Formula One Vault

Prixview – Austrian Grand Prix 2023

Round nine of the season sees the start of the July run into the summer break with four races in five weeks across Central and North-West Europe at the Red Bull Ring. The circuit in the Styrian mountains has had various names and configurations since it first held the Grand Prix in 1970.

However, Spielberg has hosted every race since 1963 originally at Zeltweg Airfield two and a half miles away and the current Red Bull Ring, about forty miles from the state capital Graz. The first race in this area was a non-championship race won by Jim Clark.

The 2.683-mile circuit is one of the shortest in terms of length and the shortest in terms of lap times with the laps in qualifying under seventy seconds. The circuit requires low downforce and throughout its history has retained the character of the original circuit as well as the shape despite being shortened throughout its history.

The current configuration is based on the layout introduced in 1996, it retained the high speed and downforce nature of its predecessor Österreichring. The circuit has a mixture of high-speed corners and elevation during the course of a lap, 65 m (213 ft) from lowest to the highest point. Like most fast circuits it was a hard circuit on engines but more difficult on tires, because of the speeds being so consistently high.

The circuit also requires power, corners quick reaction and good driveability in the middle sector where the main overtaking opportunities are and straights between Red Bull (Turn Ten) and AMS AG (Turn Three) only broken by the nearly ninety-degree Lauda (Turn One) and the kink called Turn Two by the FIA & FIM.

The hard-breaking zones at the end of the straights Niki Lauda, Ams AG and Rauch, makes brake failures common but are also good overtaking opportunities. This circuit is another which will favour Red Bull given its high-speed nature and fast flowing circuit they won both of the races in 2021.

Throughout its fifty-years on and off the calendar, the high altitude of the circuit in the hybrid eras has favoured the faster cars. The circuit is roughly 660 metres above sea level it is one of the highest altitude races of the season, which means that performance levels are more equal. We often see the fastest lap times of the season with the fastest laps below seventy seconds for a lap. Following cars should be easier and we have seen great races on track in the hybrid era.

Red Bull go into this weekend as the favourite they have won every race this season and this being another high-speed and downforce circuit should again favour them at their own circuit and home race. Max Verstappen has won four races at the Red Bull Ring.

They have looked all season to have a good all-rounder and have been “scarily” quick on high-speed circuits. But Spielberg is an old school circuit and the high altitude, coupled with its high speed, grass and gravel, short lap can create difficulties. There is also a risk being at the highest circuit of the season weather bubbling up quickly.

In 1981, hybrid-powered cars locked out the top five in qualifying however, in the race all but one car retired with Elio de Angelis locking into a battle with Keke Rosberg, despite the Williams driver chipping away at around 1.5 seconds a lap, Rosberg hung on to take victory by half a second.

The 1971 race saw Swiss driver Jo Siffert dominate in his BRM and Briton Jackie Stewart took his second Drivers’ Championship. The 1975 race was marred by the fatal accident of Mark Donohue, and the race itself was rain-soaked and was won by Vittorio Brambilla, winning the only F1 race of his career, and, true to form, he crashed into the guardrail and broke the nose of his car shortly after crossing the finish line.

1977 saw a slow three-corner chicane installed at Voest-Hugel, which was where Donohue had crashed two years before. What was the fastest corner on the track was now the slowest corner there and would become known as the Hella-Licht Chicane. This race was won by Australian Alan Jones in a Shadow; and like with Brambilla and Watson, it was his first Grand Prix victory.

The 1987 race was restarted twice due to accidents on the narrow pit-straight grid; and this track was also deemed too dangerous by FIA standards, because of the number of high-speed corners, lack of protection from trees and embankments and accidents at the start of many races on the narrow and confined pit straight.

Following the safety concerns the circuit was completely remodelled and rebuilt to a shorter configuration in the mid-1990s. the basis of the current circuit first introduced in 1996, the circuit was designed by Hermann Tilke who made , the circuit was made shorter and many of the corners were slowed down to create the current circuit. the Hella-Licht chicane, Flatschach, Dr. Tiroch curve and the first half of the backstretch run up to where the Bosch-Kurve was taken out and replaced with a bypass that went directly to the second half of the fast, uphill backstretch.

