Austrian Grand Prix

Stepping into the RingStepping into the Ring

2026 SEASON

A wonderfully old-school event set amongst a patchwork quilt of upland pastures, this is a race for camping and heaving grandstands, blistering sun and sudden, fierce thunderstorms. It's never dull.

The Red Bull Ring is a pocket-sized power track, the primary characteristic of which is three consecutive straights forming three sides of a rhombus with some high-speed corners as the infield section. Plenty of speed, plenty of camber, plenty of altitude change, plenty of drama.

Session Times

FP1

FP2

FP3

Quali

Race

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Remus Kurve is one of the most action-packed spots on the calendar. You come from over 300km/h down to some of the slowest speeds.

Jak Crawford – Third Driver

Circuit length
4.326km
Number of corners
10
Race distance
307.018km

NEED TO KNOW: AUSTRIAN GP

Mastering the Red Bull Ring

The magic of racing in Austria

The essential Spielberg travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Ultimate Austrian Grand Prix facts

Last time out

Mastering the Red Bull Ring

Wonderous things come is small packages. The current layout of the Red Bull Ring is a bargain of necessity, originally sketched by former F1 driver Alex Wurz, going to the boundaries of the small parcel of land on which a racetrack can sit. This hasn't hampered the race in the slightest: it's a high-speed, overtaking-friendly rocket that never fails to produce drama.

It's also a circuit of two distinct, albeit uneven, halves. The first is all about power, with three DRS zones along the three straights. It makes T1, T3 (T2 doesn't really exist for an F1 car) and T4 prime overtaking spots, but, rather like Jeddah, there's often a little bit of DRS chess involved in making a pass: make the move at T1, there's a strong likelihood of being re-passed into T3, which often means drivers opt to hold-fire.

The patient driver will often wait until T4 to make the decisive move, and then use the second half of the lap, with its fast corners, to break the tow. It tends to create a setup dilemma: the first half of the lap demanding a low-drag car, and the second requiring high levels of downforce – and you can't have both. It's also an interesting challenge in terms of suspension setup with the high-speed sections suiting a very stiff car, but the up-and-down nature of the track providing some interesting cambers. T3 is particularly tricky, with the cars lifting at least one wheel off the ground if the driver goes for the apex.

The magic of racing in Austria

The current circuit above Spielberg is a cut-down version of the old Österreichring, hemmed-in by various local covenants – but it makes the most of what it has, falling in big, open loops down the hillside, which from a spectators' point of view is magnificent, because the topography ensures every grandstand can see two or three areas of track.

The general admission is really good at the Red Bull Ring, with the meadow above the track having a great view of the action-packed straight between T3 and T4 in the foreground, with the rest of the track tumbling away below, all framed by F1's best panoramic view. Fabulous on a sunny day… less so when one of the periodic thunderstorms sweeps up the valley.

Regarding the grandstand seats, different days call for different things: The T9 and T10 grandstands stand out because they don't have the sightlines afforded the rest of the track, and they don't look out onto corners with a lot of race action – but they're the key parts of the circuit for Qualifying, so watching from here is a good way to spend a Saturday. For Sunday… really, take your pick. The way the current cars work, T3 tends to have the most action… but really, it's all action.

The essential Spielberg travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Formula One venues are an eclectic bunch, and at no point is that more apparent than during the jump from Montréal to Spielberg. Following big city hotels and urban street parties, the move to bucolic hillside pastures and timber-roofed, geranium-strewn farmhouses is quite the step-change. This is the Grand Prix for everyone who likes their motor racing to celebrate the great outdoors. Bring the hiking boots, leave the Manolo pumps at home.

We're not in the Styrian Alps at the Red Bull Ring, but we're certainly in the foothills. The countryside is a patchwork of pastures and forests, albeit with a real sense of F1 history. This is a race for guesthouses rather than hotels – though even they are in short supply, so overwhelmingly this is a weekend for camping. It's all ferociously well-organised – just don't expect it to be quiet. This is a race where the party lasts 'til dawn.

