The Lausitzring (formally known as the

Dekra DEKRA is the world’s largest non-listed expert organization in the TIC sector (Testing, Inspection, Certification) founded in Berlin, Germany in 1925 as Deutscher Kraftfahrzeug-Überwachungs-Verein (German Motor Vehicle Inspection Association ...

Lausitzring for ownership reasons) is a

race track A race track (racetrack, racing track or racing circuit) is a facility built for racing of vehicles, athletes, or animals (e.g. horse racing or greyhound racing). A race track also may feature grandstands or concourses. Race tracks are also u ...

located near Klettwitz (a civil parish of

Schipkau Schipkau ( dsb, Šejkow) is a municipality in the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district, in Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, Germany. Geography The municipality is located in the north of the historical region of Lusatia, close to the motorway A13, connect ...

Oberspreewald-Lausitz Oberspreewald-Lausitz ( dsb, Wokrejs Górne Błota-Łužyca, hsb, Wokrjes Hornje Błóta-Łužica) is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the north clockwise) Dahme-Spreewald, Spree- ...

district) in the state of

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...

in northeast

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, near the borders of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

and the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. It was originally named Lausitzring as it is located in the region the Germans call

Lausitz Lusatia (german: Lausitz, pl, Łużyce, hsb, Łužica, dsb, Łužyca, cs, Lužice, la, Lusatia, rarely also referred to as Sorbia) is a historical region in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr ...

(

Lusatia Lusatia (german: Lausitz, pl, Łużyce, hsb, Łužica, dsb, Łužyca, cs, Lužice, la, Lusatia, rarely also referred to as Sorbia) is a historical region in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr ...

), but was renamed EuroSpeedway Lausitz for better international communication from 2000 to 2010. The EuroSpeedway has been in use for

motor racing Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...

since 2000. Among other series, DTM (German Touring Car Championship) takes place there annually. It also used to host the

Superbike World Championship Superbike World Championship (also known as WorldSBK, SBK, World Superbike, WSB, or WSBK) is a silhouette-class road racing series based on heavily modified production motorcycles, also known as superbike racing. The championship was founded i ...

. The Lausitzring has a feature which is unique in continental Europe: a high-speed oval race track, as used in the United States by

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...

and

IndyCar INDYCAR, LLC, is an American-based auto racing sanctioning body for Indy car racing and other disciplines of open wheel car racing. The organization sanctions five racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with its centerpiece the Indianapolis ...

. The

tri-oval A tri-oval is a shape which derives its name from the two other shapes it most resembles, a triangle and an oval. Rather than meeting at sharp, definable angles as the sides of a triangle do, in a tri-oval these angles are instead rounded into sm ...

(similar to

Pocono Raceway Pocono Raceway (formerly Pocono International Raceway), also known as ''The Tricky Triangle'', is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. It is the site of three NASCAR national series races and an ARCA M ...

) was used twice in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

by open seater

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed tr ...

races named ''German 500'' (won by

Kenny Bräck Kenny Bräck (born 21 March 1966) is a Swedish former race car driver. Until his retirement from racing, he competed in the CART, Indy Racing League and the IROC series. He won the 1998 Indy Racing League championship and the 1999 Indianapoli ...

and

Sébastien Bourdais Sébastien Olivier Bourdais (born 28 February 1979) is a French professional racing driver. He is one of the most successful drivers in the history of American open-wheel car racing, having won 37 races. He won four successive championships ...

), plus a few British SCSA races. In 2005 and 2006, the German Formula Three Championship held races at the oval, with a pole position lap average speed of and a race average of .

History

As far back as 1986, in the former communist

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, it was planned to convert one of the huge open

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

pits into a race track. In the late 1990s, this idea was taken up again in order to build a replacement for the

AVUS The Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungsstraße ('Automobile traffic and training road'), known as AVUS, is a public road in Berlin, Germany. Opened in 1921, it was also used as a motor racing circuit until 1998. Today, the AVUS forms the northern p ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. The construction of the EuroSpeedway Lausitz began on 17 June 1998 and the facility was officially opened in August 2000. Winding in the infield of the high-speed tri-oval, there is a regular road race track for automobile and motorbike racing, using various track configurations up to roughly . The stands around the tri-oval have a capacity of 120,000, while the huge main grandstands have 25,000 seats, and unlike many circuits, the entire circuit can be seen from the main grandstand. Next to the racing facility, there is a test oval with two long straights connecting two steeply banked U-shaped corners. The test oval has a total length of , with each of its two straights measuring about in length. All tracks can be connected to form an long endurance racing course, but so far this option has been used only for testing and never as part of a major event. Like all modern tracks, the EuroSpeedway was built to the highest possible safety standards. However, there were three serious accidents at the facility in its first year of operation. On 25 April 2001, former

