Autosport: The Embodiment of Life

It's Thursday and the Imola track's not yet 'live'. It's lightly populated: scooter-mounted drivers doing reconnaissance, often with their race engineer on the back; photographers seeking out locations; marshals; the occasional race official's car.

It's a beautiful day, wispy strings of white in an otherwise blue sky, the track protected by a canopy of green, a light breeze blowing wave upon wave of cotton wool dandelion seed up the straight, past Tamburello and the fresh flowers laid there in memory of Ayrton. You can smell the pollen. The trees are dense with birdsong.

On the track's infield at Tosa the vineyard is being tended and the washing's flapping in the breeze round the back of the farmhouse. It's a big, steep hill the track follows out of there, climbing, climbing, climbing up to a flat Tarmac horizon. Just over that brow lies Piratella, the very fast left leading to the stretch that takes you back down the valley to where the stream flows unseen behind the barriers. It's darker here, the trees overhanging the track favouring it with shade.

At the bottom of the hill lies the first right-handed part of Acqua Minerale, still slightly downhill by the time you make the apex. There was a time - not long ago - when F1 cars braked and changed down for this. Tell that to the young kids of today - Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso - and they just won't believe you. With a good '06 car, this part will be flat on entry.

From the perspective of this apex there appears just a tiny stretch of race track in which to lose enough speed for the following uphill right-hander. To lose the back under braking with the car not quite straight looks like it would be oh-so-easy. Once they've made the second apex, though, lateral loads satisfyingly high, but maxed-out, not about to get any higher, they're safe.

Through to live to the next adventure, full throttle now, eyeing the exact piece of exit kerb the momentum will pull you out to. Nothing to do now but let the car breathe, foot to the floor, right index finger pulling at the upshift paddle. Up ahead: horizon. Of track and sky. You see the line of the straight that you know is over that brow by the tree tops.

Lots of race tracks have challenges like this but hardly any combine them with such intimate contact with nature's beauty. To anyone with a race driver's soul, this corner of track is one of the most beautiful locations on earth, an embodiment of life, a place that makes you aware of the enormous privilege you've been granted just to have been given a temporary place on this earth. And if it's temporary, then...

Tonio Liuzzi rides past on a small motorcycle, no helmet, engineer behind him.

From the 200-metre board for the Variante Alta there's new Tarmac, a sharp line where the old grey becomes fresh new black. With the sun beating upon it you can smell its tarry odour too. A cockerel calls from the garden that lies on the other side of the wall on the right. Through the open doors of the house to which the garden belongs a phone's old-style bell-ring tone can be heard. It rings. And rings. Nobody home?

At Variante Alta there's a surprise. The second kerb has been moved around two metres to the right, completely altering the nature of what used to be a fantastically fast chicane - and the kerbing is no longer punishingly high.

Red Bull's Friday driver Robert Doornbos arrives on foot and looks nonplussed. He'd spent a lot of time the previous week at Paul Ricard replicating the high-kerb demands of the old Variante Alta, only to find those kerbs have gone, replaced by easy, car-friendly ones. He'd even taken out a Red Bull floor at Ricard, and Heikki Kovalainen had done-in a Renault front suspension performing a similar test.

The old chicane used to have a flow. Unsighted, they'd commit, bang it hard over the first kerb and fly.

The approach to Rivazza © LAT

If they'd got just the right trajectory change before they'd hit that kerb it would launch them on a perfect line for the second one. Now it's two distinct parts: turn right, wait, turn left.

Down past the modern red brick church on the right, crucifix highlighted against the sky. It lies just to the right of the new Martini trackside hoardings. You're at the top of the valley here and can see for miles as the track ahead dips away out of sight for the plunge to Rivazza.

Walking on, to the right there's a beautiful clump of trees, greens of varying intensity. Two dogs bark from among the houses nestled within. From here we're about eye level with the Martini bridge further down the hill. There's a ristorante on the left, pristine white walls, arches, red curvy tiles. The safety car burbles past, deep V8 soundtrack piped down two drain exhausts.

Overlooking Rivazzas first and second is an apartment block. A lady hangs out her laundry on the balcony. The birds are singing still. Liuzzi goes by on another lap on the bike, on the right line now, going pretty quickly.

At the top of the infield, looking down to the section between the second Rivazza and the final chicane, there are camper vans and Ferrari flags. In place, waiting. This is a life-affirming place.