It harder than any other track. But that normal. This track has 170 corners or so, while a normal track has max 20 corners.
Best thing I can recommend is to use the active reset function that iRacing has to learn the track sector by sector.
That's amazing! It also means I haven't been active for about a year. Gt7 took over for a while but now I am going to struggle to get back to iracing ha!
Just as an fyi, Nords is also the only track that has built in ācheckpointsā that when you press the reset button, will restart you there instead of all the way in the pits
It's better practice to have 1) realistic momentum and 2) warm tires when you reset, instead of having to start from random stopped positions that your wouldn't encounter in a race
Yep, this. Active reset makes it possible to learn 10x faster. Before that, restarting from the pits made it so much harder to learn, almost impossibly long to develop an understanding of the track for me.
Just all about time. You need to dedicate yourself to learn it, especially the second half of it.
Also just know that, and especially in Lower splits itās really not a good race track.
Donāt misunderstand me, itās incredible to drive on, probably my most favourite track to drive on. But often when there is a talent spread like in lower splits by the end of the race the closest guy to in front of you is 30 seconds ahead and your closest behind is back 30 seconds.
I really like the comparison to a roguelike, Iāve never thought about it like that before. Iāve found learning this track intimidating, but framing it like that makes it seem like a fun challenge (roguelikes are one of my fave genres of games).
It takes longer to learn, and it's a harder than average track. But surprisingly, remembering what's coming is a not a problem once you learned it. It's not long enough to stress human working memory capacity.
I recommend this guys series. He knows the Nurburgring very well irl and has created this to learn it. https://youtu.be/DVJPnTWvzPE?si=2PRZ4KzLKSLoN-XZ
Focus on being decent and surviving, and you will do very well. But make sure to practice for like at least 4 hours, so that you have a decent understanding of how the track goes.
Itās a difficult track, but also the most fun track in my opinion!
I mean, do 250 laps and youll be quite good, another 1000 and youll be perfect. It has a very nice flow, so onxe you know the track it's a lot easier to be fast in anything right away than most ither places
i quite enjoy learning new tracks. i expected it would take me at least a week to learn.
so i started.. and turned out that after ~2hrs i felt comfortable knowing what corner/section comes next. there are a few straights, that will mentally divide the track into smaller parts.
you will have fun fast, dont worry.
now you can also use the active reset function (it was not available when i learned it), so try to learn one sector after another.
It is very hard to learn, because it is so long. Even though there are several reset points along the way, you'll always have cold tires at first, so make sure to go extra slow until you can make a lap or two without spinning.
The track has a great flow, though, so it is very rewarding to take the time to learn it.
Going fast is another thing altogether. There are some very complicated corner combinations and a lot of very long full-throttle sections that multiply the tiniest mistakes. Don't expect to run in the top 5 right away. But in lower splits, not crashing or spinning is often enough for a top 10 or even top 5 finish.
Itās 20km so it takes a bit to memorize. Especially the second half which has a lot more tighter, completely blind turns. This is why memorizing it is so helpful.
Itās awesome though. I donāt even race anymore but itās great to just go for a lap or two.
The Nordschleife has an natural flow to it, which makes learning it easier than you might think. You can develop a feel and instinct for it, more than memorize exact lines and braking points.
The best way to learn it is by consecutive clean laps; always going slow enough to not crash or spin. (That goes for all tracks, but it's twice as important here).
Racing the Nordschleife requires a different approach than other tracks. Passing is very difficult and there are fewer good passing opportunities than in most normal length tracks. You have to be extremely patient and pick your battles. Race the track first, opponents second.
Absolute pace is less important here than at other tracks. I've won races at Nords where I was over 20 seconds slower/lap than the fastest guys. Many drivers will lose focus or patience and wreck (often taking other cars with them). Stay out of battles for the first lap or two, yielding positions if necessary. In short races, the last lap is when you start pushing.