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

driver

Michele Alboreto Michele Alboreto (; 23 December 1956 – 25 April 2001) was an Italian racing driver. He was runner up to Alain Prost in the 1985 Formula One World Championship, as well as winning the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans and 2001 12 Hours of Sebring spo ...

was killed on the test oval after crashing at high speed due to a tyre failure. Alboreto was testing an

Audi R8 The Audi R8 is a mid-engine, 2-seater sports car, which uses Audi's trademark quattro permanent all-wheel drive system. It was introduced by the German car manufacturer Audi AG in 2006. The car is exclusively designed, developed, and manufac ...

in preparation of his participation at the 2001 24 Hours of Le Mans. Just over a week later, on 3 May 2001, a

track marshal Motorsport marshals are mainly volunteer workers responsible for the safety of motor racing competitors. They are stationed at various points of danger around race tracks to assist them in case of any collisions, accidents or track problems. Mar ...

was killed when he was hit by a touring car during a test session. The third serious accident occurred on 15 September 2001, when the venue's tri-oval hosted the 2001 American Memorial. It was the first race of the American

series to be held in Europe, but it was eventually overshadowed by the accident in which the series' two-time champion

Alex Zanardi Alessandro "Alex" Zanardi (; born 23 October 1966) is an Italian professional racing driver and paracyclist. He won the CART championship in 1997 and 1998, and took 15 wins in the series. He also raced in Formula One from 1991 to 1994 and aga ...

was involved. Zanardi lost control of his car at the pit exit following a late stop for fuel and the car slid onto the tri-oval, where it was hit from the side by

Alex Tagliani Alexandre Tagliani (; born October 18, 1973), nicknamed "Tag", is a Canadian professional racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series, driving the No. 18 Chevrolet Camaro for 22 Racing. Tagliani has competed in a variety ...

's car at full speed. The impact split the front of Zanardi's car from the rest of it and caused the driver to suffer a traumatic amputation of both of his legs. Tagliani was not seriously injured, having suffered some bruising as a result of the crash. The official EuroSpeedway anthem "Speed Kings" was recorded by the veteran East German band

Puhdys The Puhdys () were a German rock band, formed in Oranienburg (Brandenburg), GDR, in 1969, although by then they had been performing together—with various lineups—as the Puhdys since 1965. Although they are especially popular in their nativ ...

in 2000. The last concert of German hard rock band

Böhse Onkelz Böhse Onkelz (), sensational spelling of ''böse Onkel'' (German for "evil uncles") is a German rock band formed in Frankfurt in 1980. The band reunited in 2014. Despite mass-media criticism concerning their past as skinheads, several of their ...

took place on 17 and 18 June 2005 at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz under the name

Vaya Con Tioz ''Vaya Con Tioz'' is the seventh live album and sixth concert film by German rock band Böhse Onkelz. The festival film was recorded during their farewell show "Vaya Con Tioz" from 17 to 18 June 2005 at the Eurospeedway Lausitz, Germany. Accord ...

, in front of approximately 120,000. It was the biggest open air show by a German band ever. On 9 October 2005, the EuroSpeedway played host to the

A1 Grand Prix A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) was a "single-make" open-wheel auto racing series that ran from 2005 until 2009. It was unique in its field in that competitors solely represented their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most for ...

series on its road course. The fastest lap of the meeting was set by

Nicolas Lapierre Nicolas Lapierre (born 2 April 1984) is a French professional racing driver. He raced with Toyota and with Alpine Racing in the past seasons of the FIA World Endurance Championship. He is a two-time winner of the 12 Hours of Sebring, with overa ...

and was 0.45 seconds slower than the lap record for the circuit held by

Heikki Kovalainen Heikki Johannes Kovalainen (; born 19 October 1981) is a Finnish racing driver competing in the Japan Rally Championship for Rally Team AICELLO. He raced in Formula One between 2007 and 2013 for the Renault, McLaren, Team Lotus, Caterham and ...

. The EuroSpeedway played host to Round 6 of the 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Championship. As the last two events of the 2010 Championship (Rounds 7 and 8) were cancelled, the 2011 series was cancelled as well. The series then suffered an overall three-year hiatus before finally returning in September 2016 and September 2017. On 1 November 2017, the entire facility was sold to the vehicle inspection company

, which announced plans to modernize it and use it as a proving ground for road car innovations. Amid fears that the purchase would mark the end of public racing events at the circuit, Dekra announced that it would not organize such events, but other companies would remain welcome to organize them and Dekra would rent the circuit to them for the purpose. The DTM has continued to organize races at the circuit ever since.

