Nürburgring: the Nordschleife, tourist drives & events

Where the Nürburgring really is

The Ring belongs to the municipality of Nürburg in the district of Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate. This is the Hocheifel, a plateau at around 600 metres above sea level, not a valley. The Ahr valley only begins another twelve to fifteen kilometres further north, and apart from half of a federal state name, the area has nothing to do with the Palatinate.

Another point worth making, because it is often wrong: the Nürburgring is not in a national park. The Eifel National Park is in North Rhine-Westphalia, around 45 kilometres from Rieden, and the Ring is not part of it. As for the elevation change, the circuit speaks clearly enough for itself: the lowest point, at Breidscheid, is about 320 metres, the highest, at the Hohe Acht, around 620 metres. The mountain that gives that corner its name is, at 746.9 metres, the highest in the Eifel, and the Hohe Acht right next door combines well with a visit to the Ring.

The circuits: Nordschleife and Grand Prix circuit

The Nürburgring is not one circuit but two, the historic Nordschleife and the modern Grand Prix circuit, which can be joined into a combined circuit of more than 25 kilometres.

Source: nuerburgring.de, Race Tracks section. As of August 2026.

One common misunderstanding concerns that superlative: the Nordschleife has been the longest permanent racing circuit in the world since 1927, not only since the 1984 rebuild. The rebuild actually shortened it, from 22.810 to 20.832 kilometres, and replaced the old Südschleife with the new Grand Prix circuit.

The fastest lap ever driven on the Nordschleife has stood since 2018 at 5:19.55 minutes (Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo). The most legendary one is still Stefan Bellof’s 6:11.13 minutes from 1983.

Driving it yourself: tourist drives on the Nordschleife

What makes the Nürburgring special is that anyone with an ordinary driving licence and an ordinary car may go out on the Nordschleife. During the tourist drives, the Touristenfahrten, the track is a public toll road: German road traffic law applies, including the ban on overtaking on the right, and you must carry your driving licence and vehicle registration document.

Prices as of August 2026, source nuerburgring.de:

• Nordschleife, one lap: 30 € (Monday to Thursday), 35 € (Friday to Sunday and public holidays)
• Grand Prix circuit, 15 minutes: 35 €, whatever the day of the week
• 2026 season: 7 March to 15 November (end of season provisional)

Tickets are available online through a prepaid account on nuerburgring.de or on the spot at the ticket desk by the Döttinger Höhe entrance. Booking ahead is neither necessary nor possible: you top up your account and turn up during opening hours. Those opening hours follow a rule of thumb rather than a firm promise: weekday evenings, and all day at weekends without an event. The exact times change with the daylight and the race calendar and are updated daily on nuerburgring.de. If you have a particular time in mind, check it on the morning of your drive; the track can also be closed at short notice at any time.

Important for motorcyclists: since the 2025 season, motorbikes have been excluded from the regular tourist drives. The operator puts this down to the different handling of cars and motorbikes and the lack of a crumple zone. Two-wheelers now only get onto the Nordschleife as part of guided training sessions with their own time slot. If you are coming by motorbike and counting on a lap, check this beforehand.

Vehicles with a design top speed below 130 km/h are not allowed either, and neither are quad bikes.

From 1927 to today: a short history

Work on the Nürburgring began in 1925, as a job creation scheme for the economically weak Eifel and as a test track for Germany’s young car industry. It opened in 1927, with a layout that took no notice of safety standards and simply followed the topography of the Hocheifel. That is exactly what still makes it so appealing: the Nordschleife is not a circuit drawn up on a drawing board, it is a landscape with tarmac on it.

Why the “Green Hell"?

The name comes from Jackie Stewart. In 1968 the Scot won the German Grand Prix on the Nordschleife in relentless rain and fog, with a broken wrist and more than four minutes in hand. His description of the track, “Green Hell", stuck, and it has been the circuit’s unofficial second name ever since.

1 August 1976: the Lauda crash

At the 1976 German Grand Prix, Niki Lauda lost control of his Ferrari on the second lap, went through the crash barrier and slid back onto the track in flames. Lauda survived with severe burns to his face and lungs, and was back in a car six weeks later.