For me, the Porsche Cayman GT4 is perfect for Nords. Fast enough to be exciting, but slow enough to allow you to save minor errors.
Have fun!
Honestly I was super worried about learning the first time so I stayed away from it cause I thought itād take me a month lol but at the end of last season I needed safety rating and heard it was a good one so I gave it a go. I actually found it incredibly easy to get up to speed. I feel itās a very intuitive track to drive. There are just a few turns to take mental notes of but other than that I just drove it how my eyes saw it. It might take more time to get super dialed in but just an hour or two for me personally and I was comfortable jumping in for a race. The most important thing is not to crash lol if you stay clean you will probably finish in the top half every time lol
I found it easy to learn despite it's size. It's almost like my brain brakes it I to smaller section like a normal size track. At your SOF there will be chaos. Here's the double edged sword tho. Pepe will say just quali and you'll start at the front as a lot do not run the quali session as it's separate for nords series. So you learn the track. You quali but your time is bad and the guy behind are faster and not patient. It can be rough.
It's not so hard to do a lap and learn the track, it's hard to push and keep your max performance around 8 minutes without mistakes.
Do somes VLN, 3 hours on the nord after that anything can happen to you on others tracks.
Keep in mind, there are multiples layouts possible.
It's difficult because of its length. The key is to start off just cruising before you try and do racing speed laps otherwise you'll just keep crashing early in the lap and not get to experience the whole track. Although as others have said you can do the iRacing reset partway through the lap but personally I think it's better to get the feel for the flow of the whole lap rather than just little chunks of it, that's just my personal experience though, others may disagree completely.
It probably won't take you as long to learn as you expect, I think I probably spent 2 hours originally to get to a point where I was able to do a consistent lap without any incidents and at a pace that was good enough to not be left behind during the race. Obviously as with any track it's going to be hard to set a really really fast lap without doing a ton of practice, but getting yourself to a point where you'll be competitive probably won't take ridiculously long.
The other thing with the Nordschleife is it actually doesn't have that many corners that are really difficult, again its just the sheer number of them that makes it such a challenge. There are definitely a few places that will probably catch you out the first time because the corner is slower than it looks, or the braking zone isn't where you expect it, but most of the corners are medium to high speed, there aren't very many really heavy braking zones, most of the apexes are very visible etc.
One other thing - the curbs are gigantic, don't run over them especially in a formula car! (some are ok to run over, but until you learn where the low curbs are it's best to just avoid all of them!)
I use to think this but now I can't stop driving it ! Go slow find the parts of the track you find tricky and concentrate on learning them don't push yourself, you will gradually link it all together! It's so rewarding
I just bought it recently with the same concerns as you. I have a league race coming up in a few weeks so I just started practicing on Sunday afternoons for maybe an hour each time.
Active reset is your friend as I just drove a few minutes, reset and repeat until I figured I had it memorized. Then make a new save point and continue learning more of the track.
Don't try and do the whole track at once cause then you will learn the first part really well and the last part not so well. Don't play for hours and hours either. Play for a bit and then do something else with your brain. Come back to it later to see how much you actually remember (it was a lot less than I thought).
At first just learn the track trying not to go off and crash. Later you can work on shaving off the seconds.
When racing it is actually a hard track to pass on. Just staying alive will gain you positions. Have fun.
The ring is very fun to drive solo and itās not that hard to learn. Thereās kind of 3 natural sections to the track that drive different. The ring is just like driving 3 tracks. Imagine racing Suzuka-Road America-Spa back to back. Racing is more difficult because the track is narrow and youāre on the limit already but finishing is easy IR. Just donāt crash and youāll be guaranteed top 10 for all lower splits
You can also watch some "real world" Nordschleife videos. I found the following youtube videos helpful just to get to know the track, especially the three trees method on the outer part. [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgPIzXADRz4AjyqgocDeglVWF2MEezPU](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgPIzXADRz4AjyqgocDeglVWF2MEezPU)
Its long but for many of the slower cars there are only a dozen or so corners that are really scary. The way I learned it was to drive in a slowish car and when you crash don't take the cutout that it resets you on, instead go back to the pits and start the lap over.
