Castle Donington, Leicestershire · GB
Home of the Donington Grand Prix Collection, the world's largest museum of Grand Prix racing cars. The circuit is famous for Senna's extraordinary 1993 wet-weather victory and the challenging Craner Curves.
Set in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, Donington Park is a permanent racing circuit. A lap covers 4.02 km (2.498 miles) and 12 corners, run clockwise. Among its named corners are Redgate, Craner Curves and Old Hairpin.
It opened in 1931. GT and MotoGP all race here. It holds roughly 120,000 spectators.
Donington began as a motorcycle circuit in 1931, laid out through the grounds of Donington Hall by Fred Craner, a local garage owner and former competitor. The first meeting ran on Whit Monday that May over a lap of two miles and 327 yards. Cars followed two years later, and by the late 1930s the park was drawing the German state-backed teams — Bernd Rosemeyer took the last win of his career here in 1937, and Tazio Nuvolari won for Auto Union in 1938.
The war ended all of it. The War Office requisitioned the park in 1939 and turned it into No. 29 Vehicle Reserve Depot, the largest facility of its kind in the country, holding up to half a million vehicles. The army left in 1956 but attempt after attempt to restart racing failed, and the circuit stayed silent for two decades until Tom Wheatcroft reopened it in 1977.
View all 5 hotels near Donington Park