Layout configurations

File:EuroSpeedway Lausitz tri-oval diagram.svg, Superspeedway layout File:EuroSpeedway GP.png, Grand Prix Circuit layout File:EuroSpeedway DTM Circuit.svg, DTM Sprint Circuit layout File:Lausitz GrandPrix Strecke.png, Motorcycle Circuit layout File:EuroSpeedway Lausitz detailed map.svg, Detailed map of the Lausitzring

Lap times

The official race lap records at Lausitzring are listed as:

Commercial use

Test site

On 1 November 2017,

acquired the Lausitzring as a test site, especially for

autonomous driving A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for Sa ...

. In April 2019 test and verification of communication elements took place on the Lausitzring. Participants were

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered a ...

and others. Topics were communication matters.

Entertainment

Dekra organised also an

Open-air festival Open air, open-air or openair may refer to: *''Open Air'', a BBC television program *Open-air cinema or outdoor cinema *Open-air concert, a concert taking place outside *Open-air museum, a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of- ...

, that took place in May 2019.

Events

Complementary racing events, such as DTM are on the agenda. ; Current * May:

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) is a grand touring car series sanctioned by ITR e.V. who have been affiliated to the DMSB-FIA since 1984. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The ser ...

* June: AvD Sports Car Challenge, Carbonia Cup * July: ADAC Racing Weekend * August: ADAC GT Masters,

ADAC TCR Germany Touring Car Championship The ADAC TCR Germany Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series based in Germany. History On 16 September 2015, the German Series was launched by ADAC and Engstler Motorsport, who already run in the International Series. The new categ ...

ADAC Formula 4 ADAC Formula 4 (german: ADAC Formel 4) is a racing series regulated according to FIA Formula 4 regulations. The inaugural season was the 2015 ADAC Formula 4. It replaced the ADAC Formel Masters, held from 2008 to 2014. History Gerhard Berger and ...

* September: DMV Racing Days ; Former * 3000 Pro Series (2005) *

(2005) *

ASCAR Racing Series ASCAR (Anglo-American Stock Car Racing), was a stock car racing series that raced at circuits around the United Kingdom and Europe from 2001 until 2008. The series went through many guises during its seven year period and was known as the ASCAR M ...

(2002–2003) *

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ...

'' German 500'' (2001, 2003) *

EuroBOSS Series The BOSS GP Series is a motor racing series in Europe. The category originated in 1995 as the BOSS Formula series and evolved into the EuroBOSS Series. BOSS is an acronym that stands for ''Big Open Single Seaters''. History The BOSS series w ...

(2004–2005, 2009) *

European Truck Racing Championship The FIA European Truck Racing Championship is a motorsport truck road racing series for semi-tractors which is sanctioned to the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; en, Interna ...

(2001–2002) *

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

(2000) *

FIA Sportscar Championship The FIA Sportscar Championship was a sports car racing series created by John Mangoletsi and was eventually taken control of by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It was a series similar to the FIA GT Championship, concentrating ...

(2003) *

Formula Three Euroseries The Formula 3 Euro Series was a European-based junior single seater formula for Formula Three chassis that was launched (in its current form) in 2003 as a merger of the French Formula Three Championship and German Formula Three Championship. The ...

(2005–2006, 2009) *

Red Bull Air Race World Championship The World Championship Air Race is a series of air races sanctioned by the World Air Sports Federation (FAI). Originally established in 2003 as the Red Bull Air Race, and created by Red Bull GmbH, the event involves competitors navigating a ...

(2010, 2016–2017) *

Sidecar World Championship FIM Sidecar World Championship is the international sidecar racing championship. It is the only remaining original FIM road racing championship class that started in 1949. It was formerly named Superside when the sidecars moved from being part o ...

(2001–2002) * World SBK (2001–2002, 2005–2007, 2016–2017) *

World Series by Nissan The World Series Formula V8 3.5, formerly the World Series by Nissan from 1998 to 2004, the Formula Renault 3.5 Series from 2005 to 2015 and the Formula V8 3.5 in 2016 and 2017, was a motor racing series promoted by RPM Racing (1998–2004) and R ...

(2003–2004)

References

External links

Official website of Lausitzring
{{Authority control A1 Grand Prix circuits Champ Car circuits Motorsport venues in Brandenburg Superbike World Championship circuits Buildings and structures in Oberspreewald-Lausitz Sports venues in Brandenburg 2000 establishments in Germany