Here are all the facts and statistics you need to know about the Nurburgring ahead of Formula 1’s return to the circuit at the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix!
?? RACE WINNERS
40 Formula 1 races have been held at the Nurburgring, making it the circuit to have held the fifth most Grands Prix in World Championship history. From those 40 races, there have been 27 different winners.
Michael Schumacher holds the record for most wins at the circuit, having taken five victories. Ferrari are the team with the most victories here, with fourteen – almost three times the number of any other team. Ferrari engines have also powered the most wins at the Nurburgring. Ferrari-engined cars have won fourteen races at the circuit; double the number of closest competitor Ford Cosworth.
British drivers have taken more wins at the Nurburgring than drivers of any other nationality, with twelve victories. Germany is second in the list, with home stars having won here on seven occasions.
Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, John Surtees, Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher are the five drivers who have taken back-to-back wins at the circuit. Fangio is the only driver who has won more than two races in a row here. He won on F1’s three consecutive visits to the track in 1954, 1956 and 1957.
Ferrari hold the record for most consecutive team wins at the Nurburgring. They have won here three times in a row on two separate occasions – in 1951, 1952 & 1953, and then again in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Brabham, McLaren and Williams are the only other teams to have taken back-to-back wins at the track.
There have been nine occasions where a team have recorded a 1-2 finish at this circuit. The last team to do so was Red Bull, in 2009.
There are two drivers on the 2020 grid who won the German Grand Prix during its tenure at the Nurburgring: Lewis Hamilton won in 2011, while Sebastian Vettel was victorious in 2013. A different driver has won all of the last five races at the circuit. Read more: Nurburgring Driver Form.
Given the 23km length of the old Nurburgring layout, it’s unsurprising that no races at this circuit have been won by a lap. The largest win margin here was in 1968, when Jackie Stewart won by 243.2 seconds – that’s just over four minutes! Two races here have been won by less than a second, with the smallest victory margin coming in 2002, when Rubens Barrichello led home his Ferrari team-mate by 0.294 seconds.
From the last ten F1 races at the track, the average win margin has been 8.194 seconds.
Fifteen of the forty F1 races at the Nurburgring have been won from pole position, while 28 have been won from the front row of the grid. All five of the last races held here have been won from the front row, but only one of those has been won from pole.
The furthest back win here came in 1999, when Johnny Herbert won from fourteenth on the grid.
?? ON THE PODIUM
A total of 59 drivers have finished in the top three in a Formula 1 race held at the Nurburgring. No one has more podium finishes at the circuit than Michael Schumacher, who finished in the top three eight times.
Ferrari have taken the most podium finishes of any team at the circuit. Their total of 41 top three finishes is much higher than anyone else’s. Nearest rivals McLaren have had fifteen podium visits.
Britain is the nation with the most podium finishes at the Nurburgring, with British drivers finishing in the top three on 31 occasions.
There are four drivers on the 2020 grid who have had previous podium finishes at the Nurburgring. Both Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel have finished in the top three here twice, while Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean have each finished on the podium at the circuit once.
The lowest grid position from which a podium finish has been recorded at the Nurburgring is fifteenth. It has happened twice: Jacques Laffite finished second having started fifteenth in 1975, and Rubens Barrichello finished in third place from the same position in 1999. Read more: Nurburgring Grid Slot Stats.
There have been three races at the Nurburgring where the three drivers at the front of the grid finished on the podium. It happened in 1951, 2000 and 2006. There is yet to be a race at the circuit where the top three have finished in the order in which they started.
The 1999 European Grand Prix is the only F1 race held at the circuit where none of the top three qualifiers have finished on the podium.
?? POLESITTERS
24 different drivers have taken pole position at the Nurburgring. Jim Clark is the driver with the most poles at the track, having set the Saturday pace four times.
Ferrari are the team with the most pole positions at the circuit, having taken pole fifteen times – more than triple the tally of any other team.
