This blog Post is an overall summary of the trip we made. We go into more detail about how each car performed, and share videos of them in action on the links below.

CitiGo at the Ring

Spa and Nürburgring - AUDI A5 3.0 TDI PROJECT

What an epic trip this turned out to be! The Nürburgring has to be on every petrol (and diesel) head's bucket list. It is like Mecca for car lovers, and every year over 2 million people visit here. Some come to watch the crashes at Brünnchen 2 (YouTube Corner), others for the pancakes at Devil's Diner, but mainly they come to drive the World's craziest Toll Road! 
When the opportunity to join some friends on one of their road trips came up, we jumped at the chance and set to work preparing our cars for the ultimate test, a lap of the Nordschleife (North Loop). The track is for most of the year a public road, 12.9 miles (20.8 km) long with 73 corners (33 left, 40 right) and an altitude change of over 300m. In the last few years it has been resurfaced to smooth out a lot of the bumps and imperfections that made this such a difficult track to master. Some purists believe it has lost some of its character, but it is still as intimidating to the first timers and regulars as it has been since it opened in June 1927.

We decided that our Audi A5 Project would make a perfect 'Ring weapon, with enough power and torque to not get overtaken by even the best driver in a Toyota Yaris, with the Quattro Four Wheel Drive system, ABS and Traction Control to keep us on the track while we attempted to learn the track. We then decided late on that it would be rude not to at least try out the CitiGo on track, so we went full steam ahead preparing the cars!

As with all plans, they have a way of falling apart! Despite 2 weeks of testing in the A5, including an evening Trackday with OpenTrack at Donington Park, a spanner was thrown in the works by the way of a burst Gearbox Oil Cooler with only 2 days to go! A replacement was quickly fitted, but this lasted all of 5 minutes on the dyno before that also failed. Further testing showed that the Oil Pressure passing through the cooler was significantly higher than expected, and meant that we needed to go back to the factory heat exchanger, which also involved removing the larger aluminium radiator and going back to the stock coolant radiator. Not an ideal situation when the forecast was 25C+ temperatures for the duration of the trip!

The mechanics worked double fast, getting the car ready for its final dyno session. Then another issue reared its ugly head! A faulty EGT sensor was giving intermittent readings, causing the power to be inconsistent on the dyno, ranging from a peak of ~420bhp, to as low as 360bhp. We decided to turn the power down to the lower level to ensure we had complete control over the critical temperatures over the trip. No one wants to be stuck in Germany with a melted piston!

The plan was to have the car 100% ready by Thursday evening, have a lie in on Good Friday before a leisurely drive to Croft Circuit to watch some of the Darkside guys and friends on a Javelin Trackday, then head over to Hull Ferry Terminal to catch the overnight service to Rotterdam with P&O Ferries. The reality was while the software guys were busy diagnosing and fixing the power issues, myself and Paul were busy preparing our spare car (a BMW M4 GTP) in case the A5 would not be fit to make it. Talk about stress!

Just in time to to set off to make the ferry, Mike and Matt were happy with the consistency of the power and that the car would be safe to thrash across Europe! We loaded the car up and headed East on the M62 to Hull.

The car was parked on the deck and we made our way higher up the boat to enjoy the facilities such as the multiple bars, restaurants, cinema and casino! The crossing is overnight, so it gives you chance to recharge your batteries before continuing the journey.

Saturday Morning, we were off the boat and instead of heading directly for Spa, most of the guys on the trip have done it quite a few times, so wanted to mix things up a little. We made a quick stop at the Louwman Museum in The Hague, which is well worth a visit, before heading to The Penta Hotel in Liége.

After a late night in Liége, eating far too much Italian food and some of the guys consuming more Belgian Beers than they would admit to, we woke up on Sunday and headed through some scenic roads to Spa-Francorchamps, home to the Belgian F1 Race. A quick refuelling at the station near the Hotel de le Source (the first since we departed, could not say the same for the M4s!), we made it to the pits and sorted all the usual trackday formalities. The afternoon session was booked with DF Trackdays, but the main organisers were SkyLimit Events, who we later were told are known as No Limits!