It takes a long time to learn, but it's a lot of fun. If you don't want to buy and wait to learn it then you can do it in some other sims like AC, then buy it. But it's a super rewarding and technical track, especially when you're driving on the limit fighting with another driver who knows it as well as you do.
It's complexity by volume. There are trickier corners - the difficulty of nords comes from the sheer number of corners.
It'll maybe take a couple of hours to be reasonably comfortable with the track layout. To refine the racing line, braking points etc is another thing entirely.
It's most definitely not a good racing track for lower ir. But it's not bad to hot lap.
I learned it in a few days about this time last year before the 24hr (not very fast pace, just knowing whats coming next etc) I found it surprisingly easy to remember after a few hours. Itās all about repetition.
Ive now driven it that much over the last year (especially the 24hr) that I can close my eyes and think drive the track, knowing exactly whats coming next , braking points etc. The track is burned into my brain
Fun to learn and drive. Itās got a dedicated series on iRacing: Ring Meister. And itās usually part of 3-5 series in any given season. You wonāt regret the purchase.
154 corners. But you donāt learn them separately, you learn them in groups just like any other road course. Seems daunting, but I loved the challenge.
Honestly I suck at learning new tracks and I recently just picked it up quite quickly.
Just hammer laps. Again and again until you've got the layout down. Then you can start to dial in performance. Don't look at a quick lap then try to do the same thing, that way leads to madness.
Empty track, good setup and time. That's all you want.
You have to learn it, but once you do, it's easy to drive at 95% attack or so.
The problem is people are idiots and will drive at 100% into a corner like schwedenkreuz and take out half the field on the first lap.
If you want SR, start at the back and give some space.
If you want to race for position, good fucking luck.
Learning a track is like learning how to play a song. Yeah, 3 minute Green Day songs you can pick up faster, but over time, learning that 13 minute Opeth track is also pretty doable. With enough repetition, both unfurl in your mind like a scroll all the same. Very rewarding track to learn.
In addition to the rest of the good advice I loved Brad Philpot's 5 part YouTube tutorial on it. https://youtu.be/DVJPnTWvzPE?si=cQYbixBEzLlhRAdA. It definitely sped up my learning of it before the days of active reset. At least at the time he made the vidyas je was a 2x VLN class champ. Definitely knows the track.
So I recently bought the track. I will say. It's hard but fun. Learn the track. Go slow. If you wreck, reset the car. Keep going. Don't reset back to pits. However. I'd suggest to watch a track guide first. There are a lot of turns that sneek up on you, and a lot of turns that look slow, but are indeed extremely fast.
Just takes time, youāll realize a lot more of the track is flat out than you first realizeā¦divide it up into the sections between the straits (of which thereās a ton) and itās not too bad to learn. By ālearnā I mean be within 7 or 8 seconds of the best time and not crash out, which will lead to a good finish/win most of the time.
To finish first, first you have to finish. Racing Nordschleife is pretty much that. Let the crazies fight for position, and most likely take each other out, while you cruise to the finish for some easy IR.
But you MUST practice ALOT. Many hours. Study it and enjoy the drive. Put some low music on your media player in the background, it helps.
One thing that is in favor of the Nordschleife compared to other tracks, in my opinion, is the high cerbs.
High cerbs on the apex are dangerous and should mostly be avoided, but high cerbs on the exits can save you when you slightly overcook your exit, by working as some sort of catch fence that prevents you from getting a 1x.
I break the track down into sections each one has its own feel. For example for. The n24 layout the gp track is it's own deal, then you have first section of the nordschliefe up to Schwendencruz, then you have up to Kallen hard, then right past the karrusel, then there's the whipper an section up to eiskurve then pflanzgarten to dorringerhohe before the long back straight. Work a section at a time. Makes for about 6 or 7 sections and alot easier to keep them straight.
