Donington Park
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Template:GBmap Donington Park is a site near Castle Donington in North West Leicestershire, England owned by millionaire motoring enthusiast Tom Wheatcroft. It is used as a Grand Prix track, and for music festivals.
In recent times it has held meetings of the British Touring Car Championship, British Superbikes and MotoGP as well as, most famously, the 1993 European Grand Prix. This race was won by the late Ayrton Senna, and is regarded by some as one of his greatest drives ever. There is a memorial to Senna in the grounds of the racetrack, outside a shop selling motorsports memorabilia.
The track is also the location of a museum, the Donington Grand Prix Collection. This opened in 1973, and is the largest collection of Grand Prix cars anywhere in the world.
It has a great pedigree of holding rock concerts and festivals, having played host to the Monsters of Rock concerts in the late 80s and early 90s, when groups such as Metallica performed there. More recently, it has played host to Stereophonics' A Day At The Races event in 2001, Ozzfest in 2002 and Download Festival in 2003, headlined by Iron Maiden and Audioslave, who were late replacements for limpbizkit, who pulled out of the festival. Download was held again in 2004, when Metallica returned to Donington, accompanied by a star-studded lineup including Slipknot, Korn, Linkin Park, Slayer and a number of other high profile rock bands. Another Download festival is planned for 2005.
Donington Park is just off the M1 and is very close to East Midlands Airport.