Yahoo Finance Nürburgring YouTuber Misha Crashes Hard, Wrecks a Fan’s BMW M4
If you’re a fan of Nürburgring content, you’ve surely come across the work of YouTube star and racing driver Mikhael “Misha” Charoudin. Having lived and worked at the beloved race track for more than a decade at this point, Charoudin is no stranger to the dangers of the Ring. That’s exactly why fans were relieved to hear that the star walked away from a nasty BMW M4 crash with only minor injuries to speak of.
Charoudin has made a name for himself on YouTube with his series of Ring lap videos, which often involve a fan bringing a modified car to the track for a ridealong with the experienced Ring Taxi driver. The series has included vehicles of varying levels of performance, ranging from hopped-up Mazda Miatas to full-blown Ferrari Challenge race cars.
These videos are often recorded during the track’s public “touristenfahrten” sessions, in which anyone can pay a small fee to take a lap around the circuit. These public sessions also fall under the same restrictions as you’d find driving down a typical German roadway, which means no HANS devices are allowed to be installed in the car. That's why you’ll usually see Charoudin without a helmet on in his videos — but fortunately, that wasn’t the case when he hopped behind the wheel of this highly-modified G82-gen M4.
We don’t have access to any of the actual crash footage, as Charoudin’s media license agreement with the property forbids him from sharing any crashes captured during a touristenfahrten session. According to Charoudin, things started to go wrong after the car went through the compression at the famous Foxhole corner. The brake pedal stopped responding properly, refusing to help shave off speed as the barrier approached.
Charoudin notes that the car immediately began to behave oddly, exhibiting unusual handling accompanied by an error code. There wasn’t much time to adjust to the situation, as the M4 continued to barrel towards the safety barrier just before Adenauer Forst. The BMW made contact with the barrier at over 80 mph, which caused the car to launch into the air. The rear wheels then caught the top of the barrier, causing the car to pirouette onto its roof.
The force of the impact destroyed the windshield, while also tearing a huge hole straight through the roof panel. Landing just a few feet away on one of the fence posts surely would have made this a much more serious accident.
Both Charoudin and the car’s owner were able to extricate themselves from the wreck before it caught fire due to leaking fluids from the rear differential and front brakes. Both men were then taken to the hospital for evaluation, which turned up no major injuries.
The car itself looks to be in a rather sorry state, but Charoudin is determined to get it rebuilt. He even launched a GoFundMe page to help ensure the owner gets the best version of the car possible after the rebuild, but that page has since been removed after drawing criticism related to the lofty goal of $200,000; Charoudin claimed that the funds were destined to help rebuild the M4 to be capable of competing with genuine GT3 race cars.
This isn’t the first time that Charoudin has been in one of these situations; as he was involved in crashes in a turbocharged BMW E30, a modified Mazda Miata, and his own Toyota GR 86 track car — in the past year alone. Charoudin always does his best to ensure the owners are made whole after an incident, and has plans to rebuild this particular M4. Whether or not the owner would feel safe pushing a previously wrecked machine is another question entirely. Perhaps it's time that the Ring rethinks its HANS policy, as the next person to wreck like this might not be so lucky. The Nürburgring Nordschleife can be dangerous no matter how fast you're going.
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