Sky Sports F1 pundit and racing driver Naomi Schiff has revealed a “terrifying” memory from competing in the 2018 Nürburgring 24 Hours.
Schiff secured second in the Cup-X class in the 2018 edition of the endurance race, behind the wheel of a KTM X-Bow GT4 for True Racing.
There is significant attention on the Nordschleife and its level of difficulty due to the 2026 race taking place this weekend.
A major reason for the global interest is Max Verstappen making his 24-hour debut, with the four-time world champion targeting a possible victory.
The Dutchman will face immense challenges across the race, with wet weather looking highly likely. In addition, Verstappen is yet to drive the track at night.
Entering the race is not for the faint-hearted, as Schiff recalled a key memory from her experience in the event.
“I remember getting up in the middle of, sort of like, early morning for my next stint. I’d slept a couple of hours overnight, and it was raining, and I’d never driven the track in the rain, so I was like, ‘Okay, great time for it to rain, like during the race, when I’ve never driven this track in the rain before.’
But honestly, it was so much fun. I get that it is trickier and visibility is limited, and there are so many different cars, different speeds, different categories, but I had so much fun.
The one thing I did not enjoy at all was the fog, because at one point the lap is so long, and the conditions are completely different around the circuit. So the back end of the lap, like at the end of the Döttinger Höhe — which is the really long straight at the end of the lap — it was like you couldn’t see a thing. You couldn’t. It was like driving into a white wall. And that was honestly terrifying.
Then when I went around for another lap, which takes about, in the category I was racing in, about nine and a half minutes, the fog had completely moved, so you didn’t know what to expect. But then they red-flagged it.”
