time to be gained through here. If you’ve got a compliant car, it can make a real difference and help you find an extra bit time towards the end of the lap.

The final corner is very similar to the last corner at the Hungaroring. It’s quite long and it’s a little bumpy. On the track map it looks as if the corner wouldn’t be that fast, but you can carry a lot of entry speed because it opens up a little on exit and you can use quite a lot of kerb to maximise speed onto the start-finish straight.

You spend a lot of the lap thinking about the corner ahead of the one you’re about to take, and that’s simply because as soon as you exit one corner you’ve got to optimise the position of the car for the next. This is one of the most challenging aspects of the Nürburgring: it’s not just a case of brake, hit the apex and accelerate on exit – you must be able to constantly adapt and make compromises to put the car in the best position on the track.