Red Bull Ring - The Original Track

The Original Track

"At Zeltweg, down the long straight to the Bosch Kurve, the car was throwing out 1400 bhp and just kept on pushing - you felt like you were sitting on a rocket."

Originally built in 1969 to replace the bland and bumpy Zeltweg Airfield circuit, the Österreichring track was known for being very fast, as every corner was a fast sweeper and were taken in no lower than 3rd gear in a 5-speed gearbox and 4th in a 6-speed gearbox, as well as noticeable changes in elevation during the course of a lap. Like most fast circuits it was a hard circuit on engines but more difficult on tires, because of the speeds being so consistently high. Many considered the Österreichring to be dangerous, especially the "Boschkurve", a 180-degree right-hand corner with almost no run-off area which, by 1986 when turbo's pushed Formula One engine power to upwards of 1,400 bhp (1,044 kW; 1,419 PS) in qualifying, had cars approaching at well over 320km/h (200mph).

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 2 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 150 mph 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 5.942km (3.692mi) of 1:23.357 set an average speed record for the circuit of 159.457 mph (255.756 km/h). At the time it was second only in F1 average speed to Keke Rosberg's 160.9 mph (258.9 km/h) pole lap of the Silverstone Circuit set during the 1985 British Grand Prix. Interestingly, both times were set using a turbocharged Williams-Honda.

American driver Mark Donohue died after crashing at the Vost-Hugel Kurve in 1975. In 1976, the Vost-Hugel Kurve was tightened and made into one right hander rather than 2 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-times 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 6-foot-wide Formula One cars at the Austrian Grand Prix) because the start finish was very narrow (about 30 feet wide, most start finish straights on other tracks were 60 to 80 feet wide ) 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.