You may remember news from last July that Silverstone is to be stripped of its Formula One rights after the 2009 British Grand Prix. From 2010 the race is set to be held at Donington Park, after a new 10-year deal was struck with Bernie Ecclestone. However, the North West Leicestershire complex needs a radical revamp to bring it up to modern day requirements. The last Grand Prix held at the circuit was in 1993, won on a rain soaked afternoon by Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna in a McLaren.
The rubber stamp for the new works has just been granted and the £100M (AU$215M) project is about to begin. There are just 17 months to go until the 2010 British Grand Prix.
Owner of Donington Park, Simon Gillett, is raring to go, “It starts in earnest now, and time to start focusing on 2010 and delivering the best grand prix in the world. That is what I’ve always said we would deliver, and that is what we are going to do.”
Interestingly, part of the deal with Gillett and his local district council is to create a sucessful traffic management plan to allow for easy access for fans. The current site is not well served by public transport and this is something that will need to be resolved. If Gillett fails to appease the council they have the power to impose an injunction thereby stopping the race.
Gillett plans to implement various park’n’ride initiatives in the Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire areas to bring racegoers to Donington Park. He will also limit the amount of on site parking available.
As with most decisions made in F1 these days there seems to be a fair amount of backroom politics going on, so it will be interesting to see how smoothly this development runs over the next 17 months.
Source: TimesOnline