N-vigorating: Driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife with Hyundai N
A pilgrimage to the Nürburgring with the Hyundai i30 N and Ioniq 5 N
If you’ve been doing something long enough -no matter how awesome it may seem on the outside- chances are you’re feeling a little burnt out. Jaded. Unmotivated. Maybe even you start thinking maybe it’s time to move on and do something different. And just then, I get a call.
“Hi Vince. Are you free for a drive next month? Germany. Nürburgring Nordschleife,” said the lady at the other end of the phone.
I cut her off right there. The answer was yes.
If you’re coming from the Philippines, an invitation to drive the Nürburgring Nordschleife is as rare as they come. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two times that such a call came along. And for any car enthusiast, this is manna from heaven.
As soon as we arrived, I knew this was going to be awesome. The main road just outside of the newer grand prix circuit is car spotting heaven. There was an unusual density of models from McLaren and Ferrari, several SLS AMG units, and definitely a lot of BMWs. Heck, I saw more Porsches than Toyota Corollas there.
I was in the right place. Mecca. Vatican. Nürburgring. The places for the faithful. But the thing is, I wasn’t with any of the badges that normally call this place home.
I was with Hyundai.
While they will never openly say it, there is still a perception that Hyundai makes cars that are second to Japanese. Of course we in the automotive press know that isn’t true; Hyundai makes incredibly good cars, but they wanted to do more. They wanted a reinvention, so they built a performance brand.
All the other guys are doing it. BMW has M. Toyota has GR (before that, TRD). Honda has Mugen. Mercedes has AMG. Nissan has NISMO. Hyundai has N. The official literature that represents Namyang in South Korea where development happens, but it’s really in Nürburgring where the fun happens. That’s what brought us here to the Nordschleife edition of the Hyundai Driving Experience (HDX).
HDX is an arrive-and-drive experience that tours different tracks around Europe to showcase Hyundai’s N models. Customers can pay about 1,000 Euros (about PHP 62,000) for a full day of instruction and lapping sessions from their instructors. It’s a safe environment to experience the car much like a local driving event, but you weren’t going to be coddled like a child either. Remember: the Nordschleife is treated like a toll road, meaning helmets aren’t required. We’re all big boys here.
Up bright and early on Day 2, I headed out from breakfast shaking. Reason 1 is because of the coffee (and maybe the adjustment to the time zone), and the second is because we’re driving the i30 N on the Nordschleife: fear, excitement, and a bit of caffeine all rolled into one.
As a car, the i30 N is alien to us from the Philippines. We did have the i30 before, but that didn’t last for long; too pricey and too unusual in a market that knows Hyundai more for vans and sedans rather than European-style hatchbacks. The closest equivalent of the i30 (now a fastback) would perhaps be the Elantra, while the closest approximation of the i30 Fastback N model would be the Elantra N.
It’s a car not too dissimilar from something like the Civic Type R: a front-wheel drive performance car that has 280 PS, a sweet DCT, and plenty of modes to play with. Literally, you can adjust almost everything with the car like the behavior of the suspension, how sharp the shifts are, the electronic LSD, the steering feel, and more. The only thing we weren’t allowed to touch was to relax the stability control, nor would I even dare on a track I was unfamiliar with.
Yes, if I were on a simulator rig with Gran Turismo on the PS5, I’d be turning those aids off. But this is real f***ing life. There’s no reset button if you wipe out, and all you have to do is to look around during our sighting lap of the Nordschleife: every single piece of new Armco barrier you see is a sign that someone crashed there. The guardrail is new because the driver had to pay to replace it.
Rolf, our instructor, wasn’t going to let that happen. He took us on a follow-the-leader tour of the Nordschleife, with his German accent explaining certain sights like the Swiss cross (Schwedenkreuz), the Karussell, and the spot where Niki Lauda had his accident that ended F1 at the Nordschleife. More importantly, he showed us the correct line, how to judge the corners, and where to brake.
Honestly, that first lap I found myself being in awe. Imagine the googly eyes of a kid in Disneyland, or when you, as a red-blooded male, first stepped into a (ahem) club for gentlemen. Those long wooow eyes. That’s me. But after a few more corners in the subsequent laps, that novelty wore away; we were going much faster.
