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 driver Michele Alboreto was killed on the test oval after crashing at high speed due to a tyre failure. Alboreto was testing an Audi R8 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 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 CART series to be held in Europe, but it was eventually overshadowed by the accident in which the series' two-time champion Alex Zanardi 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'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 in 2000. The last concert of German hard rock band Böhse Onkelz took place on 17 and 18 June 2005 at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz under the name Vaya Con Tioz, 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 series on its road course. The fastest lap of the meeting was set by Nicolas Lapierre and was 0.45 seconds slower than the lap record for the circuit held by Heikki Kovalainen. 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 Dekra, which