Racing drivers share their craziest memories of the Nürburgring

The craziest moment for me was back in 2013, my first Nürburgring 24 Hours. I will never forget it! It was my first night stint on the Nordschleife. The conditions were horrendous, so much so, that my teammate had thrown up in the car before I got in it for my stint – it was not the best seat in the house! Out on the track, I was also contending with the rain and fog. Eventually, the race was red flagged. Quite unbelievable weather that year.

Klaus Bachler has been with Falken Motorsports since 2017 and was part of the team’s maiden overall race win with Porsche on the Nordschleife in NLS (formerly VLN) competition in 2018.

Adam: In 2016 we had two cars with Black Falcon. Maro was on pole that year, I qualified in 16th or 17th [Engel drove both cars during the race]. During the start of the race or 45 minutes in it decided to start raining as we got to the Schwedenkreuz section of the track. I remember the engineer coming on the radio screaming to slow down to 60kph. I watched the BMW in front just aquaplane off the track, and I’d just slowed down. Then 24 hours later Maro made a heroic move on the last lap on the GP circuit, took the lead and we won by all of six seconds. But that last lap, even though it was an eight-minute lap it felt like half an hour for me. I don’t think I even watched it, I walked around the paddock until Maro got to the finish line. 

Maro: That last lap was crazy. It was the fulfilment of a childhood dream at that point, it was crazy. I was kind of glad I was in the car, because you don’t have time to be nervous. I’m sure if I was in the paddock I would have been so nervous. But what an amazing memory, and to do it with Adam, Bernd [Schneider] and Manuel [Metzger] was fantastic. I had the same issue as Adam at Schwedenkreuz that year, the engineer on the radio. I slowed down but there were cars aquaplaning everywhere. Half the cars were stuck on track because there was so much hail and water that it took them two hours to get back. That year was definitely the craziest race we’ve seen there, but with an amazing finish. 

Christodoulou (far left) is a Greek-British racing driver with extensive endurance racing experience and won the N24 in 2016. German-born Engel (third from the right) has raced in endurance series and Formula E, winning the N24 in 2016 and the GT Series Endurance Cup in 2018. Both made it to the N24 podium in 2022. 

In 2014 it was the first year I had a real shot at winning the N24, I was in the top car with Black Falcon. A few hours into the race the wheel fell off and for some reason I thought that it would be a good idea to try and fix it back on without tools. Anyway, that failed. There was a contract with Michelin that meant a €1m fine if you didn’t bring all the wheels back, so… 

Christodoulou is a Greek-British racing driver with extensive endurance racing experience and won the N24 in 2016 driving the Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG.

The craziest memory of the Nürburgring was certainly the night driving I did during the year that I won the race in 2020. It was around 11pm, there was heavy rain and fog had set in around parts of the Nordschleife. Having to drive the car on the limit in the wet around the Nordschleife is always a huge challenge but when you can’t actually see through some corners due to fog, it certainly added an extra level of craziness! I would get to corners having a rough idea of the speed needed to get through normally but then would drop a wheel off on to the grass at times simply because I couldn’t see where I was going. With the high speed nature of most of the corners, it certainly got the adrenaline pumping! Thankfully no big accidents happened and at the point it clearly wasn’t going to get any better, they made the right decision to red flag the race until the fog had cleared in the morning.

Sims (right) is a BMW Motorsport works driver and has previously won the 2016 Spa 24-Hour race, the 2017 Petit Le Mans and won the Nürburgring 24hrs in 2020.

One crazy moment came in the year that I won the race overall in 2018, when I was approaching Mutkurve with three slow cars up ahead. I ended up having to overtake all of them by driving, with all four wheels on the grass, at 150mph… It’s always a risk because you don’t know what the grass will be like, well it’s never smooth and flat! Usually, you have moments like this every year, but that year it was different. We had a puncture on the first lap and had lots of time to recover to get in the fight, so we were taking lots of risks to try and get the lead, we had no choice but to push.

Pilet is a Porsche factory driver who has an enormous CV featuring wins, titles and starts in every major endurance race in the world. He has multiple podium finishes at Le Mans and won the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2018 with Porsche.

It was a qualifying round for the VLN endurance series back in 2009. I was driving the Wochenspiegel Porsche 911. Heading from Flugplatz to Schwedenkreuz, a quick section. A BMW moved to the left, all good as I wanted to overtake right but he then decided to turn right, pushing me onto the grass. I was a passenger and lost the car. That was a big impact – I don’t think there was a wheel left attached to it by the time it stopped. I ended up in hospital but it all ended OK. And I keep coming back!

A longstanding Falken Motorsports driver since 2011, 2022 was Ragginger’s 12th time competing in the N24. He was part of Falken’s third-place crew in 2015, the team’s best result in the race to date.

I’d have to go back to 2008 for my craziest moment and the race had not even started. I was in the Rinaldi Racing SP7 class Porsche 997. During the warm-up lap for the race, we had a water leak and lost all the coolant. In that 911 the max temperature it can display on the dash is 140°C and from Hohe Acht onwards both the water as well as the oil temperature were flashing up 140! I was convinced it was going to be a DNF before the race had even started. I radioed the team to say I was going to pull over somewhere and stop the car but the team owner said “No, continue and come back to the box”. Remarkably I made it back, turned off the ignition but the engine kept running. I think some of it was glowing – it was so hot! I said to myself “That‘s it, now we are truly done”. But they found the leak right away, filled it up with fresh coolant and bled the system and sent me back out. I couldn’t believe it, the engine ran, though we had to chuck two litres of oil in it at every pitstop. I was sure the engine would die but ironically, although we did retire in the night, it was because of the transmission, not that engine!

Seefried is widely considered a GT3 specialist with three class wins at the N24 to his name in 2021 (SP9 Pro-Am), 2011 (SP8) and 2010 (SP7).
 

My first Nürburgring 24h race was in 2015. It was the first year of the 911 Cup MR (Manthey). I was heading out for my first ever night stint. On Lap 1 I headed straight out of the pits, the track was clear, all good… Then by the time I got to Metzgesfeld, suddenly the track was fully wet, right in the middle of the corner. You guessed it; it was a big crash; the car was destroyed. That was the moment when I realised how crazy this track really is. The conditions really can change from corner to corner without any warning! It was also the moment that my respect level for the place leapt to 110 per cent!

Former Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup champion Mueller has competed at four N24 races with the Falken team.