Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig _spf.sap.com. NS
Answer
_spf.sap.com. 5 NS ns2.sap.de.
_spf.sap.com. 5 NS ns4.sap.asia.
_spf.sap.com. 5 NS ns1.sap.net.
_spf.sap.com. 5 NS ns3.sap.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.sap.net. 5 A 193.46.3.53
ns3.sap.com. 5 A 67.221.252.72
ns4.sap.asia. 5 A 169.145.112.153
ns3.sap.com. 5 AAAA 2607:fae0:f00d:0:0:0:0:72
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0