Nürburgring in 2022

[JP__FOX]

I was at the CD track day on Friday, first time not doing TF and I'd echo a lot of what has been said...

Sighting laps / Live at 8:30 was chaos... I was pootling along in a line of cars about 3/4 way round and then immediately some of the line started to push their way past. No idea if that's what they were meant to do as I just stayed to the right but it wasn't clear at all and almost caused a few accidents in front of me, could definitely improve the guidance for next time.

Thanks to doogalman for the tuition, some useful tips to use when I eventually get the hang of when the next turn is left or right!

I did get a few good photos but was a bit disappointed by the others and the number of them to be honest. I know it's a massive track to cover as 1 photographer but I was hoping for a few more. There's a few good ones on racetracker.de at £10.99 per photo but perhaps I'm just spoiled comparing them to the free opentrack photos.

2 x 1 hour long red flags are a pain but I guess that's just the luck of the draw... I was pretty worried about a long closure when the first red flag was before 9am but it could have been worse. Driving standards were generally ok apart from a few trying to push their way past mid corner via my boot, a lot quieter than TF. I don't mind the odd yellow as I wasn't chasing times and was probably only driving about 8/10ths as it's a long drive home! Overall I had a great day and will definitely be back for another track day

[RSbandit]

Yeah I was near the end of the sighting lap when the track went live so didn’t have an issue but can understand the confusion…should really bring back the in person briefing to highlight the finer points like track going live, no overtaking on yellows and especially double yellows and lastly don’t blow your load in the first 30 mins …the latter should be fairly obvious but some drivers just can’t help themselves !

[MOTK]

RSbandit said:

Weather was perfect yday however the muppet count was way above avg…worst day I’ve been on here ever tbh. Multiple crashes, 2 red flags with over 2 hours track time lost probably could have been more reds but at least the organiser tried to keep the track open while cleaning up other crashes. However this meant that getting a clean lap with no slow zones was v hard. You had other morons overtaking on yellows and double yellows…Overtaking on the wrong side also. From what I could see a lot of that nonsense was from UK cars too …I really think the in person briefing needs to come back to maybe emphasis things more and a zero tolerance approach to anyone overtaking on a double yellow. I still have a credit to use with CD but from yesterdays experience DN days seem better run with much higher driving standards on display.

Guessing you didn't go to their one in Oct 19? that was a total clusterf##k in comparison imo. Red flags all day and I hardly got any laps in (I think it was 6 or 7 or something) which was obviously disappointing not least being my first time there. I reluctantly booked again with them this year as a combination of timing and $ meant it was the only suitable option and I have been desperate to get back since that day.
I'll open that can of worms that is often discussed; that driving standards are a function of the relative price of the track day. I'm not convinced that stands up on UK days but with the ring I think it might. Obviously the track treats errors very hard and I think there is high probability that the percentage of the attendees that are inexperienced of the track will be greater than the higher priced days?
All that said I don't think 2 red flags is terrible given the number of cars and track involved, though I must say I was pretty surprised to come round about the 8th corner to find the focus completely stoved in within about 3 minutes of the track reopening after the first red
Overall I had a really great day, particularly the afternoon. Had a great 1hr session with an instructor and managed to just nip under 8mins* at the end of the day which I was pretty chuffed with for my old Z4 and my 25th lap or so.
Can't wait to get back, it's just such an amazing track, but may well look for a DN or other day instead...

[ukkid35]

FTW said:

I also thought the marshaling was a bit odd, twice I came across a yellow flag but never saw the incident or green flag and subsequently drove much of the track slowly whilst being overtaken (I had a passenger as a second set of eyes who saw nothing). After this I saw a yellow flag waving on the run up to the Karussell, I then saw nothing until I arrived at Hohe Acht where a recovery truck was sat in the access road. To me that is a very long way between flag and incident and I was overtake by multiple cars in that distance.

