Tale of two race circuits

Few countries have two Formula One racetracks that are as steeped in the history of the elite racing series as the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring in Germany.

Since the first German Grand Prix in 1951, the race has shifted between the two tracks, with the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring hosting all but one of the races. The one exception was in 1959, when the German Grand Prix was run at Automobil-Verkehrs-und Übungs-Strasse, known as AVUS, near Berlin.

Since 2008, the race has alternated between the two tracks, which are both in southern Germany, as they each sort out financial problems and negotiate with Formula One for the right to run the race. Since a new owner bought the bankrupt Nürburgring earlier this year, however, there has been talk that Hockenheim might lose the race.

Although the Grand Prix was run at the Nürburgring throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the original track of 20.8 kilometers, or 12.9 miles, with more than 170 corners and vast elevation changes winding through the forest of the Eifel hills, eventually was considered too dangerous. So in 1970 the race was moved for the first time to the Hockenheimring.

The Hockenheimring was built in 1932 as a 6.7-kilometer loop on which Mercedes-Benz tested its road and racing cars.

The stadium section was constructed after World War II. In 1968, the Formula One world champion Jim Clark was killed on the track during a Formula 2 race, when he was still at the peak of his powers as a Formula One driver. The track was then given chicanes in order to slow it down and make it safer.

The race returned to a modified Nürburgring in 1971. After Niki Lauda’s near-fatal accident there in 1976, however, it was dropped from the calendar again.

Known as the Nordschleife, that old Nürburgring would never be used again, although it still exists today next to the new track, a modern circuit of only 5.1 kilometers that was opened in 1984. It staged its first German Grand Prix the next year.

During the Michael Schumacher era, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Formula One became so popular among Schumacher’s fellow Germans that for many years the country hosted both the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim and another race - called either the European Grand Prix or the Luxembourg Grand Prix - at the new Nürburgring.

The Hockenheim circuit layout, meanwhile, was entirely redesigned by the Formula One architect Hermann Tilke in 2002. Its two long straights into the forest were lopped off and a new tight hairpin curve was put in place to facilitate overtaking.

At 4.5 kilometers in length, the modern Hockenheimring is 2.2 kilometers shorter than the original, and the average speed is much lower than it was before, but it makes for better viewing.
The old Hockenheim was particularly difficult and it was hard on cars. In 1994, only eight of the 26 cars that started the race finished.

“I remember racing at the old Hockenheim - four 200-miles-per-hour straights, a couple of fiddly chicanes and a stadium section where you held on tightly because the car didn’t have any downforce,” recalled the McLaren driver Jenson Button, who is one of only three current drivers who raced on the old Hockenheim track. “It seems like a different level of craziness compared with today, but it was a lot of fun.”

“The redesigned circuit could never be as mighty as the old Hockenheim, but it’s a fun little track, and it’s been purposely designed to encourage racing,” he added.

“The long, curved straight up to Turn 6 is tailor-made for slipstreaming — you force the car ahead to be defensive, so it’s actually on the run to Turn 7 that you usually try to overtake, because you’re capitalising on the other car’s slower exit.

Turn 8 is another place where you can try to make a move — because it’s possible to get into the corner side-by-side with another driver, and then make the position stick.”

The shorter, 5.1-kilometer track of the new Nürburgring was also redesigned by Tilke. But it is not considered by many in the sport to be among the most exciting circuits, and the races there have often been processional.

The new track bears no resemblance to the old Nürburgring-Nordschleife, but it is still a tricky one to drive by modern standards. It is a narrow, flowing circuit that requires a compromise in car setup: There is a twisty, low-speed first part followed by high-speed sections later on, and the chicanes require soft suspension so that cars may attack the curbs.

To get a feel for what it was like to drive at the Nürburgring in the past, it’s possible for race spectators to visit the original Nordschleife.  History and track layout aside, the Hockenheim and Nürburgring circuits could hardly be more different in terms of location and infrastructure.

The previous consortium that owned the Nürburgring invested hundreds of millions of euros in a racing mall, hotel and theme park with activities for the whole family and the goal of turning the track into a major center for auto sports. It may have created a fabulous, vast structure, but it failed to draw crowds to what is otherwise a sparsely populated camping region.

The Hockenheimring, by contrast, is on the edge of a small town, with several other towns nearby and the picturesque university town of Heidelberg, with its baroque Old Town and castle, only a 20-minute drive away.

Most of Hockenheim’s pit facilities remain basic compared with the more elaborate infrastructures that have been built at some other tracks in the series. But a large investment was made in 2002 in the Mercedes grandstand and a hotel and conference center over the main stadium grandstand.

“The shorter layout may not have the same character as the original Hockenheim, but it usually provides plenty of overtaking and the atmosphere in the stadium is amazing,” said Romain Grosjean, a French-Swiss driver on the Lotus team. “It’s another track where the fans are absolutely brilliant and really show their appreciation of the sport.”