This 0.7-mile straight could easily see drivers reaching speeds of more than 200 mph – it’s difficult to give a precise estimate because it depends on the amount of downforce teams choose to run. There’s a very slight kink shortly after the start-finish line, which means that, even if you don’t turn the steering wheel, you find yourself moving from the right-hand side of the track to the left-hand side and this helps set you up for the wide entry into Turn One.

The entry to Turn One is quite bumpy and this can make braking more challenging because you’re decelerating from such high speeds. It’s quite a deceptive corner because it’s not as tight as it looks on the track map. It’s actually quite open and by the time you reach the apex, the corner is already taking you uphill. This means you can take more speed into the corner than you might think, so you can brake pretty late – way beyond the 100-metre board.

You continue uphill towards Turn Two – the entry is blind, so you turn in and don’t see the apex until you actually get into the corner. And as soon as you’ve negotiated this corner, you’re immediately into Turn Three – this is very typical of the fast, sweeping chicanes that you find around the rest of the lap. The kerbs are quite flat here, so you can be aggressive, and this also the case around most of circuit.

The key here is to carry as much speed out of Turn Three as you can onto a very short straight that brings you to another fast, flowing chicane. You arrive at this chicane much faster than the previous one, so the car is generating good downforce which allows you to carry plenty of speed.

This is one of the fastest and most exciting parts of the lap because you go from the highest point on the track and head towards Turn Six: a fast, downhill corner. You can just about take it flat in seventh gear as you continue the descent through Turn Seven, all the way to the apex of Turn Eight. As you get to the bottom of the hill, you really feel the compression in the cockpit, which gives that sensation of being on a rollercoaster.

The rollercoaster ride continues through the super-fast Turns Eight and Nine because as soon as you reach the bottom of the hill you start climbing again. The current generation of F1 cars are going to fly through here at more than 160 mph. Drivers will be subjected to 5 or even 6 g through Turn Nine – a completely blind right-hander.

Exiting Turn Nine, you carry a lot of speed as you go over a crest towards Turn 10 which has a blind entry and is immediately followed by Turn 11. The track drops between these two corners and this makes it a little tricky to perfect this corner combination.

Turn 12 is quite a long and open corner but, because it’s downhill, it’s easy to lock the right front and miss the apex. You want to take as much speed as you can into the corner, but you don’t want the front to washout through entry and mid-corner. As you accelerate out of Turn 12 your attention immediately turns to the track’s final chicane – a high-speed, left-right kink that’s taken full throttle on the way to Turn 15.

This is arguably the most important corner at Mugello. It’s long and high speed – faster than Turn 12, for example – but it’s tricky to get right because the entry is blind, and the track drops away at the apex. It’s crucial to get a good exit to ensure you carry plenty of speed onto the start-finish straight.

It’s pretty special to drive an F1 car here because it’s one of the fastest tracks out there. Here I am pictured in the 2012 MP4-27. It’s a relentless sequence of medium- to high-speed corners and I doubt drivers will even drop below fourth gear. There’s not a lot of heavy braking at this circuit, so it’s all about finding a rhythm, maintaining momentum as you go from one corner to the next and getting a great exit onto the start-finish straight.