However, this isn’t a modern circuit designed with huge tarmac run-off areas its retained the grass and gravel, meaning that any mistakes can be hugely costly if you go too wide. That can also lead to safety cars and red flags, in recent years wet qualifying sessions have seen drivers get caught out and surprise pole sitters. Weather can bubble up in the foothills of the Styrian Mountains, but we can also see anything from boiling hot still summer days to cold and wet days.

Changeable conditions are something teams need to get used to going to both Silverstone and Spa over the next month and as we saw in Montreal there can be surprises caused by both weather and drive making mistakes.

This circuit and race are always tended to be dominated by power units, including Ferrari in the 1970s and early 2000s with most of the races in the hybrid era being won by Mercedes since the race returned in 2014. More recently Red Bull has dominated the race with wins in 2018, 2019, and 2021 (Styrian).

Ferrari’s Irvine took victory in 1999 as he set after his championship following Schumacher’s broken leg at Silverstone, it was the team’s first victory in Austria since 1970. McLaren took victory in both 2000 and 2001, Häkkinen leading from pole ahead of Coulthard.

2002 was saw one of the most controversial finishes to a Grand Prix in history. Ferrari ordered Rubens Barrichello, who had led most of the race to allow the German through, to take victory and extend his lead over Coulthard in the championship. That resulted in Schumacher, Barrichello and Ferrari all being fined $1m and a ban on team orders until Ferrari used them in 2010.

After being brought by Red Bull and redeveloped the circuit returned to the calendar in 2014, but remained based on the layout introduced in 1998. In qualifying despite Mercedes dominance of that season it was the Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas. However, it didn’t take long for the Mercedes to find a way past Nico Rosberg winning the race after undercutting the Williams.

2016 Rosberg took pole before losing out to Hamilton at the start, but he did come back during the race before the two Mercedes went wheel to wheel on the final lap when Hamilton was pushed to the outside at AMG AS as they exited the corner Rosberg pushed him onto the grass, but Hamilton exited Turn Three making contact twice The German nursing his car to victory

Bottas took victory following his move to Mercedes in 2017, the Finn has always appeared to go strongly in Spielberg during his time with the team he always finished on the podium, with the expectation of 2018 when both Mercedes retired for the first time with mechanical failures, and Hamilton’s first non-finish since the 2016 Malaysia.

That allowed Max Verstappen to take his and Red Bull’s, first win at their home race finishing ahead of the two Ferrari’s the only other cars on the lead lap while Haas had its best finish to date with Romain Grosjean fourth and Kevin Magnussen fifth. The Dutchman took victory again in 2019, despite stalling on the grid.

Verstappen the closing stages passed both Mercedes and Ferrari to take Honda’s first win since Budapest in 2006. It was also the only race of 2019 not won by Mercedes, maybe that’s some hope that history can be repeated despite the advantage that Red Bull has.

2020 saw Austria host the opening races of the season, due to the pandemic marking the first time a circuit held two consecutive championship races. Bottas won the first race weekend beating Charles Leclerc, despite Ferrari expecting to be on the backfoot following testing. Hamilton was second on track, but was given a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Alex Albon, that moved Lando Norris moved into third scoring his first podium.

Hamilton bounced back the following weekend to win the Styrian race ahead of Bottas from pole. As the Finn dropped behind Verstappen in a battle for second but the Mercedes hung on for second.

Race & Circuit Guide

*including 2021 Styrian Grand Prix

Fast facts

• The short track length at the Red Bull Ring often leads to tight qualifying sessions. five of the last ten pole positions at the track have been decided by less than a tenth of a second.
• Despite being the quickest lap to complete on the current calendar, with the 2020 pole time just under 63 seconds, the Red Bull Ring is actually only the fourth shortest track on the schedule, after Monaco, Mexico City
• Rolf Stommelen took the only podium finish of his F1 career at the Austrian Grand Prix in 1970. He finished third having started seventeenth, the furthest back grid position a podium finish has come from at the track.
• Despite not winning in Austrian since 1982, Ford-powered cars have had more wins here than any other engined cars, with 9 victories in total between 1972 and 1982.
• Before 2017, the track officially only had nine corners. However, the FIA recognised the slight kink between the first two right-hand turns ahead of the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix. Hence, the curve became Turn 2, subsequently changing every corner number on track aside from Turn 1.

Event timetable

What happened in 2022?

