“We drew up a plan to drive in the opposite direction”– Red Bull had drafted a plan to spice up the Austrian GP by reversing the circuit.
Austria had to offer its hospitality for two weeks, after both Canada and then Turkey withdrew out from the same berth of this year’s Formula 1 calendar.
Last year also Austria organized two races, meaning four races at the same venue in two years propelled Red Bull to improvise and draft a plan to reverse the route of the track.
“Together with the FIA, we drew up a plan to drive in the opposite direction for the race,” Marko explained to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.
However, the plan had to be scrapped as it was causing massive safety hazards like the car could fly into the stands, dangering the lives of spectators and drivers.
“There were two tricky spots. In Turn 3, you would break over a crest into nothing [but the barrier] and in Turn 1, a car could have flown into the spectators without special protection because the cars would have been there going downhill at high speed towards the corner.”
Even if the safety issues could have been managed by making minor infrastructural changes, it would have still cost around €5-8 million, and a four-day gap was not enough to make those changes, so it was eventually dropped.
The only changes are the tyre compounds
So, apparently the only change the teams will witness this week is a shift from C2 hard tyres to softer C5 tyres, which would immensely differ the team strategies from last week.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how the teams get to grips with the C5 tyres for the second race weekend – and how the new selection influences strategy to create different opportunities compared to the preceding Styrian Grand Prix,” Pirelli’s head of motorsport Mario Isola said.
