The amazing DTM Norisring Track

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At dusk, we head to the famous Norisring track located just a stone throw away from the old town in the southeast corner of Nuremberg. This temporary city track is the second shortest circuit in DTM, measuring only 2.3 km long. With today’s technologies, one lap is shorter than 50 seconds. From start to finish, Audi DTM drivers will pass the grandstand 82 times. Despite the fact that Norisring has only four corners, this city track has attributes that are not found in a regular race tracks, and the track gives serious challenges to drivers and mechanics.

The very short track requires drivers to be in constant change between maximum acceleration and maximum braking. Audi mechanics must tune the car suspension with little camber and weigh distribution with rear bias to optimize acceleration after slow negotiation at U-turn and chicane. Brake performance must be monitored constantly through the telemetry system as the brake can heat up to 800 degree Celsius. At this track, drivers and equipments must endure 2G force over 80 times throughout the race when they have to decelerate from 250 km/h to 45km/h.

Secondly, the street track is made of many different sections that were constructed with different materials. At one section, the surface is as rough as the face of teenagers with pimples, and at another part, the asphalt is as smooth as the championship basket ball court. To top that, weather condition will change the friction coefficient of the different track sections, making the decision on tire compound selection and tire pressure so much harder. It is not a skill that can be learned from a text book, but it is the many years of drivers-and-mechanics racing experience that produces the winners.

We end our Nuremberg exploration by tracing the Norisring track as close as we can in our A5 Sportback. We drive through the right hand sweeper and the left hand U-turn at Grundig tower, and back in a sweeper towards the Schöller-S righ-left chicane. A back straight is followed by a right hand kink and then a left U-turn leading back the main straight. Images of DTM Nourisring racing videos fill our minds. We really appreciate the amount of racing experiences that have gone into Audi production cars. And that’s one of many reasons we love our [e-mail]

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