Red Bull Ring · Profile

On 26 July 1969 the Österreichring opened in the Styrian hills near Spielberg. The track was later renamed the A1-Ring and then the Red Bull Ring. It replaced the makeshift circuit on the Zeltweg military airfield, and the first event on its calendar was a sportscar endurance race, the Zeltweg 1000 km, held there from 1969 to 1976. The original layout ran to 5.911 kilometres of fast, steeply rolling corners.

The Österreichring and Formula One

Formula One arrived the following year. On 16 August 1970 the first Austrian Grand Prix was held at the new circuit, and Jacky Ickx won it for Ferrari. From then on the Österreichring staged the race for 18 consecutive seasons, from 1970 to 1987. Niki Lauda won in 1984, and a year later, at the same venue, he announced his retirement from racing. In 1985 and 1986 Formula 3000 shared the weekend with F1.

Accidents and layout changes

The circuit's speed came at a cost. In 1975 the American driver Mark Donohue died after crashing at the Hella-Licht corner. In 1976 that corner was turned into a single right-hander, and in 1977 it became the slower Hella-Licht chicane, which took the lap to 5.942 kilometres. The end came in 1987, when the Grand Prix had to be restarted twice after two increasingly serious accidents on the narrow pit straight. Nigel Mansell won for Williams-Honda, and the FIA then judged the circuit too dangerous. Formula One left Austria for a decade. From 1988 to 1994 the World Superbike Championship kept international racing at the track.

The A1-Ring years

In 1995 and 1996 the German engineer Hermann Tilke rebuilt the circuit on the same site and shortened it to 4.326 kilometres. Sponsorship from the operator A1 Mobilkom gave it a new name: the A1-Ring. The motorcycle world championship ran the Austrian Grand Prix there in 1996 and 1997, and Formula One returned on 21 September 1997, when Jacques Villeneuve won for Williams-Renault. The A1-Ring hosted seven consecutive F1 Grands Prix from 1997 to 2003, as well as DTM rounds from 2001 to 2003 and the FIA GT Championship. Its run-off areas were paved in 2002. After the 2003 Grand Prix it was announced that Formula One would not be coming back.

Red Bull buys and reopens the circuit

Once the Grand Prix contract had ended, the circuit was sold to Dietrich Mateschitz, co-founder of Red Bull. The grandstands and pit buildings were knocked down, and for several years the track could not be used for racing. It was rebuilt as the Red Bull Ring, keeping Tilke's layout, and reopened on 15 May 2011. That season it hosted the DTM and Formula Two. The German touring car series returned every year from 2011 to 2018, and the International GT Open and ADAC GT Masters also raced there.

Formula One and MotoGP return

On 23 July 2013 Formula One's return the following year was officially announced. The Austrian Grand Prix was held again on 22 June 2014, and Nico Rosberg won it for Mercedes. Motorcycle racing took a little longer. On 11 February 2016 the world championship's return was confirmed for the first time since 1997, with Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP. On 14 August 2016 Andrea Iannone took his first premier-class win and led a Ducati one-two, with Andrea Dovizioso second. It was Ducati's first MotoGP victory since 2010.

Double headers and further changes

On 30 June 2019 the first corner was renamed the Niki Lauda Turn. In 2020 the Red Bull Ring staged two Formula One Grands Prix on consecutive weekends, on 5 and 12 July, and the second was named the Styrian Grand Prix. That summer it also held two MotoGP races, on 16 and 23 August. At the 2020 Styrian race Carlos Sainz set the lap record of 1:05.619 for McLaren-Renault. The F1 double header was repeated in 2021, with the Styrian and Austrian Grands Prix a week apart, and Max Verstappen won both from pole. In 2022 a chicane was added at turn 2 for motorcycle racing, making the bike layout 4.348 kilometres long with ten corners.