For a bit more culture, the towns up and down the Mur Valley tend to offer plenty of traditional Austrian hospitality, and given the high summer date, sitting outdoors with a good meal late into the evening is just about the perfect ending to a day at the track. The famous local export is pumpkin oil – but if that doesn't appeal, the region is also famed for the quality of its beer.

If you do yearn for a bit of peace and quiet, there are plenty of walks and bike trails in the surrounding hills. It's not something with which F1 staff usually have much experience, but the back-to-back Austrian/Styrian Grands Prix of 2020/21 encouraged everyone to get out into nature, and it's become quite popular.

Ultimate Austrian Grand Prix facts

1 | This is the 38th World Championship Austrian Grand Prix. The race was introduced to the calendar in 1964 and run on a temporary circuit at Zeltweg Airfield. It returned in 1970 at the newly-constructed Österreichring, a few kilometres from Zeltweg. The race was ever-present at the Österreichring until 1987. It returned on a shortened version of the track, renamed the A1-Ring, in 1997 and was used until 2003. It returned in 2014 with the track now called the Red Bull Ring – but functionally unchanged from the A1-Ring layout. Fernando is the only driver on the current grid to have raced at the circuit before it was renamed.

2 | In addition to the Austrian Grand Prix, the Red Bull Ring also hosted the Styrian Grand Prix in 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic, which was run on consecutive weekends with the Austrian Grand Prix. In 2021, the Styrian Grand Prix preceded the Austrian Grand Prix, but in 2020 it followed – making the Austrian Grand Prix on 5 July, the latest opening race of an F1 season.

3 | The 2023 Austrian Grand Prix saw F1's first experience with its low carbon energy solution for the paddock. A combination of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), solar panels, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), removing the requirement for the 10 F1 teams, the FIA and F1's own operation to use their own generators.

4 | The 2019 Austrian Grand Prix was Lance's 50th race start… and Kimi Räikkönen's 300th.

5 | Lance won twice at the Red Bull Ring during his title-winning European F3 campaign in 2016, the season before making is F1 debut.

7 | Fernando has scored points in six of his last seven starts at the Red Bull Ring. Ironically, he set the fastest lap in his only non-scoring race during that run (2024).

8 | Austrian drivers – or those with an Austrian licence – tend to have their F1 debut in Austria. There are World Champions Jochen Rindt (1964) and Niki Lauda (1971), joined by, among others, Helmut Marko (1971) and Gerhard Berger (1984).

9 | The Red Bull Ring has a longer lap than Monaco, Zandvoort, Interlagos and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but the amount of the lap taken at full throttle means it has the shortest lap-time on the current calendar, with the ultimate record being Valterri Bottas' lap of 1m02.939s during Q3 in 2020. (Bottas holds the record of 0:53.377 for the all-time shortest lap-time, set on the Outer Circuit of the Bahrain International Circuit for the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix).

Last time out

In 2021, in Aston Martin's first season back on the F1 grid, Lance and Sebastian Vettel both enjoyed spritely starts in on the Soft tyres in Spielberg but struggled with the longer stints on the harder tyres, falling back. Lance, who started P9, fell back to P13, while Seb, well out of the points, had the misfortune of a last-lap collision with badminton partner Kimi Räikkönen and didn't see the flag, classified P17. 2022 saw the team split strategy, with Lance, qualifying 12th, starting on Mediums and Seb, back in 18th, on Hards. Both battered away but with little impact: Lance losing one place by the flag, Seb gaining one.

2023 was a much better performance, with Lance fourth and Fernando fifth in the Sprint. They qualified sixth and seventh, respectively, for the main race. Fernando made up ground with a reverse strategy, starting on a Hard tyre. A VSC didn't help him, but he came home in P6, which turned into P5 after a penalty for Carlos Sainz. Lance lost a few places during a stop in the VSC period, converted to a three-stop and came home P9.

2024 was a frustrating race with the AMR24 not really suited to the Red Bull Ring. Both cars picked up a few dings along the way, Lance surviving a tight first lap with a couple of nudges, and Fernando picking up a penalty for contact with Zhou later in the race. It didn't really impact the final result, Lance finishing P13 and Fernando P18 – albeit with the consolation of setting fastest lap.