Racing resumes at Donington

Racing has resumed at Donington Park this weekend following the circuit passing an 11th hour safety inspection and being issued with an MSA/FIA circuit licence. The decision means that next weekend’s BTCC meeting will go ahead as originally planned.

Donington’s problems started earlier this year following the installation of a new access tunnel between McLeans and Coppice which severely reduced the run-off area either side of the track and led to the MSA refusing to issue a new circuit licence.

The national motorsports calendar was thrown into chaos with a number of meetings having to be moved to other venues, postponed or cancelled completely, with rumours that further meetings, including the BTCC, would go the same way.

The situation was further confused when land owners Tom and Kevin Wheatcroft started legal action against Donington Venture Leisure Ltd (DVLL) to recover nearly £2.5m in unpaid rent, whilst the North West Leciestershire District Council announced that they were considering revoking planning permission due to the deadlines for submission of certain paperwork not being kept.

Rumours that the necessary construction work required to achieve the circuit licence would not be completed in time for this month’s BTCC meeting refused to go away. A communiqué issued by TOCA last week to all teams advising them that the meeting would be cancelled did little to help, although Alan Gow was quick to revoke this claiming that it had been a misunderstanding.

An MSA team visited the circuit on Thursday to inspect the modifications made to the circuit – the tunnel had been extended to almost double its original length and most of the run-off area restored.

Initially they were happy in principal but asked for additional work to be done before the licence would be issued. After some last minute modifications the inspection team re-visited the circuit and the licence was issued Friday evening, just in time for this weekend’s Masters Classic Festival.