Andreas, u goin? Nick Heidfeld will have his wings clipped when he tackles the Nurburgring's famous 'Nordschleife' layout in a BMW Sauber this weekend. For a BMW event, the German will drive the 21km layout known as 'Green Hell' that almost claimed Niki Lauda's life back in 1976. But team officials have clipped Heidfeld's wings by arranging that his F1.07 is equipped only with 'demonstration' Bridgestone tyres - which are significantly slower than the real thing. Heidfeld is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport as revealing that he is 'disappointed' with the news. It also emerges that 29-year-old Heidfeld will not round the Nordschleife's notorious and famous banked 'Karussell' section. "Obviously not," Team Principal Mario Theissen told the news agency sid, explaining that the steep and bumpy concrete banking will be off-limits to a modern Formula One racer. Ultimate performance of Heidfeld's car will also be compromised by an extraordinarily high ride-height, but Theissen insisted that he thought the BMW Sauber would still reach impressive top speeds in excess of 300kph. 30,000 spectators are expected to watch the event unfold trackside on Saturday
I wish. Too bad he isn't doing the Karussel. Therefore whatever time he ends up with, it is ultimately meaningless. Waiting for this to show up on Speed TV or at least Youtube.
Karussel is basically one long straight to and from it. That leg can be cut off. Take a look at a very detailed map or an aerial shot (e.g. as in the credit run of GT4 for the PS2).
Yes but the short cut looks like a dirt road to me (at least at Google Earth). Heidfeld might be better off with one of those Paris-Dakar BMWs
I checked on SpeedTV and didn't see anything for this weekend. So I guess youtube will be the fastest source. I can't wait.
Hmm. Maybe he'll simply drive on the non slanted part of the Karussel. Taking the wide outside line. Technically still the Karussel, but not the "Steilwandkurve".
You can drive on the outside of the karusel ... on the flat part... there aint much room! I dont think he can actually bypass the corner ... the access road does not stay paved long... and actually goes down to Adenaur village... He may come to a slow crawl... and go around the outside.... with F-1 you would have to have a higher ride hight... and I would still expect that even with less sticky tires... it will be impressive. Remember 76 when the last F-1 went there... so thats a lot of performance change since then or even in the 80's with the 956 Porsches .... I predict he will still set a lap record.... unless the aero package is a huge barn door... what will be very interesting is the G exposure going down to Adenaur and back up the hill.... when I did it in a VW golf rental... the compression at 120kph ( 60 Miles ) was incredible! cant imagine what it will be at double speed! Heidfeld has some big balls if he really goes for it!
Remember he holds the hill climb record at Goodwood and going flat out around the brick wall section or in the forest is no pic Nick either.
I'm not sure if it'll be a new record, but Mr. Theissen said that Nick will definitly reach 300km/h. That's gonna be interesting cuz those who have been on that track can confirm that it is bumpy as hell. He'll definitly not use the Caraciola-Karussel cuz while entering the ground panel of the car would be heavily damaged. Even a Ferrari 360CS hits the ground there. The lap will only not be a demo lap but a hommage to the Green Hell. Anyway, imagine an F1 car at the Pflanzgartenjump. Nick could drive right into the hospital afterwards... I actually wanted to go to the track but my dad couldn't drive me. Instead I'll have a ride in a BMW M5 (E60)...
It's a little disappointing that the car is going to have "show" tyres on it rather than full performance Bridgestones, as well as the fact that he's going around the outside of the Karoussel. The latter I can understand, but at least give him the best tyres possible. Still can't wait to see it show up on youtube tho.
8:34 lap time, thats pathetic. He could have easily taken 3 minutes off that time, but he had to slow down for photos. He should have done a second lap, blown every bodies doors off.
Boy I wish for a lot of things. I wish I was there to see it, I wish Heidfeld did more than one lap, I wish he would've really went for it and set a serious time, I wish they used different tires, I wish it was a Ferrari...yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh, and I wish it was on youtube as fast as possible, I wanna see onboard footage really bad.
http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/bilder/cat.php?c=07bmwnordschleife first pics...sry, it's a german website...
When is this event? I have been watching the Burburg Cam for two days and have not even seen anything? http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/webcams.html
Wow, that's horrible. They only let him do one lap? If they're going for PR the real fans are going to be very disappointed that he wasn't allowed to shoot for a lap record.
Yeah I was seriously dissapointed. Apparently not only did they give him **** tires, he was instructed to slow down often just for pictures. What the hell was the point? It was built up as more of a time attack than a homage, then after it's all said and done it was referred to as the latter.
I was wondering the same thing. This event is supposed to be for PR, what could they do better than set the record at the Ring. Ferrari now needs to do an F1 Clienti event at the Ring and let some amateurs try it out and break the record, that would be some great PR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VNGqto7EPg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww1FHmSx8qw Only 2 videos on youtube so far, he looks to be going pretty fast in these. Each is about 30 seconds and you can clearly hear the car a good 10 seconds before it appears.
Great PR until they fly off the track in a vintage F1 Ferrari. I do agree that some other team does need to go ahead and pull the same stunt, only actually let their driver cut down the lap record by a minute or so.
The E39 M5 (394hp) did a 8:28 lap time, LOL! The overall lap record is 6:11.13 in a Porsche 956 (in Quali). One of the benefits the 956 has over an F1 car is a lower amount of drag caused from exposed tires (open wheel cars like F1). I think an F1 has a good chance to top it, but I think a 962 would beat an F1 car.
