Nürburgring Nordschleife
20.832 km of narrow, bumpy track through the Eifel forest, with more than 150 corners and over 300 m of elevation change. The Nordschleife is the longest permanent race track in regular use and one of the hardest to learn. Find out how the lap works, then open it in the designer and make your own version.
The track at a glance
The Nordschleife (“North Loop”) is the original circuit at the Nürburgring in western Germany. It is 20.832 km long, runs clockwise and has around 154 turns, depending on how you count them. It opened in 1927.
The track follows the hills around the village of Nürburg and its castle, rising and falling by more than 300 m. Many corners are blind, the surface is bumpy, and there is little run-off. After winning the 1968 German Grand Prix there in rain and fog, Jackie Stewart called it “the Green Hell”, and the name stuck.
Today it hosts the Nürburgring 24 Hours and other endurance races, and on many days it is open to the public as a toll road for anyone with a road-legal car.
A lap of Nordschleife, corner by corner
The Nordschleife has more named corners than most tracks have turns. This guide follows ten of the best known. Their numbers match the map.
- Hatzenbach
A tight, twisting sequence of left and right bends straight after the start. Easy to overdo on a first lap.
- Flugplatz
A fast crest named after a nearby airfield, where cars go light over the brow and can take off if set up badly.
- Aremberg
A tight right at the bottom of a long, fast downhill run, followed by the plunge through the Fuchsröhre.
- Adenauer Forst
A slow, narrow chicane in the trees, where many drivers have run wide onto the grass.
- Bergwerk
A slow right-hander near where Niki Lauda crashed in 1976. It leads onto a long uphill climb.
- Karussell
A steep, banked hairpin with a concrete surface. Drivers drop a wheel into the banking and follow it round.
- Brünnchen
A popular spectator area where the track twists close to the fences.
- Pflanzgarten
A flat-out section with jumps over crests. The cars land with the suspension fully loaded.
- Schwalbenschwanz
“Swallow’s tail”: a fast run into a small banked turn, the Kleines Karussell.
- Döttinger Höhe
A straight of more than 2 km that runs back towards the start. The fastest part of the lap.
Nearly a century of the Nordschleife
The Nordschleife was built as a public works project in the 1920s and has outlived almost every circuit of its era.
- 1927The Nürburgring opens, with the Nordschleife as its longest loop.
- 1968Jackie Stewart wins the German Grand Prix in rain and fog and calls the track “the Green Hell”.
- 1970The first Nürburgring 24 Hours race is held.
- 1976Niki Lauda crashes heavily before Bergwerk. The German Grand Prix leaves the Nordschleife the next year.
- 1983A Group C sports car sets the race lap record of 6:25.910, which still stands.
- 2018A modified prototype sets the fastest lap ever recorded, 5:19.546, on a slightly longer version of the lap.
A road through the hills
The Nordschleife was laid out to follow the landscape, not to be cut through it. That is why it feels more like a mountain road than a modern race track: the corners come one after another, often over crests, and few of them look like the last.
Modern circuits are shorter, flatter and safer, with wide run-off. For more on why that changed, read our history of the Nürburgring or see how hills shape a lap in designing for elevation change.
Ideas for your remaster
The Remaster button opens the traced layout in the designer. You can move any point and the lap time, speed trace and corner analysis update as you go. A few places to start:
Make a short loop. The lap is more than 20 km. Can you make a shorter circuit that keeps the best sections?
Add run-off. Most corners have little space beyond the barriers. Try widening the track and adding run-off where cars would go off.
Name the corners. Group the many small bends into named sections in the designer, and the names show on your exports and share link.
Finish it properly. Add track width, kerbs and a pit lane so it reads like a modern venue.
When you’re happy with it, share your version with its own link. The original stays here for the next person to remaster.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the Nürburgring Nordschleife?
It is 20.832 km (12.944 miles) long with around 154 turns, making it one of the longest permanent race tracks in the world.
Why is it called the Green Hell?
Jackie Stewart called it “the Green Hell” after winning the 1968 German Grand Prix there in rain and fog. The name describes the forest the track runs through and how hard it is to drive.
Which way does the Nordschleife run?
Clockwise. The lap starts near the Grand Prix circuit, heads through Hatzenbach and Flugplatz, loops round through Adenauer Forst, Bergwerk and the Karussell, and returns down the Döttinger Höhe straight.
Can anyone drive the Nordschleife?
On many days of the year it is open to the public as a toll road for road-legal cars. Normal road rules apply, and it is not a race.
Is the remastered Nordschleife an exact copy?
It is a close trace of the centreline using 226 editable points, within a few metres of the mapped circuit. Track width, kerbs, run-off and the pit lane are left for you to design.
Layout traced from OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via open-racetrack-db. Circuit facts: Wikipedia. RaceTrackDesigner is not affiliated with the circuit, its owners or any racing series.