The Nordschleife was built between 1925 and 1927, employing around 2,500 workmen, with the circuit layout shaped by Hans Weidenbrück to follow the rolling hillsides around the Nürburg castle. The first races took place on 18 June 1927, with motorcycle events won by Toni Ulmen on a Velocette, followed by car racing the next day won by Rudolf Caracciola in a supercharged Mercedes-Benz. The original Nordschleife measured 22.835 km and contained 174 corners; combined with the Südschleife the total Gesamtstrecke stretched to 28.265 km.
One of the circuit's most distinctive features was created in 1933. At the Karussell corner, Caracciola had gained as much as two seconds per lap by hooking his inside wheel into the drainage ditch. After rivals began copying the technique, the ditch was concreted over and the banked corner that has defined the Karussell ever since was born. The banking was later extended further, allowing cars to place all four wheels on the concrete for a slingshot around the hairpin.
The Nordschleife hosted 13 editions of the German Grand Prix before World War II, from 1927 to 1939, with pre-war Ringmeisters including Rudolf Caracciola, Tazio Nuvolari, and Bernd Rosemeyer.
The Nordschleife re-established itself after the war, with Formula Two arriving in 1950 and Formula One returning in 1951. A second generation of Ringmeisters dominated: Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart, and Jacky Ickx. On 5 August 1961 Phil Hill became the first driver to complete a lap in under nine minutes, setting an 8:55.2 in the Ferrari 156.
As F1 cars became faster through the 1960s and 1970s, safety concerns multiplied. The circuit's 22-plus kilometres made comprehensive marshalling and emergency medical response near impossible; a German Grand Prix could require up to six times the marshals of a typical F1 race. A drivers' boycott in 1970 moved the race to Hockenheim. Modifications were made for 1971 — guardrails installed, jumps removed, trees felled — and F1 returned. But the circuit remained the most dangerous on the calendar.
The 1976 German Grand Prix proved the final Formula One race on the Nordschleife. Niki Lauda, then the reigning world champion and the only driver ever to lap the full 22.835 km circuit in under seven minutes (6:58.6, 1975), crashed heavily at Bergwerk when a rear suspension component failed. His Ferrari caught fire with a full fuel load. Lauda was rescued from the flames by fellow drivers Arturo Merzario, Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Harald Ertl. He survived but suffered severe burns and permanent lung damage. The old Nordschleife never hosted a Formula One race again.
During qualifying for the 1983 1000 km Nürburgring — held on the shortened 20.832 km Nordschleife while the new Grand Prix circuit was under construction — Stefan Bellof set a lap of 6 minutes 11.13 seconds in his Porsche 956, averaging 199.8 km/h. The lap stood as the all-time circuit record for 35 years until Timo Bernhard drove the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo around the slightly longer current configuration in 5 minutes 19.546 seconds on 29 June 2018, averaging 233.8 km/h.
The new Grand Prix circuit opened on 12 May 1984 and took over all major international events including subsequent Formula One visits in 1984, 1985, and from 1995 onwards. The Nordschleife was retained for the annual 24 Hours Nürburgring, the regular Langstrecken VLN endurance races, and as a public toll road — the Touristfahrten sessions — where drivers can lap the circuit in their own cars.
A Grüne Hölle visitors complex was added on the Döttinger-Höhe straight in 1998. Ticket barriers there divide the lap, meaning a complete uninterrupted run at full speed is no longer possible during tourist days; enthusiasts who time their runs typically measure Bridge-to-Gantry (BTG) times. Resurfacing at Quiddelbacher Höhe and Flugplatz was carried out ahead of the 2016 season following a fatal 2015 incident in which a GT-R GT3 became airborne at Flugplatz during a VLN race and landed in a spectator area. Revised spectator zones and section speed limits were introduced as a result.
The Nürburgring briefly returned to the Formula One calendar as the Eifel Grand Prix in October 2020, with Lewis Hamilton winning from second on the grid. With that victory Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher's record for the most Grand Prix wins. Schumacher holds the record of five wins at the Nürburgring across the 42 Grands Prix the complex has hosted, between 1995 and 2006.
The Nordschleife remains the global benchmark for sports car and road car performance testing and the largest informal racing community in the world, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to its Touristfahrten sessions.
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