Austria

Spielberg, Lauda and the Viennese Table

Austria has staged 41 championship rounds, mostly in the Styrian hills at Spielberg, and its cooking mixes Habsburg Vienna with strong regional traditions.

Austria's first World Championship Grand Prix ran on the Zeltweg air base in 1964. When the race came back in 1970 it found a new home at Spielberg, a circuit that has changed its name more often than its scenery: the Österreichring from 1970 to 1987, the A1 Ring from 1997 to 2003, and the Red Bull Ring since 2014. Together they have staged 40 rounds. The Austrian Grand Prix itself has been held 39 times, most recently in 2026, and in 2020 and 2021 Spielberg added a second race, the Styrian Grand Prix. No driver has won in Austria more often than Max Verstappen, with five victories.

Niki Lauda stands above everyone else from Austria: champion in 1975, 1977 and 1984, with 25 Grand Prix wins from 171 starts. Gerhard Berger won ten races across 210 starts, and Alexander Wurz made 69 starts. Red Bull Racing, which our records place under Austria, won the constructors' title four years in a row from 2010 to 2013 and again in 2022 and 2023.

Austrian food is a family of regional cuisines gathered around Vienna, whose cooking grew up at the Habsburg court. It shares a great deal with Hungary, Bavaria, Bohemia and northern Italy, and abroad it is known above all for pastries such as apple strudel and Kaiserschmarrn and for the veal Wiener schnitzel. Goose, turkey, chicken, pork and beef are the favored meats, sausages come in many styles, and autumn turns restaurant menus toward game.

Spielberg lies in Styria, the region that lent its name to those 2020 and 2021 races. Its wine taverns, the Buschenschank, pour new wine alongside homemade cakes and the Brettljause, a wooden board laid with cured meats, bacon spread, horseradish and eggs. Styria is pumpkin country too, so thoroughly that even its runner bean salad comes dressed in pumpkin seed oil. For a gentle start at home, turn to the Viennese classics: Tafelspitz, or goulash with bread dumplings.

A taste of Austria

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