The Spielberg circuit nestles in the Styrian hills of central Austria, near Spielberg bei Knittelfeld
The track was built between 1968 and 1969
It replaced the nearby Zeltweg military airport, which had become a racetrack and was used in the 1960s to host the first Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix.
The track was initially 5.9 km long, but Hermann Tilke’s design modified and shortened it to 4.3 km in a project that began at the end of 1995 and finished in June 1996. With no further modernisation works, the circuit was unused in the early years of the 21st century, before reopening on 15 May 2011, still featuring the track design introduced in 1996.
The circuit comprises nine turns with a height difference of 65 metres. It is not very winding, with a layout that favours high speeds. The starting straight covers about 70% of the original's length, with the first corner at the top of the hill. Immediately afterwards, a fast section leads to a sharp uphill throttling down, before the Remus Kurve, a hairpin bend to the right. After another fast section, there is a right-hand turn, this time downhill, followed by a quick right-hand turn, heading into the only two left-hand turns on the track (Rauch and Würth). After an uphill right-hander (turn 7) and a straight with a downhill section, the track descends to the last turn, the Jochen Rindt, and then onto the pit straight.
