Awesome Nurburgring

Performance carmakers test their vehicles on the Nürburgring. But did you know that Germany’s challenging 13-mile track is a public toll road that anyone can drive on? The rules of the road apply, though there is no speed limit. Tom Scott took a ride along with a pro driver for a look at the famed circuit and how they handle track safety.

Normally, race car drivers try and get around the Nürburgring in the fastest way possible. But Vaughn Gittin Jr. decided to do it in the most entertaining way, drifting the entire 12.9 mile Nordschleife in his 900 hp Ford Mustang RTR. He had a little fun in an F-150 Raptor too.

We’ve seen fast cars run the Green Hell in just under 7 minutes, but we’ve never seen anything like Timo Bernhard’s record-shattering run in Porsche’s 919 Hybrid Evo – with a bonkers lap time of just 5 min, 19.55 sec – which smashed the long-standing record by 51+ seconds.

When it comes to racing around a track, they say “smooth is fast,” and that’s most definitely the case in this record-breaking, yet cool and calm 6:47.3 lap of the Nordschleife, set in the shockingly fast new Porsche 911 GT2 RS, by driver Lars Kern.

If there was ever any question that electric vehicles could be faster than gas-powered ones, let this video be a lesson to you. Ride along as the NIO EP9, a 1342 hp electric hypercar laps the Nürburgring in 6:45:90 – the fastest time ever recorded in a production car.

The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is the car we’re most excited to drive this year, and here’s further evidence why. Watch as driver Fabio Francia crushes the production sedan lap record with a bonkers 7 minute, 32 seconds lap in the bone stock 510hp Italian beast.

Very few of us will every get a chance to drive the Nürburgring – especially in a 610 hp Audi R8 V10. For the rest of us mere mortals, enjoy this VR video of pro race driver Tom Kristensen taking that awesome sports car for an abridged lap of the famed Green Hell.

You’d think the Nürburgring wasn’t exactly a good place to drive in the snow, but the green hell looks like it’s just as much fun when it’s covered with white stuff, as demonstrated in this video of a classic 911 being drifted around the track by driver Patrick Simon.