It got a little better – but now it's come back with full force. 'Since the end of 2017, I have been fighting an extremely persistent cancer that has not been eliminated with the resources so far. 'I would like to provide enlightenment here, I think I owe it to my/our fans! She managed to get within 10 seconds of the saloon car.īy her own estimates, she whizzed around the terrifying course more than 20,000 times in her life, and last year she had been due to compete in a Porsche at the Nurburgring Endurance Series.īut she was unable to compete due to her illness, which she revealed for the first time in a heartbreaking Facebook post, writing: 'Dear friends of professional motor sport, many of you have probably wondered why I was on the list of participants on our Porsche in the NSL and then didn't drive after all. It was in this mode that Schmitz first appeared on Top Gear in 2004, when she tried to beat Clarkson's Jaguar S-Type lap around the Nurburgring in a Ford Transit van. Her skill around the track earned her appearances on German motorsport TV channels, including for the D Motor programme, where she took on sports cars such as the Ferrari 360, with much slower vehicles like a 1200 horse power truck. It was around this time that Schmitz became known for her entertaining laps in a BMW M5 'ring taxi,' taking visitors around the Nurburgring at breakneck professional speeds. In 2006, she teamed up with Abbelen, who she married a year later, to race a Porsche 997 in the VLN. She broke further ground in 1998 when she became the first woman to win the Nurburgring VLN endurance racing series. She turned professional aged 24, claiming historic victories as the first woman to win the 24 Hours Nurburgring endurance race in 1996, and then again in 1997, behind the wheel of a BMW M3. It was here that Schmitz, the youngest of three sisters, started racing as a 15-year-old and later as a student, between her studies as a hotel manager and sommeliere. Schmitz grew up in the town of Nurburg, western Germany, which gives its name to one of the most formidable tracks in motorsport, the Nurburgring.
'We spent some time in southern California together and she taught me how to drive, how to actually make a car fly around Daytona.' 'It's a shock to hear that she's passed away. Chris Evans, who hosted the show for a series in 2016, recalled this morning on his radio show how Schmitz had once made him vomit during a speedy drive.