You would expect August 16 to be blazing hot almost anywhere in Europe, but Austria is not like that. On the Thursday before practice began the clouds were down on the deck and the rain was pouring on the northern side of the mountains, yet by evening on the plateau between Knittelfeld and Judenberg, where the majestic Osterreichring is situated, the skies were blue and the sun was warm.
The Formula One “circus” had journeyed the relatively short distance from Budapest to Vienna and then south over the famous Semmering Pass to set up camp for the Austrian Grand Prix, just one week after the Hungarian Grand Prix. As people stood in the paddock and surveyed the green hillside over which the Osterreichring has been built, many of them breathed a sigh of relief and said how satisfying it was to be back “on a real Grand Prix circuit” after the artificiality of the Hockenheimring in Germany, and the “micky mouse” character of the Hungaroring near Budapest.
You don’t have to start much of a conversation going before opinions are expressed that in today’s list of Grand Prix circuits the ones which really impress people are Spa-Francorchamps, the Osterreichring, and our own Silverstone circuit. These are people, like myself, to whom Grand Prix racing is all about high-speed cornering — where absolute skills can be seen, and where lap records almost defy our imagination.