That is a cost issue

Fewer marshal points mean there's a disconnection from the incident, that's how the cost is kept manageable

Edited by ukkid35 on Tuesday 5th July 06:02

[bigmowley]

I was out on Friday as well. The sighting laps thing is just an accident waiting to happen. I clarified it with the team that at 8.30AM the track goes live regardless of where you are on the circuit. I wasn’t comfortable with that so I waited until 8.30 and then set off. At that point the big screen by the start line was green. For a lot of that lap there were still cars going at 60 - 80 kph. Obviously it was a first lap so I was being careful but it was an added complication that I just don’t get. I have not done sighting laps with RSR / RMA who are the only other people I have used at the ring.
Possibly waved green flags at all the marshal points at 8.30 would be a good shout, which would also help people see where they are located.

The red flags were a pain but as ever if it’s serious enough to stop the session then I don’t mind waiting and I hope everyone is OK from Friday.

The live snatch was quite a thing! They were certainly kept busy. I also noticed that there was a massive distance between flag points which was tricky, along with a lack of consistency with the green flag missing occasionally.
The recovery trucks car maintain quite a pace when they are going back to base, certainly no hanging about.

I thought the overtaking discipline was generally very good, lots of indicators being used and sensible lines chosen to avoid incidents. There was the odd notable exception but it was ever thus. The worst overtaking offender for me was a Belgian registered car so not always us Brits eh!

Good day out overall and I will use them again.

[FTW]

JP__FOX said:

I did get a few good photos but was a bit disappointed by the others and the number of them to be honest. I know it's a massive track to cover as 1 photographer but I was hoping for a few more. There's a few good ones on racetracker.de at £10.99 per photo but perhaps I'm just spoiled comparing them to the free opentrack photos.

Good tip. Some much better shots there! Thanks.

[MOTK]

bigmowley said:

I thought the overtaking discipline was generally very good, lots of indicators being used and sensible lines chosen to avoid incidents. There was the odd notable exception but it was ever thus.
Good day out overall and I will use them again.

Despite me sounding slightly negative in my previous post I'd definitely agree with this. I signalled and moved over as did almost all reciprocally I came across. It was the experience of the first one I mentioned that soured my view really.
At a most basic level it's just the higher volume of cars that causes the higher likelihood of an issue, but which is reflected in the price of course....

[doogalman]

Can I ask you guys if during the sighting laps the marshal posts and warning lights were on yellow?
As normally this is the case then when the sighting laps end the flags disappear and the yellow lights go out.
Should not normally be confusion.
Admittedly the 30 min is too short and I thought this at the time. I will raise this issue for next time.
Also with regard the ending of sighting laps. The other option is to red flag at the end and clear the track before we start the live laps. As you can guess this could take a long time as it is not a premium low number day and then we and yourself as need to find somewhere to get parked up. Then it goes live and then we have more chaos as everyone then descends on the bottleneck to access the track. It’s not an easy balance.
With regard to the warnings/flags for incidents on track. This is all out of circuit day’s control. You hire the track and the marshal package as a whole. If you wanted 100 marshal positions manned around the track rather than the number actually there it won’t happen because there’s not the option or the staff provided by Nürburgring. The quality and efficiency of the flagging has and is always going to be a problem….. Sadly!
As regard the closure time I thought it was not too bad. Inconvenient but not overly too long in the grand scheme of things. I have worked on budget and premium days where we have had in excess of 5 hours downtime. End of the day it’s all down to the drivers that crash that dictates how long you are not able to access the track, then again who really will drive the entire duration of the day without needing downtime. I know of a few but most people will spend upto half the day parked up.

[ecsrobin]

doogalman said:

Can I ask you guys if during the sighting laps the marshal posts and warning lights were on yellow?
As normally this is the case then when the sighting laps end the flags disappear and the yellow lights go out.
Should not normally be confusion.
Admittedly the 30 min is too short and I thought this at the time. I will raise this issue for next time.
Also with regard the ending of sighting laps. The other option is to red flag at the end and clear the track before we start the live laps. As you can guess this could take a long time as it is not a premium low number day and then we and yourself as need to find somewhere to get parked up. Then it goes live and then we have more chaos as everyone then descends on the bottleneck to access the track. It’s not an easy balance.
With regard to the warnings/flags for incidents on track. This is all out of circuit day’s control. You hire the track and the marshal package as a whole. If you wanted 100 marshal positions manned around the track rather than the number actually there it won’t happen because there’s not the option or the staff provided by Nürburgring. The quality and efficiency of the flagging has and is always going to be a problem….. Sadly!
As regard the closure time I thought it was not too bad. Inconvenient but not overly too long in the grand scheme of things. I have worked on budget and premium days where we have had in excess of 5 hours downtime. End of the day it’s all down to the drivers that crash that dictates how long you are not able to access the track, then again who really will drive the entire duration of the day without needing downtime. I know of a few but most people will spend upto half the day parked up.

