Yahoo Autos How the 1976 German Grand Prix Forever Changed the Fate of the Nurburgring Nordschleife
Formula 1 has not driven the Nurburgring Nordschleife since 1976.
James Hunt will go down as the last winner on the 17.5-mile track.
Niki Lauda's fiery crash is the lasting memory of F1's last trip to the big track.
The old Nurburgring could never be called safe, but in the summer of 1976 the question of safety was high on the list of priorities in the Formula 1 world. Grand Prix racing had become a very dangerous game, with cars that were too powerful for the circuits on which they raced.
In the three years prior to the German Grand Prix that year, five drivers had been killed at the wheel of F1 cars: Roger Williamson, François Cevert, Peter Revson, Helmuth Koinigg and Mark Donohue. It was too much.
At some tracks, the drivers were frightened—if they would admit it. And, of course, it was worst of all at the Nurburgring. When the F1 circus arrived at the 'Ring that summer they were worried. There was only so much that the organizers could do.
The guardrails were too close to the road, there was little run-off to slow down a car that was out of control. The track was so long that the number of marshals required was huge, the amount of equipment enormous and the cost of reconfiguring the track unthinkable. In an effort to provide a better fire service they organised high-speed intervention vehicles, converted Porsche 911s, but these still took time to get to the scene of any crash—and in those days fire was still a major hazard.
The late Niki Lauda, who was the World Champion on 1975, and was leading the 1976 World Championship, made it very clear. He didn’t want to race.
"My personal opinion is that the Nurburgring is just too dangerous to drive on nowadays,” he said . “On any of the modern circuits if something breaks on my car I have a 70/30 chance that I will be all right or I will be dead. Here, if you have any failure on the car, one hundred percent death. We're not discussing if I make a mistake, but if I have failure on the car. If I make a mistake and kill myself, then tough shit."
At the drivers’ meeting that weekend in 1976, he proposed that they boycott the race. They voted and the majority wanted to go ahead.
"Some of them wanted to seem brave,” Lauda said, "others were simply too stupid to know what they were doing. I steeled myself to drive, although my brain kept telling me it was sheer stupidity. The antithesis between the modern-day racing car and the Stone Age circuit was such that I knew every driver was taking his life in his hands to the most ludicrous degree."
