Austria's Formula 1 rebirth

The third Sunday of May 2003. President George W Bush has recently announced an end to combat in Iraq. 'Dirty Den' is making a return to Eastenders. R Kelly is at number one in the UK singles chart. Michael Schumacher has won the final Austrian Grand Prix by three seconds from Kimi Raikkonen. Over the coming months, as Schumacher homes in on the world championship, the now-forgotten A1-Ring begins its slide into dereliction.

Flash forward just over a decade and the Austrian GP is about to make an unlikely - and welcome - return. The A1-Ring has been rescued from ruin and is now the Red Bull Ring, thanks to investment from the manufacturer of the well-known energy drink that is nearby Salzburg's best-known export (with the possible exceptions of The Sound Of Music and Mozart).

The entrepreneur behind the brand is also dipping into his own pocket to fund the return of the Austrian Grand Prix - something that should send every F1 fan into Julie Andrews mode. Run through the meadows and shout it like you mean it: the hills are alive again.

Why the joy? The current circuit layout may represent only the edited highlights of its former incarnation as the fearsome Osterreichring, home of the Austrian GP between 1970 and 1987, but as a destination it was incredibly popular. Leave the circuit at dusk on the evening of a GP weekend and you'd see the surrounding hills glowing with lanterns and campfires, and hear the throb of music and laughter as the fans enjoyed themselves. Compare that with the often miserable and fan-free commute to some of F1's more recent additions to the calendar.

The return of Austria could signal a major shift in the sport's direction, as familiar and well-liked races from the past displace unloved ones from the present. Its rebirth is significant because it is backed by private rather than public finance, mirroring trends in the wider world in which big businesses are testing their muscle against governments.

Formula 1 will return to Spielberg next year © LAT

But make no mistake, Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz has had to fight to make this happen. The circuit's woes date back to its birth: the land it stands on was never owned by its operators, but leased from various local farmers. By the 1980s, the Osterreichring was dead in the water. Locals to the south west objected vigorously to the noise from race activities, and F1 cars had grown too powerful for the fast, flowing layout, which couldn't be altered because various landowners demanded too high a price.

Enter European rallycross champion Franz Wurz, father of Le Mans winner and Benetton F1 driver Alex Wurz. He was expanding his thriving road-safety training business and on the lookout for new locations.

"Back in the early 1990s, my father came home and said, 'We should do something with that track,'" Alex recalls. "So we looked at the plans, and I started to draw a short version that kept away from those who claimed legal action against the operation of the track. With little choice of land - it belonged to many different farmers - the current layout was found. Some corners were a fight for centimetres!"

The early section of the original layout ran around the base of a hill; the new route between Turns 1 and 2 placed that hill between the circuit and its noise-conscious neighbours to the south-west. Hermann Tilke, who had worked on several Wurz training centres, supervised the rebuild, thus securing what would prove to be a lucrative introduction to Bernie Ecclestone...

With title sponsorship coming from the A1 telecoms network, the circuit hosted the revived Austrian GP from 1997 to 2003, when Red Bull negotiated a deal with the Styrian government and local landowners to buy the site. But Mateschitz's plan, re-using part of the old Osterreichring layout to create a modern race, test and entertainment facility, received a double blow.

The change in ownership activated an escape clause in the contract, and Ecclestone used it to pursue richer pickings elsewhere. Then, with bulldozers already on site levelling the pit building, environmentalists used the changes to challenge the operating licence.

Furious, Mateschitz made a tetchy public announcement to the effect that he wasn't going to throw good money after bad, and the Red Bull Ring duly lay fallow for another five years.

The circuit was relaunched by Red Bull © LAT

And yet here we are. The Red Bull Ring opened for business in May 2011, not operated by Red Bull but by a separate Mateschitz-owned company called Projekt Spielberg, managed by former Nurburgring CEO Walter Kafitz.

The track itself is unchanged since the 1990s, but the open-topped spectator banking is new (the roof of the old grandstand acted as a noise magnifier) - as is the 28-garage pit complex. The company has bought and renovated a number of local hotels (availability of accommodation used to be a bugbear come grand prix time), some of which overlook the track, and the standard ranges from affordable gasthof to gilt-edged luxury.

Beyond the run-off for Turn 1, a kart track occupies what was the Hella-Licht chicane - arrive-and-drive prices start at 13 euros for 10 minutes - and to the north and west there are extensive off-road routes. You can pitch up with your own trail bike or 4x4, or rent one on-site.

