'Daunting. Frightening. Dangerous': Why Max Verstappen is stepping out of F1 to take on the 'Green Hell'

Daunting. Frightening. Dangerous. There isn't a superlative in the English language that wouldn't accurately describe the 25-odd kilometre ribbon of bitumen known as the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

This weekend, 160 cars and close to 600 drivers will do battle for 24 hours to try and win one of the most prestigious but difficult races in all of motorsport

The track is narrow and undulating. There are north of 150 corners – depending on your definition of a corner – and there is bugger-all run-off. The tiniest error could put even the most experienced driver in the wall and out of the race.

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The weather in the Eifel mountains can also be unpredictable – over the past decade the race has had to be stopped for fog, apocalyptic rain, and even hail.

Three-time F1 world champion Jackie Stewart once described the track as the Green Hell. It's a nickname that's stuck ever since.

All this only adds to the allure of the Nürburgring, and it's why four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen will be among the 600 or so drivers to compete this weekend.

The Dutchman has long held a simmering desire to expand his horizons beyond the realms of F1, and began the process towards being able to compete at the Nürburgring several years ago. His discontent with the new regulations has only cranked the heat and brought that desire to a boil.

Such is the unique nature of the Green Hell, even he can't just arrive and drive. Competing on it requires drivers to hold a racing licence beyond the Super Licence required to drive in F1.

To get it, Verstappen had to sit in a classroom and learn the rules of the track, before proving he could apply those lessons in an on-track test in lower-powered machinery. Then, before he could compete in the 24hr, he had to compete in a minimum number of races in the Nürburgring Langstrecken Series (NLS) – the endurance based series that competes on the track every month.

Unsurprisingly, he passed the tests with flying colours, and will line up this weekend driving a Red Bull-backed Mercedes GT3 for his own team.

Such is Verstappen's pulling power, the entire precinct has sold out for the first time in the race's 50-year history. While the exact number of tickets sold has not yet been made public, estimations are the weekend attendance will be somewhere in the realm of 300,000, with most of them camped somewhere along the sprawling circuit.

'Success is winning'

Verstappen said in March he wanted to "have fun" in his foray into GT racing, which given he's won the world championship four times, shouldn't come as a surprise.

But while he's still looking for fun, don't for a second believe he's not taking it seriously.

He drove at the circuit in a GT3 car for the first time in an unofficial practice session late last year. To avoid attention, he entered under the pseudonym Franz Hermann.

And he broke the track record.

Others suggested the car was set up in a way that would have been illegal under race conditions, but Verstappen insists it was not.

Further proof of his desire to win is the pedigree of his three co-drivers.

Lucas Auer, Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella are among the most respected and successful GT drivers on the planet, and between them have multiple victories in the Daytona 24hr, Bathurst 12hr and Spa 24hr.

Earlier this year, Verstappen and his team asserted themselves as a genuine contender for the 24hr when they took a dominant victory in an NLS race. They were later stripped of the win for a tyre infraction, but the message was clear.

"Success is winning," Verstappen told media ahead of this weekend's race.

"That's why we're here. I know it's not going to be easy, but that's the target for everyone."

'This is real motorsport'

Adding to the allure of the Nürburgring 24hr is the calibre of the teams.

While Verstappen's and the 40 other entries in the SP9 class, which will compete for outright honours, are entirely made up of professional teams and drivers, that's far from the case for those in the lower classes.

The V divisions are for production based cars. Essentially, any race car driver could walk into a showroom, buy a road car, make some racing modifications and enter. And they do – models entered in that division include the Cupra Leon, VW Golf and Scirocco, and Toyota Supra.

Having all those cars, with incredible speed differentials, competing on the same track is part of the reason why the Nürburgring requires its own licence.

But Verstappen said it serves a reminder of "what real motorsport is like".

"I jump out of the car and I'm happy, and that's what I'm trying to chase, instead of coming out of the car and ... not feeling frustrated, but just a bit disappointed, I would say.

"It's a bit more old school. It's just going a bit more back to how I grew up in racing – there are professional teams, but you also have amateur teams, and everything just races together.

"They're all there for the love of motorsport, I would say.

"It just shows that my love (of motorsport); it's not only around Formula 1.

"I love racing. I love competing. Just going back to a bit more old-school, proper racing, that's what I'm trying to seek.

"That's what I get from driving at the Nordschleife."

Seventy deaths. Hundreds injured

Where modern F1 tracks are criticised for their over-sanitized nature, the Nordschliefe is exactly the opposite.

Starting in 1925, it took 2500 workers two years to build the circuit around the town of Nurburg and its medieval castle.

Virtually from day dot, safety has been the biggest concern of drivers. The circuit has always been narrow, and it took until the 70s for barriers to be installed around the entire perimeter of the circuit to protect drivers from the trees and buildings that were in some places pressed hard up against the edge of the circuit.

"I'm aware that I can have a bad crash there, but I'm not afraid – I like it, actually," Verstappen told ESPN back in March, ahead of his first NLS race.

"I really enjoy driving there, it gives me a smile on my face.

"Every time I jump out of the car, I'm happy. That's also what I'm after, to be honest, to have fun. I know it's a dangerous track, but I'm happy to take that risk.

"I mean, you can crash anywhere. It's dangerous in a lot of different circuits … I mean, (Suzuka) is dangerous as well. It just depends how you look at it."

While the most egregious safety concerns have long been sorted, the track is still dangerous, and Verstappen and the entire field got a reminder of that only in April.

During qualifying for an NLS race in which Verstappen was competing, a rain shower caused a massive pileup which claimed the life of Juha Miettinen. He was the 70th driver to die at the track while competing in a race. Hundreds more have been injured.

"Shocked by what's happened today," he wrote on Instagram.

"Motorsport is something we all love, but in times like this it is a reminder of how dangerous it can be."

The track hosted the German Grand Prix 22 times between 1951-1976, and gaps in races at the track were mainly down to safety concerns by the drivers.

In 1976, the track was the venue of the fiery crash that nearly killed Niki Lauda. In heavy rain, he lost control at Bergwerk – about half way around the lap and as the crow flies as far away from the pits and paddock as possible – crashed through the poorly installed fencing and into an earth bank behind it. The car burst into flames and was hit twice by cars unable to avoid the spinning Ferrari.

He was rushed to hospital with third degree burns and heavy lung damage, and his plight was so dire a priest read him his last rites.

Against medical expectations, Lauda not only survived, but returned to the car only six weeks later, and would fall just short of a second world title.

The Hollywood blockbuster Rush was based on the 1976 season and Lauda's crash.

A look into the future

This adventure into the unknown is something of a litmus test for the Dutchman.

He's long maintained he holds no desire to extend his F1 career in the same way the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso have.

He has numerous interests outside F1, including sim racing and his GT3 project.

So it's not unrealistic to suggest this could be a glimpse into the future for Max Verstappen. He could do worse than carve out a career in GT racing, in which the current rules could allow him to race well into his 60s or even 70s.

But before he thinks about that, he has to make it through one of the most gruelling tests in motor racing, in which simply getting to the finish is an achievement.

The Nürburgring 24hr will start at 11pm Saturday night (AEST), and can be watched live on the Nürburgring YouTube channel.