Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column

I wasn't one of the 45,000 people at the Nurburgring on Saturday, but I wish I had been, for Nick Heidfeld ran three laps of the 14-mile circuit in a BMW Sauber, and, to the best of my knowledge, that was the first time an F1 car had set foot on the Nordschleife since August 1 1976, when the German Grand Prix was last run there.

This was the race, of course, in which Niki Lauda had his dreadful accident. As we left the track that evening, we knew Niki had serious burns, but more crucial was the damage to his lungs, for he had inhaled both flame and extinguisher powder, and word was that he was not expected to survive the night.

Driving back, our mood was necessarily sombre, but some reports of Lauda's condition were slightly more optimistic, and we hoped for the best. Whatever else, we suspected we had seen grand prix cars race at the Nurburgring for the last time, and we were right.

Even by the standards of 30 years ago, this was a mighty perilous place, not least because of its length, which inevitably made it difficult to learn. And although extensive 'safety work' - knocking down thousands of trees, and so on - was carried out in 1970, there was only so much that could be done in the way of run-off areas.

After a year's absence - during which the grand prix was run at Hockenheim - the F1 contingent returned to the 'Ring in '71, but by now safety, rather than 'something one didn't talk about', was becoming a major issue in motor racing, and although the Nurburgring was less hazardous than it had been, still there were many drivers uneasy about racing there.

Five years on, the accident to Lauda - then the most famous racing driver in the world - sealed its fate as a grand prix venue. Eight years later still, F1 was back in the Eifel region, for a race at the Neue Nurburgring, a mundane little track alongside, but all it shared with the Nordschleife was a Tarmac surface.

When I first began covering F1, I attended several German Grands Prix at the old track, the first in 1971, when Jackie Stewart dominated - as he did that whole season. In all honesty, many of the grands prix were dull affairs as races, given Jackie's supremacy, but I'd defy anyone to be bored by watching even a procession at a circuit such as this.

The Nordschleife was, indisputably, the greatest 'driver's circuit' there has ever been. More than anywhere else, it was a track where a great driver could win in an inferior car, as such as Nuvolari, Fangio and Moss could attest.

When, in 1983, it became clear that the 1000km sportscar race would be the last major event at this altar of speed, Keke Rosberg, then the reigning world champion, organised himself a drive in a Porsche 956, so as not to pass up the opportunity of racing there one last time.

You wanted to be there, I said to Rosberg. "No," he said, "I had to be there."

Throughout that season, during practice sessions, Derek Bell would occasionally share the cockpit of his factory 956 with an extremely bulky camera, which then recorded a balls-out lap, with 'real time' commentary by the driver.

These movies are available on a DVD entitled In Car 956, and if you don't have it I beg you to put that right - it's worth having for the Nurburgring footage alone. According to Bell, his was the fifth fastest lap ever recorded.

Picture, then, how it must have felt to Heidfeld last weekend Nick, who reaches 30 next week, wasn't even born when an F1 car last ran at the Nurburgring, but it seemed to me appropriate that he should be the contemporary driver to experience it - not so much because the 'Ring is in his home country as because he's the sort of man who would have relished it in its heyday: a no-nonsense racing driver, serious about what he does.

This was no day for lap records, or anything of the kind - not least because the BMW had to be set up to deal with the circuit's bumps and undulations, which bear no relation to anything found on a current track: front ride height was set at four centimetres, rear at eight! Additionally, the car ran with 'short' gear ratios and tyres of the hardest compound available.

Before going out in the F1 car, Heidfeld did an inspection lap in a Formula BMW car, afterwards reporting that "I'm getting more excited about this than I thought I would".

After running three laps in the F1 car, he was exhilarated: "From start to finish it was simply incredible - I wish I could have gone on until the car ran out of fuel! I got really shaken up at the Bergwerk section and at Dottinger Hohe, but I'll never forget the experience as long as I live. I thought it would be fantastic to drive an F1 car at the Nordschleife, but it was even better than I expected. For sure, this track is the best in the world..."

It was at Bergwerk that Lauda crashed all those years ago; at Dottinger Hohe Heidfeld - short ratios, and all - reached his highest speed: 171mph. When I heard that BMW was to take its F1 car to the old 'Ring, it pleased me that Heidfeld was to drive it, but I was struck, too, by the thought that Nick's erstwhile team-mate, Jacques Villeneuve, would have savoured the experience.

JV's lamented father, Gilles, was heartbroken that he missed - by a year - the last F1 race at the Nurburgring, and to the end of his life regretted that he had never had the opportunity to drive in anger there.

Jacques, had he still been a member of the BMW squad, would have leapt at the opportunity, I feel sure. Last year, for a magazine feature, he hammered round in a BMW M5 and was mesmerised by the place.

You can't fail to be. Since my first visit, I've driven - and been driven - round the Nordschleife countless times, but it never loses its power to astonish, and to terrify.

Karl Kling, who drove for Mercedes in the '50s, adored it (as all the drivers did, for its challenge was unmatched anywhere), but was always apprehensive when he raced there. "Each morning," he once told me, "I would look at my room as I left, and wonder if I would see it again."

It was at the Nurburgring, in 1957, that Juan Manuel Fangio drove the greatest race of his life, making up well over a minute on the leading Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, following a pitstop.

When I interviewed Fangio, more than 20 years later, he remembered the day like this: "After my stop, when I was catching Hawthorn and Collins, I beat my own lap record by 24 seconds, and even now I can feel fear when I think of that race.

"I knew what I had done, the chances I had taken. I had never driven like that before, and knew I never would again. The Nurburgring was always my favourite circuit - I loved it, all of it, and I think that day I conquered it. On another day, it might have conquered me..."

When Nick Heidfeld arrives for the German Grand Prix in late July, his mind will be on the job, consolidating what has thus far been a superb season for him and BMW. But maybe, as he drives out of the pits for the first time, he might just spare a thought for the place next door.