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Nurburgring looking for return to F1 line-up in 2019

The Nurburgring is actively seeking to return to the Formula 1 world championship calendar next year, according to reports.

The venue first hosted the German Grand Prix in 1951 on the 12.9-mile North Loop known as the Nordschleife. Since 1984, races have been held on the shorter custom-built Grand Prix track.

Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, Johnny Herbert and Fernando Alonso were all winners at the Nurburging between 1984 and 2007 when it was run as the European Grand Prix.

Since 2007, Nurburgring has alternated hosting the German Grand Prix with Hockenheim. However financial problems forced the organisers to drop out of holding the event in 2015 and 2017.

The track recently underwent a change of ownership. Now the circuit's new chief executive officer Mirco Markfort says that one of his main objectives is to bring Formula 1 back to the Nurburgring in 2019.

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"We really would appreciate to have the Formula 1 back at the Nurburgring in 2019," Markfort told Motorsport.com.

"This will only be possible if we take meaningful economic surrounding conditions into consideration.

"We are able to confirm that there had been conversations with the owner of the Formula 1, Liberty Media."

Liberty are hoping to expand the Formula 1 calendar in the future. Commercial chief Sean Bratches said in September that he had received around 40 expressions of interest from potential venues.

Venues in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United States are in contention to hold races, with Miami and New York among possibilities in the latter.

But Liberty boss Chase Carey has said Germany is key to the sport's future.

"Germany is the largest and most prosperous country in western Europe with a great sports history," he told Die Welt last year. "Our world champion is German, our constructors' world champion is German."

"We would like to build on what we already have in Germany, and an event is obviously an important part of it.

"We need to see where and how we can make it happen."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.