The Abandoned F1 Track Now Part of Berlin’s Autobahn

Tucked inside Berlin’s endless highway sprawl is a stretch of road with a wild past — though most people speeding along it today have no idea. Beneath the hum of daily traffic, the ghost of AVUS still lingers. It wasn’t always just another piece of the autobahn. Back in the day, it was one of the fastest, most dangerous race tracks the world had ever seen.

AVUS — short for Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungsstraße — opened in 1921, and from the start, it was unlike anything else. Technically, it was a test road. But really, it was two gigantic straights stitched together with a couple of corners, forming a loop that dared drivers to keep their foot down. Each straight stretched over nine kilometers. Cars reached eye-watering speeds. Crashes were brutal.

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Then came the north curve — AVUS’s calling card. Rebuilt in the 1930s, it featured steep, 43-degree banking. No guardrails. No mercy. Watching cars fling themselves around that concrete wall was both hypnotic and horrifying. It felt more like aviation than racing. Mercedes, Auto Union, and BMW brought their silver rockets here, chasing speed records in machines that looked more like bullets than cars — some pushing past 380 km/h.

By 1959, Formula 1 made its one and only stop at AVUS. It was meant to be a spectacle. It became a warning. French driver Jean Behra lost his life in a support race after crashing on the infamous banking. It was a stark reminder that AVUS, even by 1950s standards, was terrifyingly outdated. Formula 1 never came back.

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Over time, the roar faded. Through the ’60s, the track still hosted touring cars and motorcycles, but the magic was gone. Speeds got faster, safety expectations got higher, and the city around it kept growing. Eventually, the racing stopped. The north banking — once the symbol of AVUS’s madness — was left to decay, crumbling beside the road like a forgotten monument.

By the late ’90s, Berlin tore it down. Today, AVUS is just part of the A115. Thousands of cars pass over it daily, zipping along without a clue they’re driving on what was once a battleground for racing’s bravest. If you look hard, you’ll find traces: a weathered control tower that’s now a hotel, a grandstand tucked in behind trees, a few plaques. But that’s it.

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Still, AVUS refuses to vanish completely. It’s part of Berlin’s bones now — a reminder that once, right here, machines screamed and men risked everything chasing speed. And though the engines are silent, the legacy still hums beneath the pavement.