As midnight came around, it was time to get back to the apartment for some sleep. I did go and check out some of the camp sites near Adenau, it was a sight to behold. Little did we know that this was the last time we were all going to see any racing. At around midnight the race was red flagged due to heavy fog, with the plan to resume at approx 7:00am. Unfortunately, when 7:00am came around, plans kept getting pushed back every 30 minutes… the race did eventually get underway again under safety car conditions with 2 hours left on the race time. Drivers were saying on the radio that the conditions were okay to race. But race control deemed it was too dangerous to go racin, probably the right call in hindsight but as a spectator it was frustrating to not get any racing. Captured in the photos below are some very harrowing shots of just how bad the fog was. The track spans 25km in length with ~17% elevation change throughout. So while some parts of the track might be clear with no fog, other parts would be completely covered in fog. A unique and challenging characteristic of the Nurburgring.


Even though my first 24 hours of Nurburgring was more like 7.5 hours… this was a very special experience and the atmosphere around the track and event was pretty damn awesome. An event I will definitely revisit sometime in the near future and will be praying to the heavens for good weather.

I underestimated how much of a trek getting to the Green Hell was.


Taking the Eurostar from London to Cologne with covid was not fun. And then when I got to Cologne, Oleg, the father of the apartment manager I had booked came to pick me up from Cologne station and drive me to Adenau, a small village on the outskirts of the race track with a population of only 3000 people. Surprisingly the small town had a lot of facilities like 3-4 supermarkets, lots of shops, a bank a couple of restaurants — basically what you'd expect from any small city. I arrived towards the end of qualifying day, so there wasn't much to see except to get my bearings around the small city and have dinner, a big kebab plate, where the owner of the resaurant was surprised I travelled all the way from Australia for the race — this was a recurring theme throughout the race weekend whenever I introduced myself.


The next morning on raceday, Oleg picked me up from the aparmtnet and we drove to the main center of the race track for me to pick up my pass. What should've been only a 10 minute drive turned into a 40 minute traffic jam. This year, the race had a reocord breaking 250,000+ participants. I think endurance racing is having a big moment, with other events such as the Le Mans 24 also expected to have a record year in 2024.


When I eventually got the to front desk of the info center to pick up my pass, for they couldn't find it… it took them 30 minutes to verify my purchase and then find the pass. Thankfully they did let me go and sit in the paddock lounges in the meantime. Finally when my pass got hand delivered to the lounge, I was then able to go out and venture through the paddock and take photos of the teams as they got the cars and drivers ready for the 4:00pm race start. Teams hustled to get their cars onto the right spot on the grid and drivers and their race engineers had one last chance for race preparations and to meet fans and media.