Where you can drive, and what you are walking into.

Twenty kilometres of it, and nothing else on this list is remotely like it. For much of the year the Nordschleife runs as a public toll road: you buy laps, queue at the barrier and drive one-way traffic with overtaking on the left, without the session structure, flag posts and sighting laps of a normal track day. That is why most cars here are priced by the lap or the session rather than by the day.

Learn it before you lean on it. There are around seventy named corners, roughly three hundred metres of elevation between the lowest and highest points, and blind crests where other circuits give you a clear view of the apex. Insurance is the first thing to ask about: operators commonly exclude Nordschleife damage from their normal cover or set a far larger excess for it, and separate track-day insurance is often a condition of hire.

Seven kilometres through the Ardennes forest, and still the circuit most people name first. Eau Rouge and Raidillon is what everyone comes for — compression at the bottom, blind over the top — but the lap is really made by what follows: the long Kemmel climb, then Pouhon, which is taken far faster than it looks from the outside.

It is long enough to be wet at one end and dry at the other, and the weather in the valley turns quickly, so never plan a session on the strength of the sky above the pit lane. Run-off has improved considerably in recent years, but the speeds are high and the price of getting the fast corners wrong has not changed. Most track time here is sold as open pit lane.

The temple of speed, and the reason this site is called what it is — Lesmo is the pair of right-handers in the middle of the lap. Monza is mostly full throttle interrupted by three heavy braking events, so it flatters a car with power and brakes rather than one with mechanical grip.

The chicane kerbs are tall and will throw a road car that hops them, and the brakes take a beating in a way they do not at a shorter, tighter circuit — build a cooling lap into your plan. It is wide, fast and relatively generous with run-off, which is part of why so many supercar rentals are based here.

Owned by Ferrari, cut into the Tuscan hills, and the circuit that quietly wins a lot of best-in-Europe arguments. A kilometre-long straight leads into a downhill braking zone, and from there the lap becomes a rhythm of quick cambered sweepers — Casanova-Savelli, the two Arrabbiatas — with real elevation change throughout.

Because it flows, it flatters, and that is exactly why it deserves care: the corners are fast, the run-off is generous in some places and much less so in others, and a powerful car arrives at each crest sooner than you expect. A good second or third circuit rather than a first one.

Flat, wide and very quick, with the Maggotts–Becketts–Chapel sequence in the middle of the lap standing as one of the great tests of a chassis anywhere. Run-off is generous nearly everywhere, which is part of why so much instruction and so many first-time experiences are based here.

The thing to establish before booking is which layout you are actually driving. Silverstone runs several configurations, and packages often use the shorter National or Stowe circuits rather than the full Grand Prix loop. Ask which circuit, and how many laps — not just how long the day lasts.

The circuit European teams use for testing, for reasons that make it a good day out too: a bit of everything, wide, well sighted, and with large run-off in most of the places where you are likely to run out of talent.

It is hard on the front-left tyre — a long sequence of right-handers will do that — and the wind across the site can change how the quick corners feel from one session to the next. Layouts vary between days, so check which version you have booked.

A natural amphitheatre in Kent and one of the most physical laps on this list. Paddock Hill Bend falls away from under the car immediately after the start line, and the whole circuit rolls — crests, camber changes and corners that arrive without much warning.

Many days run the short Indy loop rather than the full Grand Prix circuit that heads out into the woods, which is worth confirming before you pay. Run-off is limited in places and the barriers are close, so it is not the circuit on which to find out what a car does at its limit.

The modern Hockenheim is short, wide and built to current safety standards: a long straight into a heavy stop at the hairpin, a couple of quick sweeps, and then the stadium section where the grandstands wrap around the final corners.

Asphalt run-off and clear sightlines make it one of the easier fast circuits to learn, which is why a lot of instruction and supercar driving happens here. The long forest sections were removed in 2002, so disregard any lap times or descriptions you may have read from before then.

Narrow, walled and undulating in a way modern circuits are not. Tamburello and Villeneuve are chicanes now, but the character survives: Acque Minerali dropping downhill and then climbing again, the two Rivazza left-handers at the end, and kerbs and gravel waiting for anyone who over-commits.

It is precise rather than fast, and mistakes cost more here than they do at Barcelona or Hockenheim. The right choice for someone who wants a circuit with history and does not need the biggest number on the speedometer.

Portimão is elevation change first and everything else second: blind crests, off-camber exits, and a downhill run to turn one that hides the apex until you have already committed to it. It has to be learned, and it punishes anyone who assumes they will read it on the way past.

It is also the dependable winter option. Southern Portugal stays dry and warm when northern Europe does not, so testing and track days fill the calendar from November onwards — book earlier than you would elsewhere.

Dunes on both sides, sand blowing across the asphalt, and two banked corners — Tarzan at the end of the main straight and the banked final corner — that make the lap unlike anything else nearby.

It is narrow and blind in places with very little margin at the edges, and the grip changes with the wind and the weather. Rewarding, but a circuit to work up to rather than one to be dropped into.