AVUS

AVUS — Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungs-Straße — was a 19.6 km dual-carriageway in Berlin built in 1921 as both Germany's first dedicated automotive testing facility and a public toll road. With two parallel four-mile straights connected by hairpins at each end, it was less a circuit than a long oval, with cars hitting speeds of 380 km/h on its straights. AVUS hosted the German Grand Prix exactly once as a championship round, in 1959, won by Tony Brooks in a Ferrari Dino 246. The northern hairpin — the famous "Nordkurve" — was built as a 43-degree banked wall of brick and concrete, one of the most extreme banked corners ever attempted in motor racing.

Origins

AVUS opened in 1921 as Germany's first purpose-built automotive testing facility, intended to allow car manufacturers to develop high-speed vehicles before Germany had a public motorway network. The road served double duty as a toll road for Berliners. Its 19.6 km layout consisted of two near-parallel straights about 9.5 km long each, connected at the southern end by a regular hairpin and at the northern end by what would become its defining feature: a steep banked turn. AVUS hosted German non-championship Grands Prix from the 1920s onward, with Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union, and other German marques setting straight-line speed records on its endless tarmac.

Layout

The 1959 championship configuration was 8.3 km — half the length of the original — using one straight, the South hairpin, the second straight, and the famous Nordkurve banked turn. The straights were so long that drafting and slipstreaming dominated tactical thinking. Top speeds approached 285 km/h on the straights even with 1959-era 2.5-liter cars. The Nordkurve was the lap's defining feature: 43 degrees of banking in concrete and brick, taken at over 200 km/h, where lateral forces pinned drivers into their seats. Run-off was nonexistent — the banking ran straight up to a vertical wall.

Legendary Moments

The 1959 German Grand Prix was the only championship F1 race at AVUS, but it was eventful. Tony Brooks won in the Ferrari Dino 246 ahead of Dan Gurney and Phil Hill — a Ferrari 1-2-3 result. The race was held in two heats due to tyre concerns about the high-speed nature of the circuit; aggregate times determined the winner. The bigger story was tragic: French driver Jean Behra was killed in a Porsche RSK during a sports car support race, crashing in the Nordkurve banking. The death contributed significantly to the FIA's growing safety concerns about the AVUS layout. After 1959, the Nordkurve was demolished due to safety; the banked corner had become widely recognized as obsolete and dangerous.

Quirks & Curiosities

The Nordkurve banking was so steep that walking on it during a track inspection required climbing. The bricks were laid at 43 degrees and the corner was about 200 meters in radius — modern simulations show the lateral G-forces would have approached 4g for cars at speed, exceeding many drivers' tolerance. Spectators stood at the top of the banking with views directly down on the corner — one of the most extraordinary vantage points in racing history. AVUS hosted Grand Prix events into the early 1990s on a much-shortened modern layout (2.6 km) without the banking, but the original concept of a flat-out drag strip with banking at one end was unique to the prewar German racing aesthetic. The straights of AVUS literally became the autobahn after Germany's motorway expansion — the A115 Berliner Stadtring uses much of the original AVUS surface.

Modern Era

AVUS closed as a racing circuit after the 1998 DTM season; the demolished Nordkurve had been replaced by a flat infield section years earlier, but AVUS could not compete with modern circuits like Hockenheim and Nürburgring for major events. The northern straight became part of the A115 motorway and continues as public road today. The original 1937 grandstand at the southern hairpin survives as a protected historical structure and houses a small motor racing museum. Visitors to Berlin can still walk parts of the former circuit; the old toll booths and pit lane buildings remain as architectural monuments to the prewar German automotive ambition that built the world's first dedicated speed-testing road.