The car was fantastic all afternoon, taking everything we could throw at it with coolant temperatures, our most concerning metric barely touching over 100C, even with ambient temperatures of over 28C for most of the day. With ~360bhp, we were massively down on power to the seven M4s and Mercedes GT S that joined us on the trip, but we gave some of them a run for their money in the twisty bits and heavy braking zones!

Our goal was to dip into the 2 minute lap times (in comparison, the F1 lap record is 1:42.553), but it was not to be, the fastest lap of the day ended up being a 3:02.92. Still not bad for a big Diesel bus! Some wider, stickier tyres and another 60bhp would make it an easy 2 minute lap time! A video of that lap is in our A5 Spa and Ring Blog Post.

With the track closed at 6pm, we got back on the road to our next destination. Somewhere very special, The Longhorn Saloon in Barweiler, around 10 minutes from The Nürburgring. The place is owned by Sabine Schmitz, 'Ring expert and Top Gear presenter. Nowadays the Saloon is not available to book for the general public for various reasons, but we were able to book as some of the guys on the trip have stayed here for years. It was a pretty surreal experience to be greeted and showed to your rooms by such a legend! Sabine is the nicest person you could want to meet, and a great host too. She certainly ensured the guys had an endless supply of German Beer!

Another late summer like evening, then early start on Monday to check out the circuit for the last day of the Easter weekend ​Touristenfahrten (Public driving). The weather was perfect, with not a cloud in the sky, a rare event in the Eifel Mountains we are told.

After a hard day at Spa, we figured it would be a good idea to give the A5 a quick once over and bleed the brakes up. Sabine's partner is Klaus Abbelen from Frikadelli Racing, someone who knows a thing or two about preparing a car for a lap of the Nordschleife! I asked him if he knew of a decent flat area we could park the car to take the wheels off. He had one better, he would open up his workshop just down the road so we could do it on a ramp.

The workshop was more like a hospital, but for Porsche race cars! Everywhere you looked, there were cars or parts to make you drool. For the T5 owners, Klaus's 600bhp+ 911 Turbo powered T5 was sat in the corner. There was talk of it making a trip around the 'Ring sometime in the near future...

On TF days, the track operates as a 2 lane Toll Road, with overtaking done on the left just like a normal road. To access the road, you must first get a Green Hell Card from the Ticket Office, load it with some €€€ and you are set. You can also download an App on your phone to check how much you have left on the card, to save unnecessary visits to the office. On busy TF days, you won't be able to get near to the car parks around the circuit without the card. More details can be found in this blog post on the BTG site.

While we were enjoying some passenger laps with some more experienced drivers, Ryan, Stef and Neil arrived at the Saloon in the Crafter, with the CitiGo on tow. They unloaded, dropped their bags in the room and headed over to meet us all there. The CitiGo immediately drew crowds in the car park, the subtle mods capturing the attention of those with a keen eye for a modified motor!

As well as jumping in with the guys in the M4s for some passenger laps, we had to get a lap in one of the legendary Ring Taxis, being a sharing bunch, we chose the M5 so 3 of us could enjoy the lap at the same time. These guys make it look so easy!

Monday flew by, and since we had a Track Day with Circuit Days on Tuesday, we made the decision to not risk some TF Laps and wait until 8am for the no overtaking hour at the start of the day to take both cars for their shakedown laps.
We had our briefing at 7pm at the Linder Congress Hotel, which was full of familiar faces. It was basically a UK invasion of Germany!

Tuesday was the big day. Ryan headed to the Apex Nürburg office to pick up Misha Charoudin, who would be giving us some tuition in the morning as well as making some cool videos of the cars during the day. It would have been rude not to take a photo next to their Sub7UP!

