After losing a long battle with cancer, Sabine Schmitz has sadly passed away at the age of 51. Sabine was a professional racing driver who became the first and only woman to win the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, behind the wheel of a BMW M3, and then went on to win it again to prove it wasn't sheer dumb luck. Her unique driving talent at the Green Hell earned her the nickname "Queen of the Nurburgring".
Outside of her racing career, Sabine is best known to fans around the world for her appearances in Top Gear before later becoming a host. Who could forget when she raced a Ford Transit van around the challenging circuit to try and beat a lap time set by Jeremy Clarkson in a Jaguar S-Type?
Tributes have been pouring in for the late racing driver, and now fans have found the perfect way to honor her legacy. Dale Lomas, who runs the Nurburgring website Bridge To Gantry, has set up a Change.org petition to name a corner at the Nurburgring Nordschleife after Sabine Schmitz.
Spanning 15.7 miles, the Nurburgring Nordschleife has 170 corners in its longest configuration, making it one of the most challenging racing circuits in the world. Out of these corners, many of them don't have an official name, so it seems fitting to name one after Sabine to honor the Queen of the Nurburgring.
"I believe that, like Stefan Bellof, her impact upon the Nürburgring's history (and motorsport) warrants the official naming of a section of the Nordschleife in her honor," Lomas writes in the petition. "If you agree, I'd ask you to sign this petition and share it with those in our motorsports family."
At the time of writing, the petition has already had over 12,000 signatures and that number was growing by the minute. Considering nobody knows their way around the Nurburgring better than Sabine, who has clocked up tens of thousands of laps at the circuit, this would be the perfect tribute to the late racing driver.