Earlier today the Nürburgring announced the full details of the seven planned modifications to the Nürburgring Nordschleife that will enable to the track to keep it’s FIA license AND (most importantly) shed those terrible speed-limits.
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Only one of the modifications will change the way we drive the track, the rest are all aimed at spectator safety.
This a screenshot from the German-language-only news-story on Nuerburgring.de:
And a map I made to help illustrate it:
Here’s the BTG translation/explanation. Left/Right is always considered from a drivers point of view, as we lap the circuit clockwise.
- From Döttinger Höhe to Antoniusbuche is the stretch of road better known as Gantry to Bridge. Right in the middle is the Nürburgring car park. On the left side of the track is the main public road, the B258. They will build 700 meters of additional FIA safety fencing to protect the traffic. This won’t affect any spectators or drivers, as far as I can tell.
- At Hocheichen they’re talking about putting another specator fence behind the FIA fence, parallel with the dirt road that runs there. Not much space there to create a buffer zone, but it’s not exactly a great spectator spot anyway because of the limited space. This is what your view of the circuit is from that point:
- The most controversial point of the whole operation for us drivers. They’re going to smooth the bumps at Quiddelbacher Höhe. Sure we’ll see less air, but the Nordschleife you drive today is already a lot different to the 70s, 60s and 50s. No jump at Brünnchen, no jumps on Döttinger Höhe. I think we’ve got to live with this one, considering what happened in VLN1.
- The ‘exclusion zone’ on the right-side of Schwedenkreuz will be made more permanent with some proper fencing. I’ve made a guess as to how big it will be. That’s the area that’s blocked off at every VLN right now. I’m guessing the extra FIA fence will go on the left side.
- The campsite at Metzgesfeld is currently only behind some occasional FIA fences. This will upgrade it to two layers. I don’t know exactly how it will look.
- There’s very little catch fencing on the right side of the track here (only a layer of guardrail and a big drop), but I wasn’t aware of any significant gaps at all on the left. I think they will be plugging a hole behind the marshall point.
- New FIA fencing at Stefan Bellof S. This has to be on the left hand side (where there’s a deliberate gap) OR on the right (which currently only has a guardrail and a huge drop to the forest path belot.
I will be working hard to add more details to this list as I get them.
Source: (German) Nuerburgring.de Press Release here.
