Max Verstappen the 'only F1 driver brave enough' to race at Nurburgring

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen the 'only F1 driver brave enough' to race at Nurburgring

Max Verstappen previously admitted he would never race in rally like his father

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 21 May 2026 17:42

A former F1 racer has suggested that four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen is the only driver on the current grid brave enough to take on the Nurburgring.

Verstappen raced a 24-hour event at the German track last weekend, which is nicknamed the 'Green Hell'.

The Dutchman and his Verstappen Racing team - which also included Lucas Auer, Dani Juncadella and Jules Gounon - finished 37th, but dominated large periods of the race before experiencing driveshaft issues.

Article continues under video

It was not the first time that Verstappen has raced around the Nordschleife, winning on his debut there last year, while also racing there twice earlier this year for separate events.

The most recent F1 race to have taken place on the Nurburgring Nordschleife was the 1976 German Grand Prix, which was won by James Hunt, but it was deemed to be too dangerous to be used on the F1 calendar due to its blind corners and extraordinary lap length.

Last month, racing driver Juha Miettinen lost his life at the track during Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) qualifiers.

None braver than Verstappen

Now, former Red Bull racer David Coulthard has commended Verstappen for taking himself out of his comfort zone by competing at the track.

Verstappen recently admitted that he would never compete in rally like his father, revealing that particular risk was too much for him.

“That is a scary racetrack,” Coulthard said about the Nordschleife on the Up to Speed podcast. “I've been around that, and the commitment that at that level you need to have to be competitive, to be at the front like they were… Sadly, we reported on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, there was a driver who lost his life on that very track, such is the nature of the challenge of the racetrack.

“So we should not sort of just look at it as, ‘Oh, Max loves driving so much he's just out having fun on the weekends’. If he was doing that, he could go to any of the FIA-regulated tracks that are very similar of the current Formula 1 tracks.

“But to go there, this is old-school commitment, and that's what sets him apart from the others. The others are technically very good racing drivers, there's no question about it. I would question whether any other driver on the Formula 1 grid right now would accept the challenge to go and race at the Nurburgring.”

Why F1 will never return to the Nurburgring Nordschleife

The 1976 German GP saw one of the most infamous moments in F1 history. World champion Niki Lauda lost control of his Ferrari before the right-hand Bergwerk curve, and crashed into an earth bank, before the car bounced back onto the track, engulfed in flames.

Brett Lunger hit Lauda's stricken car, while Harald Ertl then hit into the back of Lunger's car. Lauda's rivals stopped and helped him out of his burning Ferrari car, but Lauda had suffered serious burns and was rushed by helicopter to the Bundeswehr hospital in Koblenz.

He almost lost his life in the days following the incident, but remarkably made a full recovery, and was back racing in F1 by the 1976 Italian GP, before claiming the title in 1977.

Lauda, Ertl and Lunger weren't the only drivers to crash during the race, with Ronnie Peterson, Patrick Depailler and Vittorio Brambilla also crashing out, while the inability for the helicopter to get to Lauda's location on the track within five minutes led to a lot of criticism.

It was deemed that organisers just did not have the resources to manage such a long circuit, and that was not satisfactory for F1, who never returned to the full-length circuit again.

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Nurburgring Nordschleife 24 Hours of Nurburgring David Coulthard