British drivers have started from pole at the Nurburgring more times than drivers of any other nationality. British drivers have taken pole at the circuit on thirteen occasions.
There are two previous Nurburgring polesitters on the 2020 grid. Kimi Raikkonen has taken pole at the circuit twice, while Lewis Hamilton is the most recent polesitter at the circuit, having taken his first Nurburgring pole in 2013.
Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Niki Lauda and Mark Webber are the five drivers who have taken back-to-back pole positions at this circuit. The most consecutive number of poles here is three, recorded by Ascari, Fangio and Clark.
Given the length of the old layout of the Nurburgring, pole has been taken by more than a second on many occasions. The largest ever pole margin here is 10.9 seconds – the time by which Jacky Ickx was faster than the rest of the field in qualifying for the 1968 German Grand Prix.
Since F1 began using the shortened layout of the circuit, Teo Fabi is the only driver to have taken pole position at the circuit by more than one second. He took pole by 1.187 seconds for the 1985 German Grand Prix.
Pole at the circuit has been decided by less than a tenth of a second on only five occasions; all five of those occasions being within the last fourteen races held at the circuit. The smallest pole margin here came in 2002, when Juan Pablo Montoya set the fastest time by just 0.009 seconds.
From the last ten F1 races at the Nurburgring, the average pole margin has been 0.173 seconds.
?? SUNDAY STATS
The Safety Car has been deployed only three times at the Nurburgring – once in 1999, once in 2006, and twice in 2007. One of the Safety Car periods in the 2007 European Grand Prix was at the restart following a Red Flag due to wet weather.
Eleven Formula 1 races held at the Nurburgring have been affected by rain. It was wet the last time a race at this circuit was held in October, in 1995.
27 different drivers have set the fastest lap of a race at the Nurburgring. Michael Schumacher has set the most fastest laps in a Grand Prix here. He set the Sunday pace on five occasions.
The fewest number of cars to finish a Formula 1 race at the Nurburgring is five. This has happened twice – in 1956 and 1969.
In total, 946 cars have entered a round of the World Championship at the Nurburgring. Of those, 922 qualified for races and 524 reached the chequered flag.
There have been 22 Did Not Starts recorded at the Nurburgring. The most recent was for Rolf Stommelen in 1976, who had his Brabham car seized by the police. However, the German driver did actually start the race in another car.
The 1976 German Grand Prix and the 2007 European Grand Prix are the only two races to be held at this circuit to have been red-flagged.
Two races at the circuit have failed to run to their scheduled distance. Both the 1995 European Grand Prix and the 2005 European Grand Prix were shortened by a lap due to aborted starts.
In total, 1,493 Grand Prix racing laps have been completed at the Nurburgring.
?? CHAMPIONSHIP GLORY
From the 40 races held at the Nurburgring, the winner of the Grand Prix has gone on to win the title in the same year on nineteen occasions. Of the last six races held at the circuit, only the most recent was won by the driver who would be crowned that season’s World Champion.
Four Drivers’ Championships have been decided at the Nurburgring. Alberto Ascari secured both of his titles here in 1952 and 1953, Juan Manuel Fangio won his fifth and final title at the track in 1957 and Jim Clark won his second and last title at the circuit in 1965. 1965 is also the only time that a Constructors’ Championship has been decided at the circuit, in favour of Clark’s team, Lotus.
While there have been no dead rubber races held at the track, the Constructors’ Championship had already been decided before the Nurburgring round of the season in 1961 and 1984.
From the last sixteen races which have taken place at the Nurburgring, there has been only one where the championship leader after the race has failed to go on and win that year’s title. That was in 2007, when Lewis Hamilton held a two point advantage. That same year, McLaren failed to convert their championship lead after the European Grand Prix into title victory. It’s the only time a team has failed to convert championship lead after the Nurburgring to title victory in the last eleven races at the circuit.
