Austria's High-Downforce Track: What's The Secret?

The Spielberg track or Red Bull Ring in Austria is considered one of the fastest circuits in Formula One due to its long straights and high-speed corners. This makes it a challenging track to compete on. The track is also known for its treacherous curbs, which require a specific car setup to navigate effectively. To optimise performance on this track, it is recommended to adjust the car setup by altering the front and rear aerodynamics.

Austria's Red Bull Ring is a track that requires more rear downforce than front downforce. This setup helps to ground the vehicle's rear, making it easier to navigate turns. Additionally, the long straights on the track mean that running too much downforce is not advisable, as it can compromise speed.

Overall, the Red Bull Ring in Austria presents a unique set of challenges and requires a careful balance of car setup and driving technique to achieve optimal performance.

The Spielberg track or Red Bull Ring in Austria is one of the fastest circuits

The Red Bull Ring is considered a power-sensitive track, offering a compromise between downforce and top speed. It is ideal for close wheel-to-wheel racing, with long straights in two of its sectors and a final flowing sector that makes it an easy drive. However, it is a challenging circuit to master, and a good setup is needed to gain a competitive advantage. The track requires more rear downforce than front downforce, ensuring that the car doesn't lose rear downforce mid-corner or late corner, which can cause oversteering.

The Red Bull Ring is also known for its treacherous curbs, and a soft suspension setup is crucial to staying on the track. Additionally, brake bias is essential for maximising lap time. Adjusting the brake bias forward can reduce the stopping distance, while adjusting it backward can be advantageous during fast sections of the circuit, such as Turn 4. The track has hosted numerous racing events, including Formula One, MotoGP, DTM, and the Austrian Grand Prix.

Austria is a true balancing act for drivers

The Red Bull Ring is a power-sensitive track, and a good setup is needed to gain a competitive advantage. While on paper, it is a simple circuit, in reality, it is quite challenging. The track has long straights in two of its sectors, with a final flowing sector that makes it an easy drive. However, to master the track, drivers need to hit every kerb to maximise their car's performance.

To achieve the best lap times, drivers need to find the right balance between downforce and drag. More downforce creates more grip in corners, allowing drivers to carry more speed. However, it can also cause drag, slowing the car down in a straight line. Therefore, drivers need to adapt their driving style to extract the most speed from their cars, deciding whether to be later on the brakes when heading into a turn or earlier on the throttle when coming out of it.

Additionally, aggressive cornering tends to wear out tyres more quickly, so drivers may need to use smoother steering wheel inputs to make the tyres last longer. Most cars will stop once or twice during a race, and knowing the right strategy can make all the difference in achieving the best results.

The Red Bull Ring is a track that requires more rear downforce than front downforce

The Red Bull Ring in Austria is considered one of the fastest circuits in F1 due to its long straights and high-speed corners. This makes it a challenging track to compete on. To optimise performance, the car setup should be altered to have lower front aerodynamics and higher rear aerodynamics. This setup will allow for easier attainment of top speed since the front aerodynamics have a more pronounced effect on top speed compared to the rear.

Higher rear aerodynamics will help ground the rear of the vehicle, easing turns at corners 6, 7, 9, and 10. Therefore, it is advisable to focus on the rear downforce to achieve better grip on these corners. While traction is not a primary concern due to the fast corners, turns 3 and 4 will require some adjustment as they have some ups and downs.

For suspension, a soft setup is recommended to keep the car on the track and prevent crashes into the kerbs. However, it is important to not soften the suspension too much to avoid ignoring car rolls. Lastly, brake bias is crucial for maximising lap time. Adjusting the brake bias forward will reduce the stopping distance, while adjusting it backward while on fast sections of the circuit, such as Turn 4, can be beneficial.

The Red Bull Ring is a track that demands a careful balance of setup optimisation to achieve peak performance. With its combination of long straights and technical corners, finding the right compromise between straight-line speed and cornering performance is essential.

The track has long straights, so cars can't run too much downforce

The Red Bull Ring in Austria is one of the fastest circuits in Formula One, with long straights and high-speed corners. This means that cars cannot run too much downforce. This makes setting up your car for the Austrian Grand Prix a true balancing act.

While teams want to design cars that produce as much downforce as possible to boost speed through corners, they must do this in a way that does not result in too much aerodynamic drag. More drag will slow a car down in a straight line, and more power will be needed to overcome this resistance and achieve the best possible acceleration and top speed.

Austria is a power track, where most of a car's performance is tied to the power, acceleration and top speed made possible by the engine. This is in contrast to a high downforce track, where a car's performance over the course of a lap is mostly attributed to the aerodynamic downforce it produces rather than the power of its engine.

The Spielberg track in Austria has long straights and high-speed corners, making it a really hard track to compete on. To keep your car on track, you must alter your setup by changing the front aerodynamics to a low level and the rear aerodynamics to a higher level. This way, you will easily reach your top speed since the front aerodynamics have a higher effect on top speed compared to the rear.

The higher rear aerodynamics help ground your vehicle's rear, easing up your turns. Therefore, it is best to focus on your rear downforce to get a better grip on these corners.

Austria is a power-sensitive track

Austria's Red Bull Ring is one of the least downforce-sensitive tracks in the F1 calendar. However, it is reasonably power-sensitive. The track is at a high altitude of 660-670m above sea level, which makes it challenging for cars to generate adequate cooling. This, in turn, affects the power of the internal combustion engines.

The thin air at this high altitude means there is less oxygen available for the engines, which require oxygen, fuel, and a spark to function. This results in reduced power. The low air density also affects brake cooling.

To compensate for the reduced power and brake cooling, teams will run larger wings to create more downforce. This is because the thin air means the aerodynamic trickery usually employed has less effect, and larger wings are needed to create the same amount of downforce as at other tracks.

The Austrian Grand Prix consists of only 10 corners and 4.3km of tarmac, so it is one of the smaller tracks of the F1 season. The long straights on either side of Turn 1 require plenty of straight-line speed. While this calls for the utilisation of an adequate level of downforce, too much downforce will create drag, slowing the cars down on these straights.

Overall, the Red Bull Ring in Austria is a reasonably power-sensitive track, where teams need to strike a balance between generating enough power and creating sufficient downforce to navigate the corners effectively.

Frequently asked questions