Spielberg, Styria · AT
A short but spectacular circuit set against the stunning backdrop of the Styrian Alps. With dramatic elevation changes, fast corners, and hard braking zones, Spielberg delivers thrilling racing for both F1 and MotoGP.
The Red Bull Ring is short — barely over a minute a lap in a Formula 1 car — but it climbs and falls around 65 metres, and almost every corner is preceded by heavy braking after a full-throttle climb. Turn 1, now named for Niki Lauda, is an uphill right; Remus follows a run to over 310 km/h; and the final corner carries Jochen Rindt's name. Its brevity means the field is rarely spread out, and lap traffic becomes a factor quickly.
The Styrian setting is genuinely beautiful, with grass banking and mountains behind the circuit, and it is one of the more pleasant venues to spend a weekend at. Trains run to Knittelfeld rather than Spielberg, with free shuttle buses every 20 minutes across the race weekend. Austrian and Dutch fans travel in large numbers, and the campsites are a significant part of the atmosphere.
The circuit began as the Österreichring, built in 1968-69 as a permanent replacement for the flat Zeltweg airfield course that had hosted the Austrian Grand Prix in 1964. At nearly six kilometres it was fast and sweeping, with substantial elevation change, and it held its final Formula 1 race in that form in 1987.
It was rebuilt in the mid-1990s to a Hermann Tilke design, shortened and modernised for contemporary safety standards, and reopened in 1997 as the A1-Ring, named for an Austrian telecoms company. Formula 1 returned from 1997 to 2003 before dropping away again. Dietrich Mateschitz's Red Bull bought the site in 2010, renovated it and reopened it as the Red Bull Ring in 2011, with Formula 1 returning in 2014.
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