To 'Ring, or not to 'Ring ?!?

S4 you cant take your car to its homeland not to drive it hard

I would be half tempted to hire the Suzuki Swift for a lap to get the idea of the track and conditions then take the S4 out for a few laps.

The Nurburgring is astonishing ! Not been since 2005 (used to go a lot before then) but believe a lot has changed in terms of how busy it is, insurance checks etc. If you go, go with your eyes WIDE open ... You can have a great time driving around a few sighting laps, even at moderate speeds as it is generally very open and wide - you have to of course be aware of other cars and bikes blasting past of course and some will drive and ride like loonies. There are also blind corners which can kill you or your car if you don't take take care so just read the road and enjoy it. Doing back to back laps will leave you tired so I would advise against that. It is VERY easy to get lost in the moment. If you have a crash i.e. damage the barrier, put debris on the track or bash another car (DONT HAVE A CRASH), your life will change or certainly your wallet will, insurance and breakdown are EXTEREMELY important things to consider and you take a big risk if you are missing either. All of this is relevant for hire cars and your own car BTW. This website is oft regarded as the bible for trips Nurburgring Nordschleife website ... If you go, I am sure you will have a superb time !!!Martin

Forgot to say ... Something not everyone knows about are the turn in and apex dots for the driving schools (probably still there) ... Once you can see and read these you can really accelerate your learning of the track and 'hook up' your laps - don't try and do this to begin with as whilst you 'could' use these to drive fast and blind right off the bat I would not recommend it at all ... Martin

Hey Goose,

I recently went to Germany when the VLN was on. Which was a few weeks back. My experience goes as follows.

I was undecided and nervous to go on the track with my own car as with the risk of anything happening even thou I have some track experience.

Well in the end I decided to track with my own car. I only did 1 Lap but was well worth it manage to boot it a few times and was a great experience. Even if you have done many laps on a virtual game or something like Gran Turismo I can assure you when you are there you forget were you are after the first 4 corners.

The cost to do a lap was 23 euros. The weird thing for me was that the locals dont consider it a race track its considered a Toll Road which I didnt know. As in there is speed limits which you can obey or you dont have to but if you get caught ramming into a barrier or into the back of someone they will know you were speeding. And will get a fine on the spot etc.

So basically during the mornings till around 4pm its all test cars and a lot of the undercover cars are on the track. Then after 5 if I remember correctly is when it is open to the public and as said above they consider it as a toll road so all "road rules apply".

But the group of friends I went with had a lot of Ring experience. And said this: If you a first timer stick to the right hand side of the track and allow for alot of room for speeding bikes, cars, vans etc. And use your left indicator to indicate they can over take. Last bit of advice he said was to take someone with you as they can keep you inline if you decide to get out of control and to remind you what you on etc. Other than that its pretty straight forward, as I said above it was a great experience and for some reason it was very very quiet on the track I had about 6 cars over take me. One being a ford focus estate diesel lol.

Otherwise best of luck if you do go on

Dont forget to buy a ring sticker

Some good advice on here. I took my wife and in-laws round the ring when I had my WR1 and scared the crap out of them, they knew I used to drive rally stages but obviously hadn't seen that aspect of my driving tottering around to drop granny off after Sunday lunch! Anyway, they enjoyed it so much (afterwards) they wanted to go round the Hockenheim circuit while we were over there. A great few days! It's fine in your road car and you'll get back in one piece if you treat it like a road instead of a race track, give way to your left, keep looking in your mirrors, keep looking in your mirrors, keep looking in . . . Go with plenty of meat on tyres/brakes, watch out for brake fade in the last few miles if you take it flat out, and if you want to do more than 1 lap let your car and brain cool down down for 15 mins in between laps. It's 13 miles of eye-stalking concentration but a great experience. Oh, and make sure you've got sunglasses - honestly!