The Nürburgring is a motorsport race track named after Nürburg Castle in the area of the Adenau municipality (Ahrweiler district, Rhineland-Palatinate) in the Eifel region and was inaugurated on 18 June 1927. The "mountain, racing and test track", which was originally about 28 kilometres long, was in operation in its original form until 1982. The Nürburgring is the longest permanent race track in the world.

In 1984, the "most modern and safest Grand Prix circuit in the world" was opened in the area of the start-finish loop and the south loop. The then 4.5-kilometre-long GP circuit was directly connected to the 20.8-kilometre-long north loop. Both sections can be combined to form a 26-kilometre long overall circuit, which is, however, only used for races in a modified form: For NLS/VLN races without the Müllenbachschleife (24.433 kilometres), for the 24-hour race without the Mercedes Arena (25.378 kilometres). Furthermore, the Grand Prix circuit can be divided into the sprint circuit (so-called short version) and the Müllenbachschleife (southern part of the circuit).