Forza Motorsport is adding the Nürburgring Nordschleife to its roster of tracks this month.
That might not mean much to those of you who aren’t as motorsport-pilled as me, but let me explain. As race tracks go, the Nordschleife is a nightmare and a beautiful dream at the same time. A fearsomely dangerous and challenging race track in its day, the Nordschleife is 20 long kilometres and 73 turns of the most incredible driving road ever created. It demands perfection. You cannot make a single mistake. On the Nordschleife, mistakes will get you killed.
Formula 1 champion Jackie Stewart nicknamed it ‘the Green Hell’ because race drivers were considered lucky to be alive if they could make it through a race there without getting themselves killed. Yes, they used to race Formula 1 cars on this monster at one point. The great Niki Lauda was badly burned and nearly killed in a terrifying crash on this track in 1976. Even before he went out there, Lauda stressed his concerns about the conditions on the day and the dangers the track presented.
When I say it’s dangerous, this perfectly illustrates what I mean. This track had some of the greatest drivers F1 has ever seen packing their dacks. The Green Hell managed to unnerve guys who were born fearless. It has earned its reputation many times over.
Because of this, the Nordschleife is a popular track for racing games to recreate because everyone wants to test their mettle. The Gran Turismo 7 version is particularly good, as is the version in iRacing. It’s a track that has been laser-scanned to within an inch of its life for perfect accuracy, so I trust that the Forza Motorsport version will be a banger also. The track is thin by today’s standards, winding through the wooded surrounds of Nürburg in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The track surface is covered in graffiti from adoring fans and visitors, and it retains sections of its iconic race track structure, with banked concrete corners and blazingly fast downhill cornering. The iconic straight at the end is like a sigh of relief, an acknowledgement that you made it through the worst of what the track has to throw at you.
Anyone who’s driven it in real life or in a sim can tell you what an ecstatic, horrifying feeling it is to fly through the Nordschleife. Even if you only have a passing interest in racing games, I’d strongly recommend grabbing Forza Motorsport on Game Pass to try it out. Do a run in a performance vehicle like a GT3 car first to familiarise yourself. When you’ve done a couple of laps, drop yourself into an open-wheeler — a classic Formula 1 car or maybe a Japanese Super Formula — and give it a go. I promise you now: you will know you’re alive.
The Nordschleife was added to Forza Motorsport in the recent Update 5 drop. Good luck.
Source: Xbox Wire.
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