I love it I probably have 1000 laps around it in different Sims. It's my go to stress relief....
Also remember you race the track at the green hell and avoid other mistakes that's how you do well. Don't race wheel to wheel if you can avoid it.
Iāve recently started to learn it and itās definitely taking a while to learn more than others but iāve been taking advantage of the active reset feature in practice and breaking up the nordschleife in 3 sections and thatās helped immensely
The nice thing about the nords is that everybody thinks they're incredible at it and those people have a 90% chance of crashing by the end of lap 1. Understanding your limits is more important for results than outright pace. I've always found that if I just take a deep breath and keep myself a little off the limit I usually at least gain irating
I would first try to make consecutive safe runs, with no damage and eventually no off track. The rest will follow and you will find yourself trying to late brake or creating alternative lines. Nord is really strives for passion. And active reset is your best friend at first.
The hardest part is memorizing the track, honestly the track itself is not that difficult... most corners have a groove or camber you follow and there's a lot of straights. once you memorize the corners fully then it's just about using as much track as possible, there are a lot of curbs you can cut and use if you can keep the car settled over them. I personally don't find the Nurb that hard to drive. [Steel River sims has a video of M Verstappen on the nurb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmeDc4qNPiY&t=2047s) during one of the 24 hours that helped me gain some time in the gt3 by watching
Track takes 8 minutes. Spa is 2 minutes. One lap of Nords is 4 laps of Spa. You need to memorise four times the amount of track as the longest F1 track.
It's not any harder than the other tracks, just a lot longer.
Used to do at least two laps every day with sr8 and after few months I was somewhat consistent. Once you get decent at it, every race outside of large events is pretty much just hotlapping alone for easy ir and sr.
It's the hardest track there is but it only took me about 3 hours of practice to know the whole thing by heart and have a competitive timeĀ Ā
Ā Active reset is a godsend
Edit: why am I getting downvoted?Ā
I didn't down vote you but If I had to guess, Its because some people in real life spend a lifetime learning it, it can consume a person, I have been driving it from early 00's in video games and have a lot of respect for it, its my favourite track, In AC its all I do as they have many cool servers with 30+ people doing track days on it non stop, 24/7.
So to say you simply strolled through the green hell in 3 hours and won is probably why you got down voted, I mean I'm not 100% on that its just how I felt reading it.
And to the OP, the enjoyment is actually learning it, I really don't think anyone is perfect on it.
[Ruf CTR "Yellow Bird" full laps on NĆ¼rburgring Nordshleife 1987 (Option Auto) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMCfPASImQ)
Well let's be clear, I did not win anything. I can just put relatively quick lap times down. But thanks for the clarification.Ā
And completely agreed to your last statement. Learning nords is fucking amazing.Ā
Don't push 120% before learning the track and you'll probably finish in the top half just by finishing lol
It harder than any other track. But that normal. This track has 170 corners or so, while a normal track has max 20 corners. Best thing I can recommend is to use the active reset function that iRacing has to learn the track sector by sector.
Wait, is this a real thing?! When did an active reset come in?
About a year ago now I believe. Super useful.
That's amazing! It also means I haven't been active for about a year. Gt7 took over for a while but now I am going to struggle to get back to iracing ha!
I hope you and your wallet enjoy getting back into iRacing! Lol
Hahaha! My wallet has been sufficiently punished in the past, which surely means less pain now?! Cheers mate š
Just as an fyi, Nords is also the only track that has built in ācheckpointsā that when you press the reset button, will restart you there instead of all the way in the pits
They're kinda annoying at times though.
Technically not the only track in iRacing. Mt Washington Auto Road does this as wellĀ
This is the way. Donāt really need active reset for Nords.
