Get it stopped. Stuff it in to the apex. Nail it on the way out. Medium-speed, high-downforce is the current Formula 1 way. Flat out is flat out is flat out — always has been, always will be. It’s the ‘float’ that’s almost sunk without trace; the ability of a Moss, Clark, or Schumacher (it still distinguishes the best from the rest) to pick up a car and skim it across the surface, shedding not a jot of speed, aiming not driving, visibly quicker. Flat in top is the catalyst That’s why we rave about Eau Rouge, Suzuka’s 130R, the opening sequence of Becketts, for such corners are few and far between these days.

Not at Dundrod they’re not. Beyond that ‘maybe flat’ sweeper lies another, and another, often as not just over a crest. Picture yourself in a D-type on rock-hard Dunlops, live rear axle shimmying from 130mph bump to 130mph bump, on a narrow, seven-mile circuit complete with its own microclimate (slap bang in a Belfast water catchment area) and the mere thought makes your throat parch, heart race, palms moisten.

Stone walls, trees, bathed wire fences, grass banks, blind bends, curious cambers, surface changes, innumerable nooks, crannies and nuances – the bulk of them in that top-gear corridor of uncertainty. Woe betide those whose bravery overstepped their talent here. Yet the talented needed to be brave to succeed at Dundrod. This is a place to be navigated via your fingertips rather than forearms, synapse rather than sinew. A serious place. A downright scary place. The euphemism of the day? ‘A real driver’s circuit’.

And yet, wait for it, this track’s still in use. Twice a year. The cars bailed out in 1955 after three fatalities in the RAC Tourist Trophy, in the immediate aftermath of the Le Mans disaster; the biker boys ploughed on – different breed, different attitude. This visit, therefore, is not about crumbling grandstands and pit buildings – they exist at Dundrod, but are still used (very Irish) — or about flaking paint and fading graffiti; it’s about a living, breathing place. Park at the bottom-gear hairpin, this drum brake-friendly track’s only big ‘stop’ – downhill approach, rippled surface – and you are swarmed by every ‘rigid eight’ truck in Ulster. You are high above and west of Belfast, the vast cranes of the Harland & Wolff shipyard clearly visible (now the clouds have lifted), but you are at a hub.

The fastest lap at the daunting Bremgarten in Switzerland was 95mph, Silverstone’s mark was 100, Pedralbes in Spain, 103. Dundrod was in the speed ballpark, albeit considerably slower than Reims (118) and Spa and Monza (121); it was also considerably more narrow and bumpy. The good Doctor would have needed his wits about him, no matter how routine the victory. The sight and sound of an Alfetta rifling up the tree-lined avenue between Cochranstown and Quarterland would have kept the local bars in a reminiscent buzz for years. BRM’s Ulster Trophy effort the following season, however, would have been the object of ridicule. The noise was right, when all 16 thumb pots chimed in, and the drivers Moss and Fangio weren’t too dusty, but the result bordered on farce. The Bourne team were at full stretch, nothing went right, and neither car reached the finish. The race was won by Piero Taruffi in a Ferrari from Mike Hawthorn’s Cooper-Bristol, which led in the wet. After this, Moss wrote a thanks-but-no-thanks letter to BRM’s Raymond Mays.

The TT’ returned in 1953, making it a full house, for Antrim County Council had switched its allegiances from Clady (poor facilities and too bumpy the mind boggles) to Dundrod, and the Ulster bike GP had a new home. Hawthorn won the ’53 Ulster Trophy in a Ferrari 500, while Aston Martin, in the shape of Peter Collins/Pat Griffiths and Reg Parnell/Eric Thompson took the fog-bound TT spoils as the jaguars floundered on a wave of transmission troubles. This race was the sixth round of the inaugural world sportscar championship yet it was still an intrinsically British affair. That changed in 1954, round five this time, with entries from Lancia, Ferrari and Maserati as well as Jaguar and Aston Martin. The win was pinched from under their noses, however, by the tiny DB-Panhard of Frenchmen Paul Armagnac and Gerard Laureau. Hawthorn was magnificent, replacing Froilan Gonzalez (injured in practice) and hurling the Ferrari 750 Monza around to win on the road and set a new sportscar lap record (4min 49sec, 92.378mph). But he fell 13sec short of an outright victory on handicap, despite completing 17 more laps than the 750cc DB. His anguish can be imagined.

Dundrod and the TT were taking shape and everyone turned up in 1955 – Mercedes, Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Porsche – but its zenith was also to prove its nadir. Even in an era when safety meant shellacked cloth caps and thinly-scattered hay bales, Dundrod was a cause of concern: narrow with high, funnelling banks, the quicker drivers often found an inexperienced straggler, running 70mph slower, over that crest. Le Mans had just seen the worst crash in history, the sport was in turmoil, but the Dundrod organisers simply dug a ditch and raised a bank between the track and the stands opposite the pits and pressed on regardless. As did the drivers.