Racing against Sabine Schmitz on the Nürburgring Nordschleife is pretty much a fool’s errand. By her own estimation she’s driven the track at least 30,000 times in the decades since she started running laps there. She knows those 12.9 miles of asphalt the way most people know the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Granted, Schmitz is probably not lapping the Nürburgring quite so often now that she’s part of Top Gear‘s rotating cast of characters, but that kind of track knowledge never leaves you. It’s muscle memory at this point.
So it’s not particularly surprising to see how easily Schmitz can slice and dice her way through a pack of race cars in her Porsche 911 GT3 R. But to see her do it in the course of a single lap, in the rain, under a partial yellow flag—the Ring is so long only portions of the track are run under yellow at any one time—is astonishing. With the grace of a ninja-ballerina she carves her way past Porsches, Aston Martins, Ferraris, and the rest of the field as though they were Yugos and Pintos. No effort wasted, no opportunity lost. It’s a master class in race driving and it’s entertaining as hell.
Also, her reaction to being passed at 2:44 is hilarious.
