The area around Chemnitz has a tradition of motor sport dating back to the 1920's. There have been car and bike races held there on closed public roads righjt up till 1990, the 8 km course through densely populated area was considered no longer suitable. The famous MZ motorcycle factory lies just to the south. But it is the little town of Hohenstein-Ernstthal, 8 km west of Chemnitz and which is now the home of a brand new race track: the Sachsenring, built in 1996.

The success of this event, in the heart of former East Germany, took everyone but the local organisers by surprise. Taking over in 1998 from the former West German GP, which was dying on its feet at the unpopular new Nurburgring circuit, the Sachsenring gymkhana was an instant hit with the crowds and tickets now sell out months in advance.

The name is the same as the long and demanding old public road circuit used for the East German race in the Sixties and Seventies, but the track could hardly be more different. Crammed onto the edge of a new industrial estate, and doubling as a driver training centre, the second-shortest lap of the year (3.671 km / 2.281 miles) takes riders on a giddying low-gear maze of tight corners, enlivened by a roller-coaster drop down a steep hillside for the short back straight.

It’s definitely an all-action circuit, and with the mighty MotoGP bikes able to expend only a fraction of their huge power it favours a brawling kind of racing – elbows out, and jostling for every inch of real estate.