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A lap of the Circuit de la Sarthe track begins with a trip down what is a relatively short pit straight before the cars swerve to negotiate a right-handed kink, which is normally taken flat-out by the front-runners.

Drivers, however, must take care to stabilise the rear before punching the brakes for the first time to avoid locking up on the approach to an uphill, left-right chicane.

The low kerbs mean drivers are already firmly on the throttle pedal before they clip the second apex, after which they straighten the car to approach the first truly iconic section of the lap.

Under the famous bridge, the cars descend through the Dunlop Curve, refraining from hugging the inside line to utilise the entry into the Esses, where a right-handed turn slings them into a banked left-hander, the exit of which throws them right again, unsettling the rear end.

With only the briefest moment to catch their breath, the drivers are dabbing the brakes again to negotiate Tetre Rouge—which narrows on the exit, almost as if it's trying to spit the cars off the road—before they're propelled into the wilderness of the Mulsanne Straight.

Lined by trees, the road markings become an animation as the brute force of the cars is unleashed down this everlasting stretch of harmonic loneliness as the drivers leave the grandstands behind and become one with their machines.

That intimacy is rudely interrupted by two bumpy chicanes, the right-left First Chicane and further down the road, the left-right Second Chicane, which is abruptly followed by the Mulsanne Kink.

The road straightens once again prior to the most challenging braking zone on the lap, Mulsanne Corner, which sees drivers stamp hard with their left foot in the middle of a right-handed kink.

The second-gear turn is the scariest of optical illusions as the apex arrives faster than one can comprehend, but more often than not the front-end digs into the corner just in time and the trip back to the pits begins.

The track narrows and the trees smother down the long back stretch—where, according to Alex Wurz in a Toyota YouTube video, the cars can reach maximum speed at night due to the effect the oxygen levels have on the engine—before cars ease through a kink and brake for the banked left-hander of Indianapolis.

Wurz says Arnage, the following right-hander, is the slowest on the track and taken in just first gear, yet it is among the most crucial, with a clean exit vital in ensuring strong speed on yet another long, kinked straight ahead of the most difficult section of the track, the Porsche Curves.

Left, right, left, left, right, left is the sequence as the cars dive from apex to apex, springing through this spectacular sequence before the turns lose their intensity, straightening up and offering drivers sympathy.

At this point, the iconic Ferris wheel and pit building come into sight and, for drivers, it must be tempting to exploit track limits and rush to the timing line, yet the formality that is the two left-right, flowing Ford Chicanes must be completed before the fun starts all over again.

It is a motorsport cliche that a racetrack is a living thing, but the Circuit de la Sarthe is the one place where that sentiment rings true.