Nordschleife is a demanding track. The constant sequences of corners with blind exits demands concentration because all the corners are either third or fourth gear. Contrast that with the circuits we experience in the Philippines where most are third to second gear. The braking points after the long straights demand precision in how you place the car and how well you reach the threshold of the ABS. And you’re turning the wheel and holding it there for a few seconds, especially on some of the longer corners, so much so that my wrists were getting a little sore. There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I should have done what the instructors did and set the steering force on the EPS to normal.
The more laps we did, the faster we went. It’s difficult to go fast, and dangerous if you lose concentration; that’s why I wasn’t speaking much on camera during the lapping sessions. I needed every bit of focus I could muster. What the simulator can never convey are the G-forces you encounter. There are dips that just compress you in your seat while some jumps can make you feel weightless. Then suddenly you have to brake. Then there’s the Karussell that just shakes the whole car as you take the merry-go-round.
The i30 N is taking it in stride. Lap after lap, session after session, the car wasn’t tired. The car was perfectly fine, the tires were good, and the brakes didn’t fade even though I started to realize later on that I was braking a bit too much. The i30 N was the fish and the Nordschleife was the water. I was the tourist, learning it and making a few mistakes when it came to judging the entry and the gear.
I can see all my mistakes on a VBOX they fitted into the car; you plug in a USB and it gives you an overlay of the track and your speed. It serves two purposes: one is a nice giveaway, and the other is a means to see if and how you screwed up.
Back at the parking area and restaurant (awesome burgers, BTW) at Döttinger Höhe, we took a little break. Just then, a pack of i20 N hatchbacks came along, and I would really have wanted a go with it. The prospect of a lightweight 204 PS 5-door with similar tuning to the i30 N really appealed to me. What Hyundai had in store for us was different: we were going to try out the Ioniq 5 N.
At 650 PS, this has more than triple the power of the i20 N and more than double the i30 N that I had already become familiar with. This has a torque vectoring all-wheel drive system and a weight that’s similar to a GT-R. While I have driven the Ioniq 5 N before in the Philippines for my standard reviews, I never had to keep up with other drivers on a racetrack (that I’m new to) with it before.
The moment we passed the bridge, the real drive started. It’s just hard to convey in writing how the acceleration just pins you into the seat. Then there’s the braking, the cornering ability, and the high level of grip. Yes, it’s all enjoyable on a leisurely Tanay drive like what I did back home, but right now the purpose of that performance is to keep me from becoming a cautionary tale on the barrier.
I was panting. The G-forces are even more than before, and our cornering speeds were much faster. I wish I could tell you what speed we were doing, but I was too busy trying to stay on track and stay with the leader. This is the most demanding experience I’ve ever done and we’re still at level 1: the beginner level. Later, the instructors would take us on a hot lap as passengers to show us what the real entry speeds were and where the proper braking points were, all with ESC off. I was not prepared for the speeds Herr Mark (the driver) was doing, but at least I made sure I kept my lunch in my stomach, unlike one of the more self-confident participants.
At the end of the day, with the cars being trucked away, I finally understand what Hyundai is doing venturing so far away from their home to be present at the Nurburgring: they want to connect to us car enthusiasts... or N-thusiasts.
Everywhere you look around the Nürburgring, it's about automotive passion. Every person who goes here may speak different languages, but they're all here because they share a love for cars and a passion for driving. That's what the Nürburgring represents, as it is a facility built nearly 100 years ago that has become hallowed ground for a passion that, quite frankly, is starting to erode into obscurity.
Hyundai doesn't just want to keep it alive; they want to grow it and make it more accessible with their N adventure. This all began almost 2 decades ago when they first tried out competition at the Nürburgring, explored the possibilities of performance cars with models like the Genesis Coupe, and brought in key people from other brands that understood performance and, ahem, sheer driving pleasure.
The results were the N cars, and we can feel the results on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Now I’m raring to get back to work. Consider me N-vigorated.
