Austrian Grand Prix

The race has been held at two locations in southeastern Austria, originally at Zeltweg, about 70 km west of Graz, and since 1969 in neighbouring Spielberg, the two venues lying within roughly 4 km of each other. It was held at the Zeltweg Air Base for six years before a permanent track — first called the Österreichring, later the A-1 Ring and Red Bull Ring — was built.

Since its return, the Austrian Grand Prix is typically a mid-season round. The one exception was 2020, when it opened the season — the only time in its history — because of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns disrupting the calendar. Also in 2020, an additional race at the Red Bull Ring, the Styrian Grand Prix, was added; it was held twice, forming a double-header to maximise the number of Grands Prix during the pandemic-affected seasons.

A non-championship event was held in 1963 at a track on the Zeltweg Airfield, won by Australian Jack Brabham. The first championship event followed in 1964, when Italian Lorenzo Bandini took his only Formula One championship win in a Ferrari. The race was a success, but the narrow, bumpy track with poor spectator viewing was deemed too dangerous, and the FIA removed it from the F1 calendar until a suitable track could be built. The event ran in 1965 as the non-championship Zeltweg 200 Miles sports car race, then was adopted by the World Sportscar Championship from 1966 to 1969 as the 1000 km Zeltweg.

From 1970 to 1987 the event was held at the Österreichring near Zeltweg, a fast, flowing track in the Styrian mountains where every corner was high speed and long. It was popular with drivers, and the events were moderately successful. The race was designated the European Grand Prix once, in 1975, when that title was an honorary annual designation for one European Grand Prix.

The first race there was dominated by Ferrari, whose more powerful Flat-12 engines made them about 10 mph faster. In 1971 Swiss driver Jo Siffert dominated in his BRM and Briton Jackie Stewart took his second Drivers' Championship. The rain-soaked 1975 event was marred by the fatal accident of American Mark Donohue; it was won by Vittorio Brambilla, the only F1 win of his career, who crashed into the guardrail and broke his car's nose shortly after the finish when the race was stopped early as the rain worsened. In 1976, home favourite Niki Lauda missed the race after his Nürburgring crash, and Briton John Watson won his first Formula One race in the short-lived Penske F1 team — Penske's only win in the category.

The Voest-Hugel corner was changed slightly in 1976, then in 1977 a slow three-corner chicane was installed there, where Donohue had crashed two years earlier; the former fastest corner became the slowest and was known as the Hella-Licht Chicane. Australian Alan Jones won that 1977 race in a Shadow, his first Grand Prix victory. In 1978 the dominant Lotus 79s lined up on the front row; American Mario Andretti crashed at the Glatz Kurve on the first lap and his teammate, Swede Ronnie Peterson, won. From 1979 the superiority of turbocharged engines on the fast, high-altitude circuit began to show: Jones won again in a Williams, but Jean-Pierre Jabouille and René Arnoux dominated in their Renaults, with Jabouille winning in 1980. In 1981 Jacques Laffite won after Didier Pironi's powerful but poor-handling Ferrari held up a five-way battle for third.

In 1982 five turbocharged cars dominated the grid; all but one retired with mechanical trouble, including Riccardo Patrese, who crashed spectacularly at the Texaco Bends, and Alain Prost, whose engine expired while leading with a few laps to go. The race became a sprint between Italian Elio de Angelis in a Lotus and Finn Keke Rosberg in a Williams; Rosberg gained 1.5 seconds a lap after Prost's retirement, and on the last lap de Angelis held him off to win by less than half a car length — 0.05 seconds. In 1984 Lauda finally won his home Grand Prix in his McLaren, and Prost won the next two races. The 1985 race featured a fearsome crash at the Panorama Curve when Andrea de Cesaris rolled his Ligier, leading to his dismissal from the team. In 1986 Austrian driver Gerhard Berger led early in his 1,400 bhp Benetton-BMW before electrical problems ended his run, letting Prost win by over a lap from the Ferraris of Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson.

The 1987 race was restarted twice after accidents on the narrow pit-straight grid. The track was deemed too dangerous by FIA standards because of its many high-speed corners, lack of protection from trees and embankments, and start-line accidents on the confined pit straight. Increasing speeds were also a growing problem: that year polesitter Nelson Piquet averaged 159.457 mph in his Honda-powered Williams and finished second to his teammate, Briton Nigel Mansell. Attempts to bring the race back failed, and the event disappeared for a decade.

The Österreichring was refurbished in 1995 and 1996, allowing the race to run again in 1997. Renamed the A1-Ring after a sponsor and located in the municipality of Spielberg, the venue's site was now given as Spielberg. The layout was redesigned by Hermann Tilke; the track lost all its long, sweeping corners apart from a shortened, slower Texaco Bends and the Hella-Licht chicane, with the Bosch-Kurve replaced by a bypass. The 2002 event drew negative publicity after Ferrari instructed Rubens Barrichello to cede victory to Michael Schumacher. It remained a calendar mainstay until its final race in 2003.

In July 2013 it was reported that the circuit's new owners, Red Bull GmbH, had reached an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone to revive the Austrian Grand Prix after a ten-year absence, with a provisional July 2014 date. The officially released calendar on 6 December included the race, and Formula One is set to race at the venue until 2041.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.