Isn’t the simple solution sighting laps 0800-0820 have a 10minute closure of cars entering the track then go live, that 10 minute window should be sufficient to not catch?

[doogalman]

ecsrobin said:

Isn’t the simple solution sighting laps 0800-0820 have a 10minute closure of cars entering the track then go live, that 10 minute window should be sufficient to not catch?

In the past we have run a full one hour. That used to work quite well. But it will never be perfect whatever we do as there’s too many variables. I have led the sighting laps previously on many occasions but if a few drivers think they want to go slower than the slowest car in front of them then it cascades into problems. Honestly I have seen cars on sighting laps driving probably at 20mph with still 6 miles of track in front of them and no amount of effort from me was going to make them speed up and flow with the others.
There again I’ve known people to not do sighting laps on various trackdays at the ring and bin it within the first 1km.

[FTW]

doogalman said:

Can I ask you guys if during the sighting laps the marshal posts and warning lights were on yellow?
As normally this is the case then when the sighting laps end the flags disappear and the yellow lights go out.
Should not normally be confusion.
Admittedly the 30 min is too short and I thought this at the time. I will raise this issue for next time.
Also with regard the ending of sighting laps. The other option is to red flag at the end and clear the track before we start the live laps. As you can guess this could take a long time as it is not a premium low number day and then we and yourself as need to find somewhere to get parked up. Then it goes live and then we have more chaos as everyone then descends on the bottleneck to access the track. It’s not an easy balance.
With regard to the warnings/flags for incidents on track. This is all out of circuit day’s control. You hire the track and the marshal package as a whole. If you wanted 100 marshal positions manned around the track rather than the number actually there it won’t happen because there’s not the option or the staff provided by Nürburgring. The quality and efficiency of the flagging has and is always going to be a problem….. Sadly!
As regard the closure time I thought it was not too bad. Inconvenient but not overly too long in the grand scheme of things. I have worked on budget and premium days where we have had in excess of 5 hours downtime. End of the day it’s all down to the drivers that crash that dictates how long you are not able to access the track, then again who really will drive the entire duration of the day without needing downtime. I know of a few but most people will spend upto half the day parked up.

For the short time that I was on circuit before 08:30 the lights and marshal posts were not showing yellow. I'm someone with a video could confirm if they were on earlier in the 30 minute window.

I think showing yellow during sighting laps and then going to green at 08:30 for a minute or two is a good idea and would help.

I agree the downtime wasn't too tragic and people will not drive the whole day but equally people don't want their downtime dictated to them especially so early on. One thing I did like was the lack of a lunch break, kept queues short at the dinner and meant a short lunch could be had to maximise track time.

[RSbandit]

Maybe I've been spoiled by how few stoppages the DN days over the last few years have had...after lunch was certainly much better than the morning last week. I think a full hour of sighting laps is better but driving at 20mph on them is a bit much!

[doogalman]

FTW said:

For the short time that I was on circuit before 08:30 the lights and marshal posts were not showing yellow. I'm someone with a video could confirm if they were on earlier in the 30 minute window.

I think showing yellow during sighting laps and then going to green at 08:30 for a minute or two is a good idea and would help.

I agree the downtime wasn't too tragic and people will not drive the whole day but equally people don't want their downtime dictated to them especially so early on. One thing I did like was the lack of a lunch break, kept queues short at the dinner and meant a short lunch could be had to maximise track time.

Ok thanks for that. I’ll bring this up for the next CD days.

[4packet]

I preferred only having the 30min sighting lap session. The main difference being that it was dry, so 2 laps was more than enough. I'm 95% sure I didn't see any yellow flags during the sighting lap. Track definitely needs some form of communication when the sighting session ends. I was in a queue of slow traffic up until 8:34 when I got to Dottinger Hohe and broke away. I think everyone probably questions how accurate their clock/watch is, or doesn't pay attention to the time.

