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Donington Park
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Donington Park is a site near Castle Donington in North West Leicestershire, England.
Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it is leased by Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd from owner Tom Wheatcroft. Used as a motor racing track, it is also the venue for the Download Festival. Donington Park has a contract to stage the Formula One British Grand Prix for a period of ten years from 2010.
ngton Park motor racing circuit was the first permanent park circuit in England, which also ended the race circuit monopoly that Brooklands had held since 1907.
Fred Craner was a former motorcycle rider who had taken part in seven Isle of Man TT races, and was by 1931 a Derby garage owner and secretary of the Derby & District Motor Club.
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Encyclopedia
Donington Park is a site near Castle Donington in North West Leicestershire, England.
Originally part of the Donington Hall estate, it is leased by Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd from owner Tom Wheatcroft. Used as a motor racing track, it is also the venue for the Download Festival. Donington Park has a contract to stage the Formula One British Grand Prix for a period of ten years from 2010.
History
Donington Park motor racing circuit was the first permanent park circuit in England, which also ended the race circuit monopoly that Brooklands had held since 1907.
Fred Craner was a former motorcycle rider who had taken part in seven Isle of Man TT races, and was by 1931 a Derby garage owner and secretary of the Derby & District Motor Club. Craner approached the then owner of the Donington Hall estate, Alderman John Gillies Shields JP, to use the extensive roads on his land for racing. JG Shields son John Shields was a captain of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, who married a descendant of Edward Cornelius.
The original track was 2 mile 327 yd (3518 m) in length, and based on normal width untarmacd estate roads. The first motor cycle race took place on Whit Monday, 1931. For 1933 Craner obtained permission to build a permanent track, with the original layout widened and tarmacked at a cost of £12,000. The first car race was held on the 25th March, followed by three car meetings further that year. The first Donington Park Trophy race was held on 7 October, 1933, and was won by the Earl Howe in a Bugatti Type 51.
In 1935 the first 300-mile Donington Grand Prix was won by Richard "Mad Jack" Shuttleworth in an Alfa Romeo P3. In the 1937 Donington Grand Prix and 1938 Donington Grand Prix, the race winners were respectively Bernd Rosemeyer and Tazio Nuvolari, both in Auto Union 'Silver Arrows.'
The circuit at Donington Park was closed in 1939 due to World War II, when it became a military vehicle depot.
Wheatcroft revival
In the early 1970s the circuit was bought by business man and car collector Tom Wheatcroft, who funded the rebuilding of the track. Wheatcroft moved his collection to the circuit, in a museum now known as the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition which opened in 1973, and has the largest collection of Grand Prix cars in the world.
The motor racing circuit re-opened on May 27, 1977, the first postwar race meeting was organised by the Nottingham Sports Car Club, but that nearly didn't happen, as the local ramblers tried to assert their rights to retain access to footpaths at the eleventh hour. The meeting went ahead as a "Motor Trial", a legal loophole that curtailed the use of single seater racing cars for that opening meeting. The NSCC continued to run race meetings at Donington until the Donington Racing Club was formed and a licence to run race meetings obtained.
The Melbourne Loop was built in 1985 to increase the lap distance to and allow the track to host Grand Prix motorcycle races - at without the loop, the circuit was deemed too short. This shorter layout remains as the National circuit, which is used for most non-Grand Prix events.
In recent times Donington has held meetings of MotoGP, the British Touring Car Championship and British Superbikes, as well as the 1993 European Grand Prix.
Other events taking place at the track include the World Series by Renault and the Great and British Motorsport Festival. On 26 August 2007 the circuit hosted the British Motocross Grand Prix, with a purpose-built motocross circuit constructed on the infield of the road circuit .
Donington Ventures Leisure
In 2007, Wheatcroft sold a 150 year lease on the land on which the track and museum are located to Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd.
DVL in 2007 won the rights to the British Grand Prix for ten years from July 2010, with North Leicestershire Council approving plans for the required track and facility rebuilt design by Hermann Tilke to be constructed from January 2009.
Formula One
1993 European Grand Prix
Donington Park was the host of the 1993 European Grand Prix on 11 April 1993, which was affected by rain. The race was notable for the dominance of Ayrton Senna where he won the race by over 1 minute from Damon Hill, having advanced from fifth to first in the opening lap.
This race was described by AtlasF1 as the 'Drive of the Decade' . There is a memorial to Senna in the grounds of the racetrack, outside a shop selling motorsports memorabilia.
2010 onwards
- See also: 2010 Formula One season
On 4 July 2008, Bernie Ecclestone announced that Donington Park will hold the British Grand Prix from 2010 onwards in a 10-year deal (having been hosted exclusively by Silverstone since 1987). The track will have a major upgrade, which was announced on 10 July 2008 to include an entirely new pit complex along Starkey's Straight and increasing the circuit length to 3 miles, by the addition of a new infield loop, to get it up to the standards required for modern day Formula One racing.
Experienced circuit architect Hermann Tilke will be involved in the work. The race will also be the first one to be accessed by public transportation only, as cars will not be allowed to enter the facility. The close by East Midlands Parkway station on the Midland Main Line from London to Sheffield is central to this idea.
Music Festivals
Donington Park has a great pedigree of holding rock concerts and festivals, having played host to the Monsters of Rock concerts from the early 80s to mid 90s, when groups such as AC/DC, Metallica - who have each headlined three times - and Iron Maiden - who have headlined a record four times - performed there. More recently, it has played host to Stereophonics' A Day At The Races event in 2001, and the Ozzfest in 2002.
The Download Festival began at the venue in 2003, headlined by Iron Maiden and Audioslave. The event has been held each summer since then.
2008 Motocross Des Nations
On September 27 and 28, 2008 the Motocross des Nations, the biggest and longest running event in World Championship Motocross, was at Donington Park.
Location
Whilst lying within the borders of Leicestershire, south of the River Trent, the circuit has a Derby postcode, it has a Derby telephone Area Code and East Midlands Airport is just a mile down the road.
Donington Park is located just off the M1 and is very close to East Midlands Airport, and aircraft taking off fly directly over the circuit at low altitude.
East Midlands Parkway railway station is close by and the owners have expressed their desire for spectators to use the station and coaches to the circuit. The owners are also in support of any future light rail transport to East Midlands Airport itself.
Media
Donington Park has been simulated and can be driven in several racing simulations, such as Spirit of Speed 1937 (the 1937 version of the track is featured, as the name suggests), Sports Car GT, Le Mans 24 Hours, ToCA Touring Cars, ToCA 2 Touring Cars, ToCA Race Driver, ToCA Race Driver 2, TOCA Race Driver 3, GTR, GTR2, GT Legends, F1 Challenge '99-'02(with a mod), MotoGP 3, rFactor, SBK-07, and Race Driver: GRID.
See also
External links
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