In the centre of the track is a skid pan and skills course, overlooked by a 50-ton statue of a bull charging through an arch. This is as on-brand as the blue-and-silver grandstand seats: it's made of steel recycled from old aircraft hangars, and the archway is formed from recycled Red Bull cans. Ah yes, and the horns are covered in gold leaf.

"Mateschitz knew the importance of putting something back into the region he came from," says a source with connections to Red Bull. "He had to do something to benefit the ordinary folk back home as well as paying people to throw themselves off the rim of space, for example..."

For those not interested in motoring, the hotels can be used as a base for activity holidays - Projekt Spielberg has equine facilities nearby, there are plenty of golf courses, and the hills are ripe for mountain biking, paragliding, hiking and (in winter) cross-country skiing. In fact, track activities occupy just under a quarter of the graphic on the cover of the tourist brochure. It's a calculated appeal to the broader tourist market.

"We call ourselves the most beautiful playground in Austria," says Walter Kafitz over lunch at the Landhotel Schonberghof, whose terrace overlooks the circuit and plains beyond. "We offer many activities - not just motorsport - and the emphasis is on fun. From the start, Mr Mateschitz intended a broad offering. We have the mountains - why not use them?

The new pit complex © LAT

"For example, the four-wheel-drive test centre over here [he gestures towards the rising slope of the hills to the north] has many surfaces and gradients, you can do that in the morning... and then after lunch you can go four miles from here where we have 50 hectares of land to explore. It's an adventure!"

Unusually, the Red Bull Ring has no security-guarded front gate. You just drive in, park by the bust of Jochen Rindt, browse through the Red Bull memorabilia in the Driving Centre's shop, enjoy the club-ish vibe of the extensive Bull's Lane cafe atop the pit complex, or drive up the hill to the hotels and restaurants. The architecture of the pit building, while thoroughly modern, is functional and unadorned, eschewing the Tilke-esque tendency to throw in a distinctive flourish. The overall impression is of a circuit that's comfortable in its own skin.

On the Monday of F1 Racing's visit to the Red Bull Ring, it's incredibly busy. Police motorcyclists are undergoing training at the Driving Centre, and we join a well-subscribed 10-lap track session in a KTM X-Bow - think XXL kart with a 240bhp turbo engine - superintended by former Minardi F1 pilot Patrick Friesacher.

The session uses only the 'Sudschleife', cutting out the second to fourth corners of the grand prix track, but this lets Friesacher rattle through his briefing at speed and send his charges out to enjoy themselves.

It's a long enough lap to get a feel for the character of the full circuit - it's all about braking finesse - without the inherent risks of tackling the fastest section, the run to Turn 2. Get the last corner right and the X-Bow is flat-out in fifth on the pit straight and still gathering speed as the track ramps up 10 metres for the first corner.

You get a brief insight into what it must have been like in the early 1970s: right foot still planted on the floor as you come over the brow and then - still flat-out - tackle a sweeping right-hander with just Armco and a drop to the left. Then it's suddenly back to reality: brake and change down well before the brow and turn sharply to the right.

"We are not a driving school," says Kafitz. "It's safe, and the instructors are professionals. But people want to have fun - we are a playground. The days in school are past. The cream of the crop, I'd say, is our 'Go With Your Pro' driver lessons with people such as David Coulthard, Matthias Ekstrom and Carlos Sainz. We also offer cooking lessons and fishing, too."

The original Osterreichring © LAT

The Ring's motoring harem also includes Formula Renaults, stock cars and Mitsubishi Evos as well as sundry motorbikes and off-roaders. Since opening it's attracted race series as diverse as the DTM and trucks, filling its 20,000 seats with no trouble at all (overall capacity is around 40,000; there's work to be done expanding that before the Austrian GP).

What's clear is that the facility is going to have to pay its own way, hence the need to offer regular attractions beyond race weekends. Mateschitz recently told Speedweek that he was paying the grand prix sanctioning fee, but that the Ring would have to cover other costs of the event through ticket sales. Kafitz treads delicately around the matter of Red Bull's involvement.

"Let's say we all belong to a family called Red Bull," he says, "but there are no direct links between us and the title sponsor.

"We're booked out on the circuit from May until September and then in winter we offer other activities such as skating. That's why the company is called Projekt Spielberg. It really is an ongoing project. Year by year we'll have new toys to play with, new hotels and new events. Every year something happens."

At F1 Racing we've got our eye on something we hope will happen next year. And we're very much looking forward to it...