I thought there were a few too many incidents this time, but the dry conditions made up for it so was one of our better days. Driver etiquette seemed OK/average to me. The yellow flag marshalling for incidents seemed a bit on the conservative side. I got caught out by it at Schwedenkreuz for an incident at Adenauer Forst. A slower car had correctly braked for the yellow, but as I came over the crest at 160mph it was embarrassing/terrifying how quickly I had to overtake the RSR Cayman on a yellow down the inside (apologies if the driver is on here!). I'm just grateful the driver stuck to the right, as I had no warning prior to the blind crest.

Was there a reason the day ended early? Last track entry was supposed to be 16:15, but the track was red at 16:14.

[RSbandit]

4packet said:

I preferred only having the 30min sighting lap session. The main difference being that it was dry, so 2 laps was more than enough. I'm 95% sure I didn't see any yellow flags during the sighting lap. Track definitely needs some form of communication when the sighting session ends. I was in a queue of slow traffic up until 8:34 when I got to Dottinger Hohe and broke away. I think everyone probably questions how accurate their clock/watch is, or doesn't pay attention to the time.

I thought there were a few too many incidents this time, but the dry conditions made up for it so was one of our better days. Driver etiquette seemed OK/average to me. The yellow flag marshalling for incidents seemed a bit on the conservative side. I got caught out by it at Schwedenkreuz for an incident at Adenauer Forst. A slower car had correctly braked for the yellow, but as I came over the crest at 160mph it was embarrassing/terrifying how quickly I had to overtake the RSR Cayman on a yellow down the inside (apologies if the driver is on here!). I'm just grateful the driver stuck to the right, as I had no warning prior to the blind crest.

Was there a reason the day ended early? Last track entry was supposed to be 16:15, but the track was red at 16:14.

I was in a white RSR Cayman S with blue stripes but couldn't say for sure if it was me as there were a few RSR Caymans out that day. Seemed to be less marshalls around the track than on DN days and more reliance on the flashing lights in certain places.

[4packet]

RSbandit said:

I was in a white RSR Cayman S with blue stripes but couldn't say for sure if it was me as there were a few RSR Caymans out that day. Seemed to be less marshalls around the track than on DN days and more reliance on the flashing lights in certain places.

It was a red/orange/white Cayman, I was in the blue RX7. The yellow was for the red Clio around mid afternoon.

[JP__FOX]

doogalman said:

Can I ask you guys if during the sighting laps the marshal posts and warning lights were on yellow?
As normally this is the case then when the sighting laps end the flags disappear and the yellow lights go out.
Should not normally be confusion.
Admittedly the 30 min is too short and I thought this at the time.

Definitely no yellow flags shown during my 2 sighting laps, I've just had a quick look through the footage to check. No green flags either, just some people pushing past when their clock showed 8:30.

I think 30 mins is perfectly adequate for sighting laps, I wouldn't want an hour of them, it's the change from sighting to live track that was the issue. Going from Yellow flags to Green flags at 8:30 would definitely make it a lot clearer but whatever solution is decided, saying what's going to happen in the briefing will make it a lot easier.

[4packet]

Yellows would also help you identify where the relevant marshalls/lights are too. I made an effort to look and couldn't see a lot of them on Friday.

[ukkid35]

JP__FOX said:

Going from Yellow flags to Green flags at 8:30 would definitely make it a lot clearer but whatever solution is decided, saying what's going to happen in the briefing will make it a lot easier.

No idea why that didn't happen this time, it did at the DN event a few weeks ago, and also at the CD event at Easter

And it was universal, as if the marshals were briefed differently

[Digga]

ukkid35 said:

JP__FOX said:

Going from Yellow flags to Green flags at 8:30 would definitely make it a lot clearer but whatever solution is decided, saying what's going to happen in the briefing will make it a lot easier.

No idea why that didn't happen this time, it did at the DN event a few weeks ago, and also at the CD event at Easter

And it was universal, as if the marshals were briefed differently

FWIW, whether in in-person briefings, or the online type, DN have always made something of a big deal about the time at which the circuit definitely goes live. As much to warn newer drivers they will be overtaken after that time, as to remind experienced drivers they cannot overtake until then.

And yet there's often some plum that ignores or fails to acknowledge there is no overtaking prior to that.