The spirit of the old Hockenheim circuit still lurks in the forests beyond the current layout, as Motorsport Week discovered during the build-up to the most recent German Grand Prix in 2016.
To those uninitiated to the world of motorsport, a walk through the forests to the east of the sleepy and amenable town of Hockenheim is merely a pleasant voyage through quiet countryside in the warm summer sun. To those with memories of watching TV pictures of Formula 1 cars blasting between the trees, it is an eerie monument to what has been lost, heightened by the uncertain future of the German Grand Prix.
‘Old Hockenheim’, as it has now been dubbed, began life in the 1930s, and soon became recognised as a high-speed trip between the forests, until it was truncated in 2002, amid political pressure, the desire for spectators to witness more and the financial strain a large area of land placed on circuit owners.
Upon attending Hockenheim, tracking down the old circuit is a must, for parts of it remain traceable. A trip along the paved Ernst Wilhelm Sachs-Straße leaves you walking parallel to the modern circuit, exiting Turn 1, and up to the Jim Clark memorial, an understated tribute for one of the sport’s greatest talents, as the post-2002 layout stretches away towards the right.
The section of old circuit between Turns 2 and the exit of Ostkurve was entirely bulldozed and given over to nature, with the growth in just 15 years startling. You cannot walk exactly where the old circuit used to be, only on a parallel pathway, though an intersection halfway between the current Turn 2 and the old Jim Clark chicane provides a brief glimpse of the old track due to the treetops along that thin strip being lower than the rest of the foliage.
That public path, which initially runs adjacent to the overgrown old circuit, splinters in different directions at the aforementioned intersection and thus finding the Jim Clark chicane means heading off the beaten track to climb through knee-height grass and stinging nettles, while swatting away relentless swarms of insects that have gathered in the hot summer evening. Eventually, a clearing appears between the impenetrable thickets. The area is now a sandy and grassy pit, the soft sand at times difficult to traverse, with a pool of water at the basin, though it at least remains possible to visualise the layout.
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Ostkurve, further around the forest that runs parallel to the tiny Hardtbach river, is much the same, though the nature of the clearing, and the raised bank, means it is easier to grasp the old layout, especially while standing on the grass once occupied by tarmac. In a peculiar way, Ostkurve is a sadder setting. It is so quiet, but for the gentle rustling of grass, while the greater ability to envisage the old layout acts as a more vivid reminder of past eras. A pantheon of greats wrestled machinery through this piece of land: Lauda, Piquet, Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Häkkinen; spectators packed onto the banking to be left agape at their talents; marshals kept a watchful eye on proceedings; photographers captured the moments for evermore… now it’s just grass and a variety of bushes. They don’t race here anymore. They never will.
The exit of Ostkurve is marked by a dense and tall hedge, on the other side of which is a fully tarmacked public path, part of which acted as the pre-2002 layout. A smattering of cyclists mosey along as the evening wears on, while the fences that mark the boundary of the modern facility, as well as the Mercedes tribune, are just about visible in the distance amid the heat haze. The relics of the old circuit are still apparent: white lines that used to define the circuit boundary, and a thin strip of grass on either side of the long straight demonstrating where the run-off used to be, the once luscious green now faded. The straight is hauntingly evocative, stirring memories of the V10s or V12s that used to scream along before braking for the Ayrton Senna chicane, located roughly at the spot now occupied by the modern-day hairpin.
The current circuit is not a bad layout by any stretch of the imagination – it often provides entertaining racing – but it will always be in the shadow of the past. Old Hockenheim, irrespective of the quality of racing, was a different challenge, and would present teams with set-up headaches, as well as test different elements of the package, both man and machine. Is there a wistful air of rose-tinted spectacles? Yes, of course. Life must move on and develop to new places with new faces, though there will always be an element of regret that the iconic circuit no longer exists for any form of racing or even demonstration runs. It is not wrong to be pensive about the past while simultaneously enthusiastic about the future; the two are not polarised. Yet the future is precisely what is troubling regarding the German Grand Prix. Does Formula 1 have a long-term place in the country?
This year’s German Grand Prix is the last under the current contact. Formula 1 may return to Hockenheim in 2020, but there is every reason to believe that it will not. And the aura of Old Hockenheim will continue to seep away as nature gradually reclaims the land.
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