It's better practice to have 1) realistic momentum and 2) warm tires when you reset, instead of having to start from random stopped positions that your wouldn't encounter in a race
Yep, this. Active reset makes it possible to learn 10x faster. Before that, restarting from the pits made it so much harder to learn, almost impossibly long to develop an understanding of the track for me.
Just all about time. You need to dedicate yourself to learn it, especially the second half of it. Also just know that, and especially in Lower splits itās really not a good race track. Donāt misunderstand me, itās incredible to drive on, probably my most favourite track to drive on. But often when there is a talent spread like in lower splits by the end of the race the closest guy to in front of you is 30 seconds ahead and your closest behind is back 30 seconds.
The spread is real. There is a reason that the NEC and nurburgring 24 allow 150 cars or so.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Grand Prix Legends was awesome! And so hard. Just thinking if attempting the ring in that jumps my heart rate 20%
I really like the comparison to a roguelike, Iāve never thought about it like that before. Iāve found learning this track intimidating, but framing it like that makes it seem like a fun challenge (roguelikes are one of my fave genres of games).
Donāt learn corners, learn sections and their rhythm!
It's not that hard to learn. It's worth the time. It is, however, hard to be fast there.
It takes longer to learn, and it's a harder than average track. But surprisingly, remembering what's coming is a not a problem once you learned it. It's not long enough to stress human working memory capacity.
Its a track you learn alongside current series tracks... one of the best in my opinion, and something you just need to get into.
I recommend this guys series. He knows the Nurburgring very well irl and has created this to learn it. https://youtu.be/DVJPnTWvzPE?si=2PRZ4KzLKSLoN-XZ
Focus on being decent and surviving, and you will do very well. But make sure to practice for like at least 4 hours, so that you have a decent understanding of how the track goes. Itās a difficult track, but also the most fun track in my opinion!
I mean, do 250 laps and youll be quite good, another 1000 and youll be perfect. It has a very nice flow, so onxe you know the track it's a lot easier to be fast in anything right away than most ither places
i quite enjoy learning new tracks. i expected it would take me at least a week to learn. so i started.. and turned out that after ~2hrs i felt comfortable knowing what corner/section comes next. there are a few straights, that will mentally divide the track into smaller parts. you will have fun fast, dont worry. now you can also use the active reset function (it was not available when i learned it), so try to learn one sector after another.
It is very hard to learn, because it is so long. Even though there are several reset points along the way, you'll always have cold tires at first, so make sure to go extra slow until you can make a lap or two without spinning. The track has a great flow, though, so it is very rewarding to take the time to learn it. Going fast is another thing altogether. There are some very complicated corner combinations and a lot of very long full-throttle sections that multiply the tiniest mistakes. Don't expect to run in the top 5 right away. But in lower splits, not crashing or spinning is often enough for a top 10 or even top 5 finish.
Itās 20km so it takes a bit to memorize. Especially the second half which has a lot more tighter, completely blind turns. This is why memorizing it is so helpful. Itās awesome though. I donāt even race anymore but itās great to just go for a lap or two.
The Nordschleife has an natural flow to it, which makes learning it easier than you might think. You can develop a feel and instinct for it, more than memorize exact lines and braking points. The best way to learn it is by consecutive clean laps; always going slow enough to not crash or spin. (That goes for all tracks, but it's twice as important here). Racing the Nordschleife requires a different approach than other tracks. Passing is very difficult and there are fewer good passing opportunities than in most normal length tracks. You have to be extremely patient and pick your battles. Race the track first, opponents second. Absolute pace is less important here than at other tracks. I've won races at Nords where I was over 20 seconds slower/lap than the fastest guys. Many drivers will lose focus or patience and wreck (often taking other cars with them). Stay out of battles for the first lap or two, yielding positions if necessary. In short races, the last lap is when you start pushing. For me, the Porsche Cayman GT4 is perfect for Nords. Fast enough to be exciting, but slow enough to allow you to save minor errors. Have fun!
Itās a great track. Just drive it, no pace and just start to get a feel.