For the circuit, the consequence was final: after 1976, Formula 1 never raced on the Nordschleife again. For modern Formula 1 cars the track was simply too long to make safe along its whole length. The race moved to Hockenheim, and by 1984 the Nürburgring had its new, much shorter Grand Prix circuit.

Formula 1 at the Nürburgring: where things stand in 2026

This needs saying plainly, because a great deal of what is online is out of date: there is no longer a regular Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. The last German Grand Prix was held at Hockenheim in 2019. The most recent Formula 1 race at the Nürburgring was the Eifel Grand Prix on 11 October 2020, a replacement date brought about by the pandemic rather than part of the regular calendar. Since then: nothing. If you want to see motorsport at the Ring, plan around the other series, and there are plenty of those.

Race dates and events

The Ring fills its year with more than 50 events between January and October. These dates were in the official calendar for 2026, as of August 2026, source nuerburgring.de.

Still to come in 2026:

What has already taken place in 2026, as a guide for planning next year’s holiday: NLS season opener 14 March, 24h Qualifiers 18–19 April, ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring 14–17 May, Rock am Ring 5–7 June, Nürburgring Classic 12–14 June, International ADAC Truck Grand Prix 10–12 July, Rad am Ring 24–26 July.

Already scheduled for 2027:

The 24-hour race is the event of the year: around 200,000 spectators, 24 hours on the two circuits joined together, groups of fans camping on the slopes above the Nordschleife. If you are looking for a holiday home in the area that week, you need to book early, and a holiday home 22 km from the Ring at the Riedener Waldsee is a quieter alternative to a tent at the trackside.

What is no longer at the Ring

Several visitor attractions disappeared after the insolvency of 2012/13. Two of them still turn up in guidebooks and older articles to this day:

• ring°werk, the motorsport experience museum: closed. The official site says: “The ring°werk is closed for extensive rebuilding work." The building is being converted for partners from the car industry, and no reopening date has been set. An experience museum is meant to return at some point; when is anyone’s guess.
• ring°racer, once planned as the fastest rollercoaster in the world: the ride ran for four days in October 2013 and never again. It has been ruled out for good; the section by the ring°werk was dismantled in 2025, and the rest stands there as scenery.

So for rainy days it is worth having a plan other than “we will go to the Ring museum": the area has plenty of places to visit in the Eifel in the rain that are reliably open.

Getting there from Rieden, and parking

From Rieden it is around 22 kilometres to the west, about 30 minutes’ drive. The Ring sits right on the B 258; from Koblenz the route runs along the A 61, from Cologne along the A 1. At big events such as the 24-hour race, though, the approach roads across the Hocheifel are blocked for hours on end, and then the short distance does not help much.

Parking always costs money, not just on race days. This is where most visitors get caught out. In the multi-storey car park at the info°center, as of August 2026:

At events a flat rate of 10 euros a day usually applies instead. Officially, only car park A10 is free. Car parks A1, A2 and D8 are now charged for permanently as well, with payment handled by number plate recognition.

On public transport the Hocheifel is thinly served, and that is not just a figure of speech. Exactly one route runs to the Ring: RegioBus 860, stop “Nürburg Nürburgring Congress Hotel". On the section past the Ring it runs only every two hours, and on Sundays not until shortly before ten.

From Rieden that means two changes, via Kempenich and Adenau: around 1 hour 50 minutes Monday to Friday, more like three hours on Sundays, because of a long wait in Adenau. The 815, which you need for that leg, is a RufBus on Sundays and has to be booked on 02633 2009600 at least 90 minutes before departure.

If you are travelling without a car, you are better off taking the train to Ahrbrück and the 860 from there, a good 40 minutes to the Ring. And another common misconception: the Vulkan-Express does not go to the Nürburgring, its final stop is Engeln.

Attractions in the area

A visit to the Ring combines well with other things. Right beside the track stands the Nürburg that gave it its name, a 12th-century hilltop castle on a basalt cone, and only one of many: the castles of the Eifel stand closer together here than anywhere else in Rhineland-Palatinate. If you would rather be on foot, the Hocheifel has good walking trails around the Ring, including the climb to the Hohe Acht with its viewing tower. On a clear day the view from up there reaches across half the Eifel, and you can see the grey ribbon of the Nordschleife winding through the forest.

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