At seven o’clock this morning, there were only a handful of hardened fans stood behind the catch-fencing watching the action. The night’s countless campfires were mere smoking embers and the makeshift homemade grandstands were mostly empty. You could barely hear the muted sound of the surviving cars racing on the nearby track.

Our destination was the Schwalbenschwanz turn where the speeds are more impressive than I had imagined. The concrete-surfaced corner is cambered and the bottom of the cars scrape along the ground, while the tyres squeal as the drivers accelerate hard out of the sector. You can’t mistake the slight smell of burning rubber.

The sun is doing all it can to break through the clouds as the Nürburgring’s campers begin to emerge to follow the final phase of the race after several days of partying.

Nordschleife at daybreak, Nürburgring 24 Hours 2011