Nürburgring Nordschleife

Circuit guide by Chris Pollitt · dates updated 2 November 2026

The Nordschleife is the 20.8 km loop of the Nürburgring, built through the Eifel hills in 1927 and still the longest, hardest and most humbling track most of us will ever drive. Jackie Stewart called it the Green Hell, and the name stuck. It climbs and drops more than 300 metres, the surface changes every few hundred metres, and the barriers are close all the way round.

There are two ways on. Touristenfahrten (tourist drives) let anyone with a road-legal car and a licence buy a lap, around 30 euros midweek and 35 at weekends in 2026, and mix it with everything from hire Clios to Porsche GT3s. Organised track days are the calmer option, with fewer cars, no oncoming bike traffic and usually instruction on hand. Since 2025 motorbikes are barred from tourist drives, so riders need a dedicated bike event. Novices are welcome, but plan on several laps before it starts to make sense.

A lap of Nürburgring Nordschleife

Layout: Nordschleife, 20.832 km (12.94 miles)

A tourist lap starts at the toll gates by Döttinger Höhe and drops you straight into Antoniusbuche, a quick left under the Bilstein bridge, then the left and right of Tiergarten and the Hohenrain section. Past T13 the road falls away through the left now named after Sabine Schmitz, then the fast right of Hatzenbach Bogen leads into the Hatzenbach twists, narrow and bumpy, where cold tyres catch people out every single weekend.

Hocheichen opens out onto the climb to Quiddelbacher Höhe, a right over the bridge, then the double right of Flugplatz where the car goes light over the crest. Schwedenkreuz is a flat-out left over a hump that feels far faster than it looks on video, and you need to be properly slowed and turned in for the long right at Aremberg. Fuchsröhre is the big compression: downhill, a kink, a hard squat at the bottom and a fast left as it climbs. Then comes Adenauer Forst, a tight right-left-left-right where plenty of first-timers turn in too early and end up on the grass.

Metzgesfeld's two lefts and the slow right at Kallenhard take you down through Spiegelkurve and Miss-hit-miss to Wehrseifen, the slowest corner on the lap. Through Breidscheid, over the bridge and up the hill at Ex-Mühle, you reach Lauda-Links (the kink where Niki Lauda crashed in 1976) and then Bergwerk, a tight right where exit speed decides how fast you climb the long Kesselchen valley. Keep an eye on the wet patches in there.

Klostertal, Mutkurve and the Steilstrecke hairpin set up the Karussell, the banked concrete left you drop into, keep steady and drive out of. Hohe Acht, Wippermann and Eschbach follow, then Brünnchen's two rights (the spot all the YouTube footage comes from), the shaded Eiskurve, the jump at Pflanzgarten, the Stefan-Bellof-S, Schwalbenschwanz and the little Karussell. Galgenkopf spits you onto the 2 km Döttinger Höhe straight, and the lap is done.

Track day tips

• Check the official open-hours page on the morning you go. Tourist sessions get cut short or closed after an incident, and closures for barrier repairs can last an hour or more.
• Overtaking on the right is banned on tourist drives, and German road rules apply, so keep right and use your indicator to wave faster cars past.
• If you damage the barriers you pay for the repairs, and many UK policies exclude the Ring. Sort specialist cover before you travel.
• Brake pads and tyres take a beating. A few laps can equal a day at a short UK circuit, so arrive with plenty of pad and fresh fluid.
• The weather changes from one valley to the next. It can be dry at Döttinger Höhe and wet in the Kesselchen, so judge each section on its own.
• Riders: bikes are no longer allowed on tourist drives, so book one of the dedicated bike days or an organised bike event instead.

Getting there

From Calais it's around 450 km to Nürburg via Belgium (Brussels and Liège, or Lille and Namur), about five hours on the road for most people, using either the Dover to Calais ferry or Eurotunnel. The last stretch leaves the motorway (the A1 or A61) for country roads through Adenau. Cologne Bonn is the nearest big airport, roughly an hour and a quarter away, with Düsseldorf and Frankfurt as alternatives. Adenau, Nürburg and Barweiler are full of track-friendly hotels and guesthouses, but book early for summer weekends.