For the first time in 11 years, Formula One returns to Austria. Formula One has raced at just two different circuits in its time, though it was the latter one which became the home of the Austrian Grand Prix, albeit under three different names.
Zeltweg Airfield (1963-64)
The first Austrian Grand Prix was held in 1963. It didn’t count towards the World Championship that year and was won by the now late Sir Jack Brabham. It held a round of the World Championship the year after which was won by Lorenzo Bandini for Ferrari in what would be his only race victory. The track was shaped like a hockey stick and had just four corners. It was removed after the drivers complained of the bumpiness and the spectators complained of the lack of vantage points. The circuit became redundant in 1969, and work began on a brand new circuit, not too far away in Spielberg.
Osterreichring (1970-87)
To replace the bumpy Zeltweg circuit, was the incredibly fast Osterreichring. It was a very fast circuit with long straights and no slow corners, which no modern circuit has. As the circuit was built on a mountain, it had drastic elevation change, similar to that of Spa-Franchorchamps or the Nurburgring. Most of the corners were taken at well over 100mph and featured a notorious corner known as Vost-Hugel. Vost-Hugel was similar to Tamburello in Imola in that it was a very fast flat out kink, where drivers would reach speeds of well over 180mph and pulling five times the force of gravity on their necks. This corner became nulled following Mark Donohue’s fatal crash there in 1975 and was converted into a slow right-left-right chicane, in a similar way to how Tamburello was altered following Ayrton Senna’s death. The track became known eventually for its start-line crashes, with F1 cars at the time being so wide and the pit straight so narrow, caused the start to be aborted twice in the final race in 1987 due to start-line incidents. The race was dropped due to safety concerns that year, after Stefan Johansson nearly hit some wildlife at 150mph.
A1-Ring (1997-2003)
The circuit remained unchanged right up until 1995, and it was then redesigned by Hermann Tilke. This is arguably one of his better pieces of work, as the new, considerably shortened circuit with much tighter corners and more overtaking opportunities. At the time it was regarded as one of the safest circuits on the calendar with plenty of gravel traps. The first race at the new layout, now rebranded the A1-Ring after the telecoms company, was held in 1997, and held the Austrian round of the Formula One World Championship until 2003.
Red Bull Ring (2014)
As early as 2005, Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner of the brand new Red Bull Racing team was planning to purchase the A1-Ring, redesign the circuit using parts of the original Osterreichring and use it for testing purposes. The idea never came to blossom though. One year later, former Austrian Grand Prix driver Alex Wurz tried to purchase the circuit, but his plans too failed to come into light. Eventually, Red Bull did purchase the circuit and it later became known as the Red Bull Ring, and started holding German Touring Car Championship races as early as 2011. The circuit remains mainly unchanged, except the renaming of a couple of corners for sponsorship purposes. It was rumoured last year that F1 would have its grand return to Austria for 2013 but it never happened. Instead, it was announced late last year that Austria would return to the calendar for the middle of the 2014 season.
Notable Austrian Grand Prix
1964: Lorenzo Bandini’s first and only Grand Prix win, and the debut of Jochen Rindt, the first driver from Austria to take part in a World Championship race.
1970: Jochen Rindt had a healthy lead in the Championship after winning five on the bounce so was the hot favourite to take the win in Austria on the brand new Osterreichring circuit. He started the race from pole but suffered an engine failure some way into the race, giving the win to Jacky Ickx for Ferrari only just ahead of team mate Clay Regazzoni. It turned out to be Rindt’s last start as he was killed in the next race at Monza, but still took the title that year.
1975: Austria had another legend in the making under the name of Niki Lauda. He took pole to delight the home crowd but fell back in a race held in torrential conditions as his car was set up for the dry. Mark Donohue suffered a fatal accident in practice. Jame Hunt took the lead early on but it was Vittorio Brambilla who came through the spray on the 29th lap to see a red flag and for the race to be abandoned due to the conditions. It would be the only win and podium finish of Brambilla’s career.
1982: A brilliant battle emerged between Lotus’ Elio de Angelis and the Williams of Keke Rosberg, until that point neither driver had won a Grand Prix and de Angelis had never achieved a podium finish. Rosberg hounded and hounded the Lotus right up until the very end as Prost retired from the lead in his unreliable Renault, so this battle was for the lead. At the start finish line de Angelis was ahead by the mere margin of half a tenth of a second.
1984: After many attempts at a home Grand Prix win, Niki Lauda finally achieved a win in his home country. All of the cars on the grid were turbocharged for the first time in an F1 race. The original start was aborted due to a signalling error, and on the second start Nelson Piquet seized the initiative and got past Prost, and led for most of the race until Lauda came through and took his only win in Austria.
1999: The first rule in Formula One is to not hit your team mate. David Coulthard forgot this as he tapped teammate Mika Hakkinen on the first lap, sending the Finn to the back of the field. Eddie Irvine, who was driving for Ferrari and was Ferrari’s number one as Schumacher was injured, got ahead of Coulthard in the pit stops, and although Coulthard was challenging hard, he missed out on the win by less than a second. Hakkinen thought brilliantly to take third place.
2002: One of the most controversial races in Formula One history. Rubens Barrichello led for Ferrari ahead of Michael Schumacher until the very last corner where he was told to let the German through. This was not well received by the fans at all, and subsequently led to the banning of team orders. The two were later fined for not disrupting the podium procedure, as Schumacher pushed Barrichello onto the top step.
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