Red Bull Ring

How it began

The first World Championship Austrian Grand Prix was held on 23 August 1964 at Zeltweg airfield and won by Lorenzo Bandini for Ferrari. Next door, in 1969, the Österreichring was built — a fast, hilly lap of almost six kilometres; on 16 August 1970 it hosted its first Grand Prix, won by Jacky Ickx.

The race was held here until 1987, after which the circuit was judged too dangerous for the championship. In the mid-1990s it was rebuilt by Hermann Tilke: the lap was shortened and renamed the A1-Ring, and the Austrian Grand Prix returned on 21 September 1997 with a win for Jacques Villeneuve, staying until 2003.

Red Bull then bought the circuit; after reconstruction it reopened in 2011 as the Red Bull Ring. The championship returned on 22 June 2014, and Nico Rosberg won. The contract has been extended until 2030.

The track

The 4.326 km lap has only ten corners, and the race runs to 71 laps — in lap time it is one of the shortest of the season. The track lies on a hillside in Styria: long straights with steep climbs, slow corners at the end of them, where the overtaking happens, and a fast downhill sequence at the end of the lap.

Because the lap is so short, the gaps in qualifying are especially small here, and the kerbs on the exit of the final corners have repeatedly been at the centre of arguments about track limits.

Memorable races

On 17 August 1975 Vittorio Brambilla won in a downpour — the only win of his career; throwing his arms up at the finish, he crashed the car. On 15 August 1982 Elio de Angelis beat Keke Rosberg by five hundredths of a second. On 12 May 2002 Rubens Barrichello, on team orders, let Michael Schumacher through in the final metres, after which team orders were banned in the championship.

On 3 July 2016 Mercedes team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the last lap; Hamilton won. On 30 June 2019 Max Verstappen gave Honda its first win since 2006.

In 2020 the circuit opened the season after the pause caused by the pandemic: Valtteri Bottas won here on 5 July, and on 12 July an extra race, the Styrian Grand Prix, was won by Hamilton. In 2021 the track again held two races in a row, and Verstappen won both.