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It's called the 'Flugplatz', and it's where you go to see cars take flight. A short straight that rises sharply before violently falling away again, it's the most iconic stretch on the 16.12 miles of the full Nurburgring, a section of track coincidentally and somewhat fittingly named after an airport that was once located nearby - the name translates neatly from German as 'flying place'.Snapshots of airborne cars soaring over the crest - of Jim Clark's Lotus 49 caught mid-air, its soft suspension sagging either side of the cigar-shaped monocoque before it smacks down to earth once more, or of Niki Lauda's Ferrari 312 briefly defying its squat physique - have come to define the Nurburgring; it's in those seconds of weightlessness that the impossibility, the madness and the beauty of this place are all distilled down into one thrilling moment.
During this year's Nurburgring 24 Hours, an endurance race that spilled out across a dreary late May weekend, the Flugplatz was a place to come and study the 175 participating cars being pushed to their extremes, each one plotting its own small, gracious arc through the air.
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