On this day 35 years ago Tibor Balogh, General Secretary of the Hungarian Automobile Association signed a contract with Bernie Ecclestone, President of FOCA in London, under which five Formula 1 races would be organized between 1986 and 1990 in Hungary.
According to the contract the track, planned to be built between Mogyoród and Kerepes, was to be 3895 m long (in fact, it became 4014 m), with 7 left-hand and 8 right-hand corners. Hungaroring was developed to have a capacity of 25.000 spectators, but thanks to the great characteristic feature of the area, 80 % of the track could be seen by the standing fans as well. (Based on the contemporary reports there were almost 300 thousand spectators at the first GP…)
Construction of the Hungaroring started in October 1985, when the race calendar of the following year was published including the Hungarian GP scheduled for 10th August.
The first Formula 1 Grand Prix behind the Iron Curtain.
From that period only Monte-Carlo, Montreal, Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps and Monza have still been hosting a race, but some of them with short breaks, so Hungaroring is the second circuit behind Monza with the longest continuous presence in the F1 calendar.
