The relatively shallow 8.7 degrees of banking means the long, fast left-hander can’t quite be taken flat-out and was billed in the lead up to the event as “hardcore” by Winward Mercedes driver Lucas Auer.
“I think everybody is shitting his pants a little bit when you go there,” he admitted. “Last week when we tested there, the first lap I thought ‘Oh, gosh, it’s hardcore.’”
Team Rosberg Audi driver Nico Muller added: “I was very nervous about that corner for the first time [in 2021].
“It’s a big challenge to be that high on speed, managing the little lift that you needed and not losing time, keeping the momentum up, because also the straight afterwards is very long. It’s a very different challenge.”
It was therefore expected last weekend that Turn 1 speeds would be pivotal to lap times, but data seen by Autosport shows that it wasn’t perhaps as decisive as expected.
The data showed the highest speeds at the mid-point of the corner during qualifying and the races, and was not necessarily from the best lap set by each driver in those sessions.
Unsurprisingly, the best speeds were set in qualifying when drivers were running lower fuel, with Ricardo Feller’s Abt Audi the fastest of all during the second qualifying session at 247km/h (153.479 mph).
That was 1km/h faster than Maro Engel in the Gruppe M Mercedes, while Nick Cassidy (Red Bull Ferrari) on 245.5km/h (152.546 mph) matched the fastest speed in Q1 set by Auer.
Fastest five speeds from Turn 1 in qualifying
| Pos | Driver | Car | Speed (km/h) | Session | Grid Position |
| 1 | Ricardo Feller | Audi | 247 | Qualifying 2 | 5th |
| 2 | Maro Engel | Mercedes | 246 | Qualifying 2 | 3rd |
| 3 | Nick Cassidy | Ferrari | 245.5 | Qualifying 2 | 7th |
| 4 | Lucas Auer | Mercedes | 245.5 | Qualifying 1 | 1st |
| 5 | Mikael Grenier | Mercedes | 245.3 | Qualifying 1 | 15th |
But while Auer was the polesitter for race one, the data shows that Turn 1 speeds don’t directly correlate to lap times for the remainder of the pack.
Second-fastest through the speed-trap on Saturday, Engel’s team-mate Mikael Grenier, was only 15th on the grid for race one. And while third-fastest in Turn 1 Engel was also third on the grid, second-fastest qualifier Sheldon van der Linde’s Schubert BMW was only the 19th fastest at the speed trap in first qualifying.
When looking at the highest maximum recorded speed in qualifying, the picture changes again and goes some way to explaining why Turn 1 speeds are a limited reference.
BMW monopolised the order with the four-fastest speeds, topped by Walkenhorst drivers Esteban Muth and Marco Wittmann 277.6 km/h and 276.2 km/h respectively, with Philipp Eng (Schubert) and van der Linde next up.
Auer was the best non-BMW in fifth, and his combination of strong straightline speed with high cornering speed meant he had the fastest first sector of anybody at 19.281 seconds.
Muth, who was only seventh-quickest through the Turn 1 speed-trap, had the third-fastest opening sector behind Luca Stolz’s HRT Mercedes, with van der Linde eighth – the South African making his time up further around the lap.
Only Engel and Feller (fifth-fastest through the Turn 1 speed-trap in Saturday qualifying) were also in the top five through the corner on Sunday, when the pole time set by van der Linde was 0.344s slower than Auer’s race one benchmark.
Again, van der Linde wasn’t even among the top 10 through Turn 1, clocking the 13th highest speed at 239.6km/h. But he did set the joint second-fastest maximum speed at 276.2 km/h, behind only Wittmann, which helped him to clock the fourth-best opening sector time.
Although the speeds reduced in race-trim, the top three-fastest outright mirrors the qualifying order.
Fastest five speeds from Turn 1 in race trim
| Pos | Driver | Car | Speed (km/h) | Session | Grid Position |
| 1 | Ricardo Feller | Audi | 237.5 | Race 2 | 7th |
| 2 | Maro Engel | Mercedes | 236.5 | Race 2 | 2nd |
| 3 | Nick Cassidy | Ferrari | 235.2 | Race 2 | DNF |
| 4 | Marius Zug | Audi | 234.6 | Race 1 | 15th |
| 5 | Arjun Maini | Mercedes | 234.1 | Race 1 | 13th |
Feller, Engel and Cassidy (who retired from race two while running seventh due to a puncture) were fastest through Turn 1 in the races, while 19-year-old Zug in the Attempto Racing Audi also figures well – second only to Engel in race one, and just 0.3km/h slower the following day to be fourth fastest in race two.
Van der Linde, for his part, never exceeded 230.4 km/h through Turn 1 in race trim, but it didn’t harm his prospects at all. He won the opener with ease from Stolz, then held off Engel to secure the double on Sunday and with it the championship lead.