Qualifying for the sprint saw Max Verstappen beat both Ferraris to pole position by two hundredths. The Red Bull driver set his fastest time right at the end of the session, by that point Leclerc was already down on his spilt times and unable to set a purple sector, although he did improve on his own personal best to go just over five hundredths ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz.

However rare errors for both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell left Mercedes with a lot of repairs overnight, Hamilton crashed after oversteer at Rauch when he tried to correct his steering locked sending him on a one-way ticket to the wall. While on his final attempt through the final corner, Russell lost the rear after a snap of oversteer and flicked the second Mercedes into the wall.

Hamilton’s mistake on his second run came when he suffered oversteer at Rauch (Turn Six), he only looked to go marginally wide and suffered when a snap on his third hot lap caused him to lose the rear. While he tried to correct, the car gripped, and the steering lock applied projected him off the road and across the gravel.

Verstappen dominated the sprint and took the pole by a second and a half after leading the entire twenty-four laps. That was despite strong attempts from both Ferrari’s to try and overtake, the top four all stayed in the same positions where they had qualified. Leclerc, who finished just 1.6 seconds behind Verstappen. Russell recovered from crashes in qualifying with him finishing fourth.

But it was Leclerc who won the Grand Prix in dominant style holding off Verstappen despite a few technical issues in the closing stages. It was a thrilling battle between the two as they fought for the lead as well as regaining second in the championship. Sergio Perez was forced to retire from the race, because of an issue on lap twenty-four and Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz who had been part of that battle was forced to retire because of a throttle issue.

Hamilton finished the race third after Mercedes used a clever two-stop strategy while others around him had to use a three-stop, to surge through the field after starting ninth on the grid. He benefited from Sainz’s retirement, but the Silver Arrows look to continuing to make steps forward.

The seven-time champion battled hard to pass both Haas’s midway through the race to finish nearly eight seconds ahead of his teammate George Russell.

Race Result – 1) C. Leclerc, Ferrari, 01:24:24.312 | 2) M. Verstappen, Red Bull, +00:01.532 | 3) L. Hamilton, Mercedes, +00:41.217

What to watch for?

This weekend marks the start of the four races in five weeks heading into the summer break and two of them being sprint weekend (here and Spa) its important that teams get it right and get some momentum over the next few weeks, that could be either good in stopping the way Red Bull has demolished the opposition this year and allow for a freak result. The Red Bull Ring does however favour high speed and downforce favouring Red Bull, and we know that is one of the things they have to their advantage.

This is another sprint weekend there is only one practice session ahead of qualifying for the Grand Prix on Sunday and Sprint on Saturday the hour of practice tends to be busy as they will want as much running on track during practice on Friday lunchtime throughout practice and the qualifying sessions. We know that practice is normally busy at sprint weekends and we will see the track get faster and faster in qualifying.

The battle I think we need to watch is between Aston Martin and Mercedes, in my view Mercedes have or is on the way to overtake Aston in terms of race pace, but Aston I still has the edge in qualifying. However, I think that’s going to be interesting to see if Aston can keep the grip on second at the halfway point in the season after the reset in the aero allowances they will be the team will have the biggest change from 2022 as they are now second in the constructors.

Aston Martin, I still feel if Red Bull were to run into problems the most likely to pick up a win but we know Mercedes look still to be their closest challengers. Aston we now can conclude halfway through this season are genuinely in the fight for second, but now Mercedes are back regularly at the front. I think this is going to be the story of the second half of the year following the summer break.

Ferrari is not in my view delivering performance-grabbing headlines though they are in the top four last year we know they are heading in the right direction in the medium to long term. Carlos Sainz is currently the lead driver in the championship, I wonder if in the medium term they put more resources into his championship challenge?

This circuit is a old-school circuit as explained above, we know communication is going to be key given the short lap here teams can trip over each other and the tyres can sometimes hold up for multiple flying laps in qualifying. If we get variable conditions the track can be difficult because its lined with grass and gravel.

Alpine could be another team to watch this weekend they are one of those strong midfield teams who are looking to be delivering and going into this race are in fifth, following the bounce back and there appears from the outside to be no lingering bitterness. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon appear to be delivering for the team and they should continue to through the remaining races.

2022 vs 2021 Race Data

2022 Lap time comparison

Tyres