Hockenheim’s forest straights: the circuit Formula 1 left behind

Hockenheim is another great circuit that no longer exists as many of us remember. It was one of the most frightening and dramatic places to go racing. There is still a hugely sanitised version of the old Hockenheimring near the town of Hockenheim in Baden-Württemberg but it’s barely recognisable as the scene of so many thrilling German Grands Prix.

“I always liked the old track,” says Damon Hill. “You were flat out at 215mph through the forest for 20 seconds, the fir trees whizzing past three times a lap, then you’d be hauling on the brakes into the corners. In the wet a mist would hang in the air, a little bit scary, but the stadium section was beautiful and flowing, I loved it.”

The original circuit was not, as is often assumed, built to provide Mercedes-Benz with a test track. It was the idea of local timekeeper Ernst Christ, who decided in 1930 that a track should be built in his hometown. Two years later, with support from the mayor and Germany’s Motorsport Association, work started on a triangular track called the Dreieckskurs covering just over seven miles. At this stage public roads were used and the layout had unusually long straights. Before the outbreak of war the circuit was shortened to 4.78 miles, featuring the now-famous Ostkurve.

In the 1960s plans for a new highway meant that the Hockenheimring had to be redrawn again, this time by John Hugenholtz who added the stadium section which gave the track a slower stretch after the long, fast straights through the forest. Concerns over ever-increasing speeds brought chicanes, one on each of the long straights, which in retrospect was the beginning of the end for a spectacular and super-fast circuit that was not for the faint-hearted.

Hockenheimring
In Use 1932-
Fastest Race Lap 1min 41.591sec, Riccardo Patrese, Williams FW14B, F1, 1992
Fastest Qualifying Lap 1min 37.087sec, Nigel Mansell, Williams FW14, F1, 1991