Donnington the first circuit in the UK?

[johneroberts]

Donington is considered the first road racing circuit built in England. Under the leadership of Fred Cramer and the Derby and District Motor Club the circuit played host to to an international field in 1937. The European teams required ocean transport to make the event and both Auto Union and Mercedes set sail on the SS Bremen, the pride of Germany. The British fans had only just read about the fantastic German cars but nothing could prepare them for the awesome display of noise and power.
"The British spectators, who had read about these cars and only partly believed what they had read, were struck all of a heap. Even Fleet Street journalist were going about in a daze during the practicing, mouthing and gibbering."

Rodney Walkerley - The Motor

Length: 5.03 km (3.125 miles)
Fastest Lap: Rosemeyer - (1937) - 2 min. 11.4 sec. 137.76 km/h (85.62 mph)
The orginal curcuit



Some will be experiencing this next week
See you there
jr

[Joshie]

Looks great - what sort of top speed is achieved on the straight? At Castle Combe I think 135MPH was what some of the faster RS4's were achieving.
What about lap times - what is considered fast?

[johneroberts]

Donington Park
In 1909 the Brooklands circuit opened for business and in doing so Great Britain was placed firmly on the motor racing map of the world. Despite this it was not until 1926 that a Grand Prix was staged on British soil. Two races were held there but as neither was a great success the venue was dropped.
In 1937 Donington Park took up the challenge and host a full blown Grand Prix. Attended by the works teams of Auto Union and Mercedes the race was extremely popular with drivers, teams and with the fans. A second event followed a year later but then the war intervened and as a circuit Donington fell into decline. In the early 1970s a local property developer, Tom Wheatcroft, bought the land and made clear his intention; he would restore the track to its former glory and invite the Grand Prix circus to come and play. The first part was soon accomplished and the circuit soon became a popular venue for touring car and other races. The second part of the dream was not realised until 1993 when Wheatcroft, by now the owner of the world's largest collection of Grand Prix cars, got to host the 1993 Sega Grand Prix of Europe.

The race was staged on a typically wet April day but a what a race it turned out to be. Despite the torrential rain, or perhaps because of it, Ayrton Senna drove the race of his life. Coming from fifth on the grid the Brazilian was up to first before the end of the first lap. All through the field the battles continued for the entire race providing the rain-sodden crowd with what was recently voted 'The Greatest Race Ever'

Senna finished in first place ahead of Hill and Prost, who pitted no fewer than six times. In fact Prost was fortunate to reach the podium at all as Jordan's Barrichello had driven a stormer on only his third F1 outing and had been lying third with just six laps to go. Sadly for Rubens it was not to be his day and his engine failed him.

[img]images/graemlins/biggrin3.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/biggrin3.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/biggrin3.gif[/img]

[Andiroo]

That 1st lap of Ayrton Senna [img]images/graemlins/bowdown.gif[/img]

What a top bloke.

Andiroo

[sitas3]

hmm I'm looking forward to this more and more. Just hope the rain keeps off. [img]images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[jeffw]

The old circuit (as in the diagram in John's post) is mostly still there. Melbourne corner is actually used as part of the car park now. On the straight before there is a very substantial crest where the Auto Union V16s etc where airbourne.

Just in case [img]images/graemlins/ban.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/clap.gif[/img] this is what it looks like now

Donnington

[jeffw]

Crystal Palace had a race circuit in 1927 [img]images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img]