Nürburgring

What you'll find

The Nürburgring isn't one circuit: it's four. The same complex holds the modern GP layout, its shortened Sprint version, the 20.8 km Nordschleife and the link between the two — the 24H layout, used for endurance racing and the one we race in the 6 Hours. Choosing between them isn't picking a variant: it's changing sport. The GP circuit is learned in an afternoon and raced wheel to wheel; the Nordschleife takes weeks and punishes you with a wrecked car. Assetto Corsa EVO reproduces all of them, and it's worth understanding them separately before deciding where you want to race.

You don't memorise the Nordschleife in an afternoon: it's over 150 corners, many of them blind and almost all with elevation change. The trick isn't going fast, it's not breaking the car. Fox Hole, Bergwerk and Pflanzgarten are where most quick laps end, nearly always from entering two km/h too fast.

The modern GP circuit is the opposite: wide asphalt, generous run-off and clean braking zones where you can fight without fear. Joined together they form the 24H layout, and that change of character halfway round the lap — from modern circuit to forest — is exactly what makes the endurance race special.

Sector by sector

How the lap unfolds from start to finish, with the lines and the places where time is genuinely won and lost.

How to set the car up

The Nordschleife forces you to forget everything that works at a modern circuit. A stiff, low car that would be devastating on the GP layout bounces at Flugplatz here, bottoms out in the Fuchsröhre compression and breaks in the Karussell. You raise ride height above normal and soften springs and bars, even if the telemetry says you're losing.

The aero compromise is just as strange. You need grip for Schwedenkreuz and Kesselchen, but Döttinger Höhe is two and a half kilometres in which anyone running less wing walks past you. In endurance racing you run less downforce than a quick lap wants, because getting past slow traffic is worth more than two tenths a lap.

And there's a variable that doesn't exist elsewhere: fuel. A full lap burns a lot of it, and with a full tank the car compresses more over the jumps and bottoms out where it didn't before. A setup tested on an empty tank can be undriveable on lap 1 of the race.

What almost everyone gets wrong

1. Intentar aprenderla de una vez. It's over 150 corners. Nobody memorises them in an afternoon, and long runs at the start only serve to repeat mistakes. Split it into four sections and work them separately.
2. Forzar la entrada al Karussell. You don't attack the banking: you drop into it. Entering fast and turning breaks the suspension, and in a long race that damage retires you a hundred kilometres later.
3. Corregir en Flugplatz. The car is airborne or close to it. Any steering input over the crest gets executed on landing, when you no longer want it.
4. Confiarse en Schwedenkreuz. It's flat, yes — but not on a full tank with cold tyres. It's where most people crash on the first lap of a long race.
5. Frenar tarde en Bergwerk. You arrive from a descent, the corner tightens and the exit climbs. It has the worst ratio anywhere between what late braking gains you and what overshooting costs you.
6. Ignoring traffic. In endurance racing you'll be lapping cars constantly. Overtaking at a blind point of the Nordschleife is the mistake that ruins the most races, and the time you gain isn't yours: the risk is.

From the real circuit to Assetto Corsa EVO

El circuito mejor escaneado del mundo

The Nordschleife is probably the most measured stretch of road on the planet. Its laser-scanned reconstruction captures not only the layout but the undulations, the asphalt joints and the changes of gradient, which at this circuit aren't a detail — they're the essence. Assetto Corsa EVO combines that scan with photogrammetry of the surroundings, which is why the trees, the bridges and the marshals' posts are where they should be: they're your references.

Being scanned matters more here than anywhere. In an approximate model, Flugplatz would be just another fast corner; in the scan, the crest unloads the car at exactly the point it does in reality. That's the difference between practising the circuit and practising an imitation.

What you really do learn for the real thing

The order of the corners. It sounds basic and it's the most valuable thing: anyone arriving at the Nordschleife without knowing the sequence spends the first day simply trying not to get lost. With the sim you arrive knowing what comes after each crest, and on a 20 km circuit that's an enormous advantage.

You also learn the fixed references: the Adenauer bridge, the hut at Brünnchen, the Pflanzgarten sign. They're in the same place and work the same way. Plenty of amateur drivers heading there for the first time prepare exactly like this.

Lo que el simulador no te va a dar

Fear. At the real Nordschleife there's no run-off: there's a barrier a metre away and a forest behind it. That consequence completely changes how a person drives, and no simulator reproduces it. At home you're taking Schwedenkreuz flat by the third lap; in reality, almost nobody does that on their first day.

Nor does it give you the real state of the track. In the game the asphalt is always the same; in reality there's damp in the shaded sections mid-morning, leaves in autumn and oil left by the bike that went through before you. And it doesn't give you the fatigue: eight minutes of absolute concentration, lap after lap, tires you in a way you can't understand sitting at home.

Touristenfahrten: the circuit open to the public

The Nordschleife has a quirk almost no other circuit in the world shares: during the Touristenfahrten it operates as a public toll road. Anyone can pay for a lap and drive in with their own road car. That means the track you race in Assetto Corsa EVO is one you can genuinely drive without being a professional.

That's why this page has a double use: if you're going, the sim is your best preparation, and it's worth practising in a car similar to the one you'll drive. And if you're not going, understanding that this is a real road and not a video-game circuit changes the respect you drive it with.

Where it comes from

Built between 1925 and 1927 in the Eifel region as a public works project against unemployment, the original layout measured over 28 km counting Nordschleife and Südschleife together. Jackie Stewart christened it the Green Hell, and the name stuck.

Formula 1 stopped racing on the Nordschleife after Niki Lauda's accident in 1976, and the modern GP circuit was built alongside it in 1984. Today the Nordschleife lives off the 24 Hours, the NLS and its public tourist sessions.

Visiting the real circuit

The Nürburgring is one of the few legendary circuits anyone can drive. During the Touristenfahrten the Nordschleife works as a one-way toll road: you pay for a lap, drive in with your car and go. It isn't a track session with flags and marshals every hundred metres, it's open traffic, which is why you need your head switched on and respect for anyone quicker.

It's in the Eifel, a little over an hour from Cologne and ninety minutes from Frankfurt. The village of Nürburg lives off the circuit: there are workshops, prepared cars for hire and car parks that are a spectacle in themselves on a fine weekend.

The big dates are the 24 Hours in spring, which gathers over a hundred cars and hundreds of thousands of spectators camped around the track, and the NLS races spread across the season, far cheaper and without the crowds. [Confirm calendar, times and prices on the circuit's official website before travelling.]

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