Österreichring (1969–1995) Originally built in 1969 to replace the bland and bumpy
Zeltweg Airfield circuit located just across the expressway, the Österreichring track was situated in the Styrian mountains and it was a visually spectacular and scenic circuit. Although narrow at in all places, the track was very fast, every corner was a fast sweeper and was taken in no lower than third gear in a five-speed gearbox and fourth in a six-speed gearbox. It had noticeable changes in elevation during the course of a lap, from lowest to highest point. Like most fast circuits it was a circuit hard on engines but more difficult on tyres, because of the speeds being so consistently high. Many considered the Österreichring to be dangerous, especially the Bosch Kurve, a 180-degree banked downhill right-hand corner with almost no run-off area which, by
1986 when turbos pushed Formula One engine power to upwards of in qualifying, saw
Derek Warwick speed trapped at in his
BMW powered
Brabham BT55 on the run to the Bosch Kurve. There were other testing corners such as Voest-Hugel, which was a flat-out right-hander that eventually led to the Sebring-Auspuff Kurve (this corner had many names over the years, Dr. Tiroch and Glatz Kurve were others) which was an essential corner to get right because of the long straight afterwards that led to the Bosch Kurve. Some of the track was just road with little to no protection at all, even up to the final
Austrian Grand Prix there in 1987, a race that had to be restarted twice because of two progressively more serious accidents both caused by the narrow pit straight in a similar manner to the
1985 race when the race was stopped after one lap following a start line shunt that had taken out three cars including championship leader
Michele Alboreto's
Ferrari and local driver
Gerhard Berger's
Arrows-
BMW. In practice for the 1987 race
McLaren's
Stefan Johansson narrowly avoided serious injury or worse when at over he collided with a
deer that had made its way onto the track while Johansson was cresting a blind brow before the
Jochen Rindt Kurve behind the pits. Increasing speeds were also a concern at the Österreichring; during the final Grand Prix there in 1987 pole-sitter
Nelson Piquet's time for the of 1:23.357 set an average speed record for the circuit of . At the time it was second only in F1 average speed to
Keke Rosberg's pole lap of the
Silverstone Circuit set during the
1985 British Grand Prix. Both times were set using a turbocharged
Williams-
Honda.
American driver
Mark Donohue died after crashing at the Hella-Licht Kurve in . In 1976, the Hella-Licht Kurve was tightened and made into one right-hander rather than two right-handers with a small section between, and in 1977 it was slowed down and became the Hella-Licht chicane, going from the fastest to the slowest corner on the track. It is also known that four-time World Champion
Alain Prost often said that all tracks can be changed but that the Österreichring should remain unchanged, just adding run-off areas would be fine, which eventually did happen up until the original track's final year in 1995. The track was known for having many crashes at the start of races (especially with the Formula One's cars wide at the time, until
1992) because the start-finish straight was very narrow (about wide), while most start–finish straights on other tracks were and it did not provide enough space for cars attempting to pass others, especially cars that stalled or broke at the start. Motorcycle rider Hans-Peter Klampfer died after a collision with another rider at the Bosch Kurve (where most fatalities happened) and 29-year-old Hannes Wustinger was also killed after a crash at the Tiroch Kurve (the part that was left out of the present circuit) at a race for the Austrian Touring car championship and this sealed the decision to build a new circuit. Triple World Champion and long-time hero of the home crowd
Niki Lauda is the only Austrian driver to win his home Grand Prix. He won the
1984 Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring driving a
McLaren-
TAG Porsche. Lauda went on to win his third and final championship in , beating his teammate
Alain Prost by the smallest margin in F1 history, only half a point. He announced his permanent retirement from driving at the circuit before the
1985 race.
A1-Ring (1996–2003) The Österreichring's safety concerns had reached a head in the mid-1990s, and in 1995 and 1996 it was totally rebuilt, at the same site, by
Hermann Tilke. Its length was shortened from , and the fast sweeping corners were replaced by three tight right-handers, in order to create overtaking opportunities. Its three long straights, as well as a twisty infield section, asked for a setup compromise. As much of the construction work was paid for by the
mobile phone provider
A1, the track was renamed the A1-Ring. It proceeded to host seven Formula One Austrian Grands Prix between 1997 and 2003, as well as several
DTM races and the
Austrian motorcycle Grand Prix in 1996 and 1997.
Red Bull Ring (2011–present) After the contract termination of Austrian Grand Prix, the circuit was sold to
Dietrich Mateschitz in 2004. Late in 2008, Red Bull began their €70m reconstruction of the track and DTM chiefs considered a return to the circuit in 2009, and in September 2010, it was confirmed that the circuit, now known as the Red Bull Ring, would host a round of the
2011 DTM season. and by July 2013, Red Bull announced that the Austrian Grand Prix would return as a round of the
Formula One World Championship in 2014. The
Austrian Grand Prix was held on 22 June 2014. From 2014 until 2016, the track also hosted a round of the
Red Bull Air Race World Championship. On 11 February 2016, it was announced that
MotoGP would return to the circuit in
2016 for the first time since 1997. On 30 June 2019, in honour of the late 3-time
Formula One World Champion
Niki Lauda, the first turn of the track was renamed the "Niki Lauda Turn". On 30 May 2020, it was reported that the Austrian government had given permission for two Formula One races to be held on 5 and 12 July 2020 respectively to kick off the 2020 Formula One season after its start had been delayed by the
COVID-19 pandemic. On 2 June 2020, Formula One confirmed the Red Bull Ring would hold back to back races on 5 and 12 July to start the
2020 season, with the second race styled as a one-off
Styrian Grand Prix. It would also hold the first four races of the
2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship and the
2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship. This made it the first
European circuit to host the opening round of a
Formula One season since the
Circuit de Monaco did this in the
1966 season as well as the first time Austria hosted the opening race of the World Championship and therefore the first time the circuit hosted the opening round - an honour given to 13 previous venues since the inception of the World Championship in
1950. The circuit also hosted back to back races of the
2020 MotoGP season on 16 and 23 August, with the second race styled as a one off
Styrian Grand Prix. In the
2021 Formula One season, the Red Bull Ring hosted two races again due to the
Canadian Grand Prix being cancelled and the
Turkish Grand Prix being postponed because of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The first of the two was titled as the
Styrian Grand Prix, with the second being called the
Austrian Grand Prix. These two races a week apart from each other saw
Max Verstappen winning both from pole position. Also in
MotoGP, following the cancellation of the
Finnish Grand Prix in May 2021, the
Styrian Grand Prix was added to the calendar on the weekend of 6 to 8 August, one week before the
Austrian Grand Prix. The first race saw MotoGP rookie
Jorge Martín claim his and
Pramac Racing's first win in the premier class, whilst the second race saw
Brad Binder take a shock home win for KTM despite finishing on dry tyres in wet conditions. In January 2022, it was revealed that the circuit would be modified slightly for MotoGP and other motorcycle races, with a
chicane being introduced at turn 2. However Formula One and other car racing series will continue to use the current layout. ==Track configurations==