Careless Driving Caused This Massive 15-Car Nurburgring Shunt

It's easy to let the excitement overtake you when you hit the track, but we can show you 15 reasons why it's better to leave margin for error...
Careless Driving Caused This Massive 15-Car Nurburgring Shunt

A massive and largely avoidable mass crash has been reported at the Nurburgring, damaging 15 cars and leaving two people in hospital.

According to a local police report, a Porsche 911 GT3 RS that was being driven like it was on fire popped a radiator hose right in the middle of the Hatzenbach Chicane – that’s the one you see in my photo below.

Careless Driving Caused This Massive 15-Car Nurburgring Shunt

Then, owing to the fact that no marshals were present and no yellow flags or warning lights had been activated, in tandem with other drivers’ general refusal to leave margin for error as they chase personal best lap times, 14 more cars piled in, losing grip on the coolant spill and smashing into already stranded cars.

Lap timing is banned on open days, with the owners’ idea being for people to enjoy the circuit without taking risks. We all know no one actually listens to that, though, which is how the ball gets dropped, big time.

Fog patches are one of the Nurburgring's many hazards
Fog patches are one of the Nurburgring's many hazards

Three people were taken to hospital with serious injuries, including one person who had to be cut out of their Audi and helicopter-transported to hospital. Authorities are chalking the total insurance bill well up into six figures.

The police are asking that people drive ‘on sight,’ by which we understand they mean to drive within the limits of your line of sight, i.e. making sure you can stop before hit what’s just coming into your vision.

This is the sort of carelessness that could one day see the Touristfahrten banned altogether. That said, the track has a question or two to answer about marshalling, but if you drive the old course yourself, remember that this sort of thing can and does happen…

Source: Bridge to Gantry/RheinlandPfalz Polizei

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Comments

Anonymous

A lot of grey areas but I reckon there should have been some marshalls on this particular part of the circuit so majority of the blame falls on them I reckon.

11/01/2017 - 10:54 |
45 | 3
Zonda Man (Full Send Squad)

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

No because it was not a racing session. That woukd be like blaming the government for unsafe street racing conditions. The circuit was open to do slow laps, not all out time attacks.

11/01/2017 - 13:27 |
9 | 2
Nishant Dash

Instead of being considerate of slower cars, traffic, etc. All that people do on track days is go balls out and crash…

11/01/2017 - 11:00 |
14 | 4
JenstheGTIfreak (pizza)

again or is this what happened a while back?

11/01/2017 - 11:03 |
1 | 1

Knowing CT staff this would be news from a few days back

11/01/2017 - 11:25 |
2 | 1
𝘼𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚 𝙉&#x1D

Hmmm are they sure that it wasn’t a mustang that had crashed. after all, there were no marshals in the area…

Serious injuries are no joke though.

11/01/2017 - 11:09 |
1 | 15

Mustang jokes are old and no longer funny.

11/01/2017 - 12:05 |
7 | 0
𝘼𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚 𝙉&#x1D

Whatever floats your R33 (Boat)

No disrespect.

11/01/2017 - 12:07 |
1 | 10

I am pretty sure you haven’t driven an R33 GTR in real life to call it a boat, if you have, you have the right to call it whatever you want.

11/01/2017 - 12:16 |
5 | 1
TheBigLoser

No video? Damn.

11/01/2017 - 12:32 |
1 | 0

There must be some footage of the incident but the police probably asked them not to publish anything since there are people injured etc…

11/01/2017 - 14:25 |
1 | 0
Griffin Mackenzie

Knowing Porsche it could have very well been on fire lmao

11/01/2017 - 13:24 |
0 | 0
Mark Stanton

Found a video on YouTube of the aftermath of it:
https://youtu.be/-07HK7nCV50

Shame to see a couple of E30’s in there, especially that orange one, but take particular note of the dark red E36

11/01/2017 - 13:25 |
4 | 0

What the heck happened to that TT?? It doesn’t look that badly damaged but the cage is folded

11/01/2017 - 20:59 |
0 | 0

Orange one might be an e21.

Roll cages might have saved a few lives right there.

11/02/2017 - 13:12 |
0 | 0
Bring a Caterham To MARS

Matt Kimberley what do y’all mean by “Cut out of his Audi”? Did he have a limb of his stuck in it?

11/01/2017 - 16:01 |
0 | 0

cut out of means that there wasn’t a way of getting the driver out of the car without cutting a door and/or other car parts

11/01/2017 - 17:46 |
1 | 0

Usually means the cars body is so crumpled you can’t open the doors. If the person inside is shaken enough or in shock to not be able to immediatly move on their own, emergency services WILL proceed to cut up the pillars to evacuate the occupant(s). Standard nasty accident affair.

11/02/2017 - 13:45 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

I am scared that because of these people track days could be canceled. We don’t have those here and I dream of going to one in Germany sometime.

11/01/2017 - 17:35 |
0 | 0