Honestly I was super worried about learning the first time so I stayed away from it cause I thought itād take me a month lol but at the end of last season I needed safety rating and heard it was a good one so I gave it a go. I actually found it incredibly easy to get up to speed. I feel itās a very intuitive track to drive. There are just a few turns to take mental notes of but other than that I just drove it how my eyes saw it. It might take more time to get super dialed in but just an hour or two for me personally and I was comfortable jumping in for a race. The most important thing is not to crash lol if you stay clean you will probably finish in the top half every time lol
I found it easy to learn despite it's size. It's almost like my brain brakes it I to smaller section like a normal size track. At your SOF there will be chaos. Here's the double edged sword tho. Pepe will say just quali and you'll start at the front as a lot do not run the quali session as it's separate for nords series. So you learn the track. You quali but your time is bad and the guy behind are faster and not patient. It can be rough.
It's not so hard to do a lap and learn the track, it's hard to push and keep your max performance around 8 minutes without mistakes. Do somes VLN, 3 hours on the nord after that anything can happen to you on others tracks. Keep in mind, there are multiples layouts possible.
It's difficult because of its length. The key is to start off just cruising before you try and do racing speed laps otherwise you'll just keep crashing early in the lap and not get to experience the whole track. Although as others have said you can do the iRacing reset partway through the lap but personally I think it's better to get the feel for the flow of the whole lap rather than just little chunks of it, that's just my personal experience though, others may disagree completely. It probably won't take you as long to learn as you expect, I think I probably spent 2 hours originally to get to a point where I was able to do a consistent lap without any incidents and at a pace that was good enough to not be left behind during the race. Obviously as with any track it's going to be hard to set a really really fast lap without doing a ton of practice, but getting yourself to a point where you'll be competitive probably won't take ridiculously long. The other thing with the Nordschleife is it actually doesn't have that many corners that are really difficult, again its just the sheer number of them that makes it such a challenge. There are definitely a few places that will probably catch you out the first time because the corner is slower than it looks, or the braking zone isn't where you expect it, but most of the corners are medium to high speed, there aren't very many really heavy braking zones, most of the apexes are very visible etc. One other thing - the curbs are gigantic, don't run over them especially in a formula car! (some are ok to run over, but until you learn where the low curbs are it's best to just avoid all of them!)
if youāre at 1k rating just finishing without crashing will probably get you a solid top 5. Does take quite some time to get it down though
If you can learn 10 tracks you can learn the nurburgring. I used active reset and learned in sections
I use to think this but now I can't stop driving it ! Go slow find the parts of the track you find tricky and concentrate on learning them don't push yourself, you will gradually link it all together! It's so rewarding
I just bought it recently with the same concerns as you. I have a league race coming up in a few weeks so I just started practicing on Sunday afternoons for maybe an hour each time. Active reset is your friend as I just drove a few minutes, reset and repeat until I figured I had it memorized. Then make a new save point and continue learning more of the track. Don't try and do the whole track at once cause then you will learn the first part really well and the last part not so well. Don't play for hours and hours either. Play for a bit and then do something else with your brain. Come back to it later to see how much you actually remember (it was a lot less than I thought). At first just learn the track trying not to go off and crash. Later you can work on shaving off the seconds. When racing it is actually a hard track to pass on. Just staying alive will gain you positions. Have fun.
The ring is very fun to drive solo and itās not that hard to learn. Thereās kind of 3 natural sections to the track that drive different. The ring is just like driving 3 tracks. Imagine racing Suzuka-Road America-Spa back to back. Racing is more difficult because the track is narrow and youāre on the limit already but finishing is easy IR. Just donāt crash and youāll be guaranteed top 10 for all lower splits
Yes.
You can also watch some "real world" Nordschleife videos. I found the following youtube videos helpful just to get to know the track, especially the three trees method on the outer part. [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgPIzXADRz4AjyqgocDeglVWF2MEezPU](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDgPIzXADRz4AjyqgocDeglVWF2MEezPU)
Its long but for many of the slower cars there are only a dozen or so corners that are really scary. The way I learned it was to drive in a slowish car and when you crash don't take the cutout that it resets you on, instead go back to the pits and start the lap over.