Ryan had the following to say "Misha is a very good tutor and his fast paced orders from the start seemed daunting but after a few corners you tuned into what was being said and quickly began to react, this created a sense of confidence that would help the faster laps later on. He concentrated on track positioning, braking and turning more than accelerating to start but soon the loud pedal we being pressed more and the laps got faster and faster. Our intercom system was a little clumsy and the CitiGo was a very difficult car to learn the track and its stiff suspension meant even with a professional at the wheel, it took some manhandling to get around safely. I decided to have a go out in the A5 later and let Scott have a go in the CitiGo with Misha in the passenger seat..."

Thanks to Circuit Days for sending free photos of the day just hours after the day was over!

Despite a little mishap in the CitiGo around lunchtime, which involved a kerb and a tyre deciding it didn't want to stay attached to the rim, both cars survived the days beating to fight another day!

Our trackday ended at 16:15. We had come all this way, why not check out the GP Circuit while we are here? On certain days, the GP Circuit is open to the public just like the Nordschleife, with 1 lap credit (€30) getting you a 15 minute session on the track. Sharing the track with Motorbikes, some with pillion passengers, was an experience for sure!

Ryan didn't want to leave without the obligatory selfie with Sabine!

On the way home, we made a stop off at the Michael Schumacher Kart and Event Center in Kerpen, near Cologne. Worth a visit for anyone who didn't scratch their racing itch at the 'Ring!

This route also takes you on a few stretches of unrestricted Autobahn, which sounds amazing in theory, but in practice it is only 2 lanes and very busy, so quite risky to attempt a top speed run. We only managed just over 150mph before it was a little crowded!

We then headed to Rotterdam to jump on the ferry for the overnight crossing to Hull. A relaxing end to a crazy journey!

After making this trip, we recommend booking a Trackday rather than TF for your first time for several reasons:

1. Normally from 8am to 9am there is no overtaking, which gives you chance to get the car on track and get your bearings without looking in your mirrors all the time.
2. There are generally less cars on the track at once during a trackday than TF, meaning less chance of you ruining someone's lap while you learn the circuit.
3. You get an unlimited amount of laps. Most trackdays at the 'Ring, such as this one from CircuitDays, are ~£500 GBP. This equates to 20 to 24 laps depending on exchange rate and which price you use for the laps (€30 EUR weekend or €25 EUR weekday). If you average 10 minutes a lap, you can easily get 25+ in during the day without being on the track constantly.
4. You are able to carry on down the main straight without stopping for a barrier. Great for those who like top speed runs!
5. Most trackdays have Free Recovery and you are not charged for track closures. On TF days, if you break down or crash on track, it is going to cost you. DriveTribe made a blog post on potential costs. You still have to pay for the barrier if you hit it on a trackday though.
6. There are generally more marshals dotted around the circuit, which means if you have an incident, someone will have more chance of seeing you and warning other drivers of dangers ahead. You don't have to look hard to find videos of multiple pileups caused by someone just breaking down at the wrong point on the track.

Other tips for trips to the 'Ring:

• Ensure your car is thoroughly checked BEFORE you enter the track. As well as it being potentially expensive like we mentioned before, its dangerous for you and other drivers.
• Have somewhere to store all your belongings before you get to the track. There is nowhere secure to leave anything while you are there, so your suitcase, jack, spares etc will need to be left somewhere before you get to the car park. There were loads of wheels, parts and tools left around when we were there, and 99% of the time you will probably get away with it, but it is a public area with no security.
• On TF Days, timing equipment is forbidden. It's probably a good idea to not have any in car timing while you are on the circuit. It will be more distracting anyway! We just had the VBOX set to Speed Mode when on track, then analysed the data once in the car park.
• If you do plan to visit for TF, ensure the track is actually open! You can check that on the Green Hell Driver website. The GP Circuit is rarely open through the day, and sporadically on an evening, so check that too!

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You can watch the trip video here:

CitiGo at the Ring

Spa and Nürburgring - AUDI A5 3.0 TDI PROJECT

The video of the A5 chasing the GT3 RS has also got the attention of Auto Evolution