🇦🇹Red Bull Ring

Red Bull Ring is a 4.318 km, 10-turn motor racing circuit in Spielberg, Styria, Austria — set in a spectacular natural amphitheatre in the Mur valley with 65 m of elevation change between its highest and lowest points. The original circuit on the site, the legendary Österreichring, was opened on 19 July 1969 to replace the bumpy and dangerous Zeltweg airfield circuit (1958–1968). The Österreichring's sweeping high-speed curves through the Styrian hills hosted 18 consecutive Austrian Grands Prix from 1970 to 1987, before being demoted from F1 over safety concerns. A complete Hermann Tilke rebuild followed in 1995–1996, shortening the layout from 5.942 km to 4.326 km and replacing the original fast sweepers with three tight right-handers in an effort to create overtaking. The shortened track was renamed the A1-Ring after mobile phone provider A1 funded much of the rebuild, and hosted F1 between 1997 and 2003 before financial troubles closed the venue. Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull purchased the dormant facility in 2004 and reopened it in May 2011 as the Red Bull Ring, returning to the Formula One calendar in 2014 as the Austrian Grand Prix. The first corner — the steeply uphill heavy-braking right-hander into the second sector — was renamed Niki Lauda Kurve following the three-time world champion's 2019 death. Other named corners include Castrol Kurve, the long Remus right-hander (Turn 4, named after the exhaust manufacturer and now generally regarded as the best overtaking spot on the modern layout), Schlössl, Rauch, the steep uphill Würth-Kurve and Red Bull Mobile Kurve. Red Bull Ring has hosted MotoGP every year since 2016 (the first Austrian motorcycle Grand Prix since the Salzburgring lost its homologation in 1994), the F1 Austrian Grand Prix and the DTM.