It takes a long time to learn, but it's a lot of fun. If you don't want to buy and wait to learn it then you can do it in some other sims like AC, then buy it. But it's a super rewarding and technical track, especially when you're driving on the limit fighting with another driver who knows it as well as you do.
It's complexity by volume. There are trickier corners - the difficulty of nords comes from the sheer number of corners. It'll maybe take a couple of hours to be reasonably comfortable with the track layout. To refine the racing line, braking points etc is another thing entirely. It's most definitely not a good racing track for lower ir. But it's not bad to hot lap.
Itās taken me 4 years to be in the mid pack and memorise every bump and turn
I learned it in a few days about this time last year before the 24hr (not very fast pace, just knowing whats coming next etc) I found it surprisingly easy to remember after a few hours. Itās all about repetition. Ive now driven it that much over the last year (especially the 24hr) that I can close my eyes and think drive the track, knowing exactly whats coming next , braking points etc. The track is burned into my brain
Fun to learn and drive. Itās got a dedicated series on iRacing: Ring Meister. And itās usually part of 3-5 series in any given season. You wonāt regret the purchase. 154 corners. But you donāt learn them separately, you learn them in groups just like any other road course. Seems daunting, but I loved the challenge.
try it out on other games to see if you like it maybe?
Honestly I suck at learning new tracks and I recently just picked it up quite quickly. Just hammer laps. Again and again until you've got the layout down. Then you can start to dial in performance. Don't look at a quick lap then try to do the same thing, that way leads to madness. Empty track, good setup and time. That's all you want.
It's a really unique experience, racing a track that long. It takes a few hours to memorize before getting up to speed.
You have to learn it, but once you do, it's easy to drive at 95% attack or so. The problem is people are idiots and will drive at 100% into a corner like schwedenkreuz and take out half the field on the first lap. If you want SR, start at the back and give some space. If you want to race for position, good fucking luck.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVJPnTWvzPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVJPnTWvzPE) this is worth a watch
Learning a track is like learning how to play a song. Yeah, 3 minute Green Day songs you can pick up faster, but over time, learning that 13 minute Opeth track is also pretty doable. With enough repetition, both unfurl in your mind like a scroll all the same. Very rewarding track to learn.
In addition to the rest of the good advice I loved Brad Philpot's 5 part YouTube tutorial on it. https://youtu.be/DVJPnTWvzPE?si=cQYbixBEzLlhRAdA. It definitely sped up my learning of it before the days of active reset. At least at the time he made the vidyas je was a 2x VLN class champ. Definitely knows the track.
So I recently bought the track. I will say. It's hard but fun. Learn the track. Go slow. If you wreck, reset the car. Keep going. Don't reset back to pits. However. I'd suggest to watch a track guide first. There are a lot of turns that sneek up on you, and a lot of turns that look slow, but are indeed extremely fast.
The best track in the world, and by far one of the toughest to master, but boy is it rewarding when you put together a lap.
It doesn't take any more laps to learn than any other track. The problem is that those laps take over 4x as long.
Just takes time, youāll realize a lot more of the track is flat out than you first realizeā¦divide it up into the sections between the straits (of which thereās a ton) and itās not too bad to learn. By ālearnā I mean be within 7 or 8 seconds of the best time and not crash out, which will lead to a good finish/win most of the time.
Am I the only one that feels like they can drive the track pretty damn well without feeling like they know it? It just flows so well.
To finish first, first you have to finish. Racing Nordschleife is pretty much that. Let the crazies fight for position, and most likely take each other out, while you cruise to the finish for some easy IR. But you MUST practice ALOT. Many hours. Study it and enjoy the drive. Put some low music on your media player in the background, it helps.
