'A peculiar absence': Why is there no German Grand Prix?

The year after that, 2014, at Hockenheim, despite the fact that the drivers’ world championship was being thrillingly fought for by a German adonis (Nico Rosberg) and a British megastar (Lewis Hamilton), both of them in Mercedes-Benz cars decked out in Germany’s famous Silver Arrows livery, the race day attendance was barely better, and on Friday in particular the grandstands were ignominiously empty. Toto Wolff was moved to say: “It’s just not satisfying. If you compare Hockenheim Friday to Friday at Silverstone or Friday in Austria, it’s a different world, and we have to understand why that is.” Well, Toto, I can tell you why that was: it was because Michael had retired.

When Stefano Domenicali was asked about the German GP problem last year, he said: “If anyone wants a German Grand Prix, it’s me. But I just don’t see any representatives in Germany who want to sit down with us and make a constructive suggestion.” They will not, Stefano. If Michael’s son Mick had turned out to be as gifted as his father, things would have been different.

But, sadly, the apple fell just a little too far from the tree.

Moreover, the available circuits lack lustre. German GP have been run at only three venues – Avus, Nürburgring and Hockenheim. Avus held only two, in 1926 and 1959. All the rest have been at either Nürburgring or Hockenheim. But, in F1 terms, both those circuits are now pale shadows of the glorious racetracks that used to host German Grands Prix in the past.

The old Nürburgring Nordschleife, the infamous ‘green hell’, still exists, is extremely busy, and will for ever remain most people’s idea of the greatest circuit of all time, even though it last staged a German Grand Prix 47 years ago. By contrast the sanitised Nürburgring nearby is just that: sanitised. As for Hockenheim, when it supplanted the ’Ring, it was vilified by F1 purists – for what it was not rather than for what it was. What it was, until its 2002 redesign, was unique. Yes, Monza was as quick in terms of average lap time, but the venerable autodromo was rapid because it was made up of average-length straights and fast corners. The old Hockenheim was made up of super-long straights and slow corners.

As such, to be competitive at Monza in recent-ish years, you needed and still need a medium-ish amount of downforce to be quick enough in the fast corners – whereas to be competitive at the old Hockenheim you needed to optimise your car’s top speed on those super-long straights and ask your drivers to muscle their way through the slow turns, aided by minimal downforce. It therefore favoured drivers who were prepared to monster their cars. It is no coincidence that Jochen Rindt, Niki Lauda, Mario Andretti, Alan Jones, Rene Arnoux, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Gerhard Berger and, yes, Michael Schumacher all won there.

Thirty-odd years ago I track-tested a Porsche 911 SuperCup car at the old Hockenheim. I was shown the lines and braking points by Walter Rohrl, and, although I tried to pay attention as I sat awe-struck next to a master at work, when I then tried to emulate him alone I was both untidy and slow, even embarrassing myself with a half-spin at the Sachs Kurve.

I have never driven a lap of Nürburgring Nordschleife, but Mercedes-Benz used to provide ‘taxi rides’ there, in fast AMG road cars, for journalists and sundry others. One year the offer was extended to a few McLaren staffers, for, then as now, the Woking team was using Mercedes-Benz engines. Paddy Lowe, Sam Michael and I were assigned a four-seat AMG C-Class. Sam and I belted ourselves into the back seats, and greeted our superstar chauffeur warmly – by name. Paddy then climbed into the front seat, and said, “Hi.”