Forget Le Mans: this is the real deal

The Nürburgring 24 Hours isn’t a Brit-magnet like Le Mans, but it should be – 250,000 fans, endless parties and racing on the world’s best endurance circuit.

A SHIRTLESS MAN is running towards us through the forest, wielding a searing red emergency flare above his head, his yells only just audible over a mechanical cacophony all around. Sounds like a climactic scene in a disaster movie, actually just another slightly crazy fan at one of the world’s crazier races: the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

There’s no race quite like the N24: 150 cars, four times as many drivers, 900 marshals and a quarter of a million rabid spectators populating the forests around the 15.8-mile circuit. It’s not only a race but a giant festival of motorsport culture, and an event you simply have to experience at least once.

There’s no more full-on way to experience it than to camp at the circuit in the midst of the madness (or on the fringes of it, at least), and I drove CAR’s i30N over to Nürburg to do just that, sharing a campsite with Hyundai UK, there to support their touring car cousins. Hyundai Motorsport fielded a two-car i30N team in the TCR category (the N24 has a dizzying number of classes), and qualified one-two in class, lining up ahead of plenty of GT Porsches.

The i30 looks great in racing trim, all box arches and snowplough front splitter, and I reckon our long-term test car would look great on a set of those white competition wheels.

The man in charge of Hyundai’s N division, Albert Biermann, was in buoyant mood, an avuncular figure bouncing around the pits. ‘At first N stood for Namyang [Hyundai’s Korean R&D centre] but I suggested we combine it with Nürburgring because nobody knows Namyang! And we make a lot of big development decisions here, on the back roads and on the track. We have tons of wind tunnel data, but final decisions are made here – in corners where you need a big heart, the car must feel planted.’

As the race rages on and night falls, we trek through the forest to the banked Karussell turn. The further into the woods we get, the madder the camping pitches become: huge DIY viewing platforms built days before the race sprout live TV feeds, more sofas than a DFS sale and occasionally, somehow, running water. One pitch includes a hot tub, and I swear we see a functioning dishwasher. But the must-have installation in any N24 pitch is a giant sound system. Wailing Audi V10s and shrieking Aston V12s are far out-decibelled by speaker stacks blasting out every imaginable genre of music (but with hardcore techno a recurring theme). A makeshift club in a campsite with revellers dancing emphatically to a dance track with lyrics about Niki Lauda is an image that will stay with me forever.

The slings and arrows of endurance racing meant Hyundai’s i30N racers finish second and fourth in class, in a finale obscured by mist and rain.

The five-countries-in-one-day drive home feels unimaginable at first, but the i30N is a decent long-distance runner. The seats are supportive and adjustable enough to avoid a numb back, the stereo does a good job of drowning out road noise from the fat tyres, and Hyundai’s tuned the exhaust cleverly, snarling and gurgling at low revs but avoiding droning at cruising speeds.

Plenty of space on board too, enough for two tall occupants to use the same armrest without bumping elbows and to fill every cupholder and doorbin with road snacks with space to spare. Ride quality is better on smooth continental tarmac too, the i30N feeling taut rather than jiggly, as it can do on scarred British tarmac. Just a shame it’s so thirsty.

As we grind through traffic jams back in England in the wee small hours, I’m convinced the N24 is the best race in the world today. And the fact that our test car has a connection with it makes me feel even warmer towards the i30N.