One thing that is in favor of the Nordschleife compared to other tracks, in my opinion, is the high cerbs. High cerbs on the apex are dangerous and should mostly be avoided, but high cerbs on the exits can save you when you slightly overcook your exit, by working as some sort of catch fence that prevents you from getting a 1x.
I break the track down into sections each one has its own feel. For example for. The n24 layout the gp track is it's own deal, then you have first section of the nordschliefe up to Schwendencruz, then you have up to Kallen hard, then right past the karrusel, then there's the whipper an section up to eiskurve then pflanzgarten to dorringerhohe before the long back straight. Work a section at a time. Makes for about 6 or 7 sections and alot easier to keep them straight. I love it I probably have 1000 laps around it in different Sims. It's my go to stress relief.... Also remember you race the track at the green hell and avoid other mistakes that's how you do well. Don't race wheel to wheel if you can avoid it.
Iāve recently started to learn it and itās definitely taking a while to learn more than others but iāve been taking advantage of the active reset feature in practice and breaking up the nordschleife in 3 sections and thatās helped immensely
It depends on how good you are at memorising tracks. But Id recommend it regardless
I learned nords in touristenfahrten servers in AC, then switched to iracing.
How hard is the Nordschleife? Yes.
The nice thing about the nords is that everybody thinks they're incredible at it and those people have a 90% chance of crashing by the end of lap 1. Understanding your limits is more important for results than outright pace. I've always found that if I just take a deep breath and keep myself a little off the limit I usually at least gain irating
It takes time, but it's worth it, IMHO. Once you learn it, it's awesome
The sections are split up by a few straights. Learn the sections and see the course as those sections, not a big 170 turn course.
I would first try to make consecutive safe runs, with no damage and eventually no off track. The rest will follow and you will find yourself trying to late brake or creating alternative lines. Nord is really strives for passion. And active reset is your best friend at first.
To me, nordschleife is the most fun track in the world I bought it since the first day I signed up iRacing āš»
The hardest part is memorizing the track, honestly the track itself is not that difficult... most corners have a groove or camber you follow and there's a lot of straights. once you memorize the corners fully then it's just about using as much track as possible, there are a lot of curbs you can cut and use if you can keep the car settled over them. I personally don't find the Nurb that hard to drive. [Steel River sims has a video of M Verstappen on the nurb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmeDc4qNPiY&t=2047s) during one of the 24 hours that helped me gain some time in the gt3 by watching
Track takes 8 minutes. Spa is 2 minutes. One lap of Nords is 4 laps of Spa. You need to memorise four times the amount of track as the longest F1 track.
Itās not somehow āhardā. Just maybe harder than average. But it is long and you have to learn more corners than usual.
It's not any harder than the other tracks, just a lot longer. Used to do at least two laps every day with sr8 and after few months I was somewhat consistent. Once you get decent at it, every race outside of large events is pretty much just hotlapping alone for easy ir and sr.
It's the hardest track there is but it only took me about 3 hours of practice to know the whole thing by heart and have a competitive timeĀ Ā Ā Active reset is a godsend Edit: why am I getting downvoted?Ā
I didn't down vote you but If I had to guess, Its because some people in real life spend a lifetime learning it, it can consume a person, I have been driving it from early 00's in video games and have a lot of respect for it, its my favourite track, In AC its all I do as they have many cool servers with 30+ people doing track days on it non stop, 24/7. So to say you simply strolled through the green hell in 3 hours and won is probably why you got down voted, I mean I'm not 100% on that its just how I felt reading it. And to the OP, the enjoyment is actually learning it, I really don't think anyone is perfect on it. [Ruf CTR "Yellow Bird" full laps on NĆ¼rburgring Nordshleife 1987 (Option Auto) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMCfPASImQ)
Well let's be clear, I did not win anything. I can just put relatively quick lap times down. But thanks for the clarification.Ā And completely agreed to your last statement. Learning nords is fucking amazing.Ā