Austria revived F1's feel-good factor

There's a hint of irony that the arrival of Formula 1's brave new world of fuel-efficient engines has come about at a time when the sport's chiefs are trying to rewind the clock and rekindle some magic from the past.

Efforts to bring back sparking cars, vapour trails and glowing brake discs have been met with intense cynicism from hardcore fans - a lot of whom view such tweaks as needless gimmicks pushed for by those who are struggling to put a finger on why F1 is suffering a decline in interest right now.

Yet while a deliberate attempt to try to engineer some of the most iconic moments of the past may not please everybody, you would've been hard pressed to find a single person who attended last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix who didn't think that some old-school F1 lessons had come home to roost.

After years in which some of F1's newest additions to the calendar had been greeted with a lack of fan interest, a corporate lack of passion and a feeling that opportunities had not been fully realised, how refreshing it was to find the opposite at this resurrected event.

How many times have we gone to new grands prix with empty grandstands to be told it would take time for the fan interest to build up?

How many times have we gone to an event questioning why an F1 venue in the middle of nowhere had been created without a superb track layout?

How many times too have we been to places knowing that the reason we were there was for local government vanity reasons - which fitted in perfectly with the ever-bigger demands of Bernie Ecclestone and the sport's owners CVC to bring home bigger and bigger deals?

It was little wonder, then, that after a magical sell-out Austrian GP the F1 paddock had about it a feel-good factor about what Dietrich Mateschitz and his Red Bull company had done.

Austrian GP was a warmly-welcomed sell-out © LAT

Yet it was not just one factor that helped the weekend become a success. Some circumstances helped: like the stunning location. The wonderful mountain scenery could not fail to impress, and that giant metal Red Bull in the middle of the track provided an iconic reminder of just whose turf we were on.

Mateschitz also realised that handing the media a press centre that overlooked the track for one of the best views of the season helped drive home the atmosphere of the venue - and increase the mood of positivity surrounding the GP.

While some rued the loss of the original Osterreichring layout for the shorter layout used since the A1-Ring days, the track configuration actually made for some pretty decent racing and a sizeable challenge for drivers and teams: with braking needing to be spot on and turn-in for that tricky Turn 8 proving key to the weekend.

But best of all was that this was an event for the fans. The packed grandstands, brought to life with the motion of waved red-and-white flags on Sunday, was great to see.

The rammed campsites, blaring out their mixture of Eurohouse and soft rock, partied from before dusk until nearly dawn. The local farm buildings near the track, which were converted into make-shift nightclubs, helped embellish the mood of this being a proper festival. And everywhere people were having a good time.

This was not a grand prix at which the fans had been forgotten and everything had been stilted towards the corporate dollar that cares more about the quality of the champagne and lobster than the sport.

Mateschitz had created an event at which every F1 fan - be they on the cheapest ticket or in the most expensive grandstand - could come to do one thing only: worship and enjoy F1. That mattered far more to him than how his cars fared.

So, in these days when the teams are scratching their heads wondering why fans have been turning off their televisions and losing interest in the sport, perhaps there are some old-school lessons that F1 can take on board from Austria.

After all, if F1 doesn't take care of its customers, someone else will.