Anderstorp Raceway

Motorsport track in Sweden

The Runway Circuit of Anderstorp

Carved from Swedish marshland, Anderstorp staged the only Formula 1 Grands Prix the Nordic countries have known, and gave two very unusual cars their lone wins.

Light aircraft can still use the main straight. That detail alone sets Anderstorp Raceway apart, though it has a greater distinction: it is the only circuit in the Nordic countries ever to host a round of the Formula 1 World Championship. Long known as Scandinavian Raceway, it was built in 1968 on marshland in Gislaved Municipality, Sweden, and it arrived at a fortunate moment, because through the 1970s Ronnie Peterson was at the peak of his career and the venue became hugely popular.

That straight is called the Flight Straight, and its 1,000 meters double as a runway, an arrangement chosen to draw in more financial backers. Elsewhere the lap is full of oddities. Several corners are banked, forcing engineers into compromises on setup, and the pit lane sits not at the start of the lap but halfway around it, as though the circuit had been planned from the middle outward. The length has always stayed close to 4 km, with a chicane at Norra introduced and revised during the mid 1970s.

Six Swedish Grands Prix were held here between 1973 and 1978. Denny Hulme won the first for McLaren, while Jody Scheckter and Niki Lauda won two apiece, and two of those victories went to cars so unorthodox that neither ever won anywhere else. Scheckter won in 1976 driving the six wheeled Tyrrell P34, and Lauda in 1978 driving Brabham's fan car.

The 1978 season took the lives of both Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson, and with them went the public's support for the race, which was never held again. Anderstorp moved on to motorcycle Grands Prix, touring cars and GT racing, and Porsche Carrera Cup Scandinavia races there today. Formula 1 has not found another home in the Nordic countries, which leaves this marshland circuit with a distinction all its own.

Every Grand Prix here

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