If you had seen the LeMan’s race starting and the lavish celebration which went with it, you would be pardoned for wondering, what is recession. Absolutely. It was of that scale and beauty. It happened in the quiet village of Mulsanne, on the outskirts of Le Mans in Northwest France.

It is also pleasantly peaceful – until the silence is rudely broken by the frantic, ear-splitting scream of a racing engine at full throttle. The painful glare of super-bright headlamps pierces the dusk, while the smell of burnt fuel taints the air.

This assault on the senses means that practice has got under way for the Le Mans 24 hours, one of the oldest and most famous events in the world of motor racing.