Formula 1 raced at the Red Bull Ring in Austria this past weekend while the region sweltered under a heat dome. It was a weekend of unmet expectations: After
such a strong performance in Barcelona, pundits were ready to declare Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton a proper title contender. The red cars flattered to deceive at times, but the real challenge to Mercedes’ ongoing dominance came from a newly resurgent Red Bull and Max Verstappen, who reminded us why so many of the packed grandstands were all wearing orange.
The original Östereichring was
a spectacular thing, with steep gradients, long straights, and high-speed curves, surrounded by views of the Styrian mountains. But racetrack designers in the late 1960s paid scant attention to safety features, and the corners were mostly lined with Armco fencing. The sport stopped racing there after the 1987 Grand Prix, judging it too dangerous for the speeds F1 cars were capable of at the time. It was rebuilt in the mid-’90s, losing around a mile (1.6 km) in length and much of its original character in the process but gaining things like gravel traps and run-off areas at the corners, making the place a whole lot safer.
F1 returned to the newly christened A1-Ring from 1997 to 2003, then left for pastures new. Red Bull’s co-founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, bought it the following year—the same year he bought the Jaguar F1 team from Ford and renamed it Red Bull Racing. Mateschitz and Red Bull re-renovated the track, bringing the facilities up to 21st-century F1 standards, and the sport returned in 2014. It’s not the shortest lap on the calendar in terms of distance—
that honor goes to Monaco—but it does have the shortest lap times: Valtteri Bottas set a 1:02.939 in qualifying for the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix.
That was in the ground-effect cars, which went away at the end of last season. The new cars have gone back to generating aerodynamic grip with wings and diffusers rather than a cleverly sculpted underfloor. These machines are much more tolerant of changing suspension rake and offer much more freedom in setup. But the overall level of downforce is lower than it was, and together with slightly narrower tires, they go a little slower in 2026: George Russell snatched pole position for Mercedes with a time of 1:06.113.
<small>Source: Ars Technica</small>
