Aintree

The Aintree Motor Racing Circuit is in the village of Aintree, Merseyside, England. It was built in 1954 within the grounds of Aintree Racecourse and shared its grandstands with the horse racing. It is a road circuit run clockwise, 4.828 kilometres long with eight corners. The surface was good and the ground fairly flat, with the track lying at an elevation of 15 to 30 metres.

In the Formula One World Championship, Aintree hosted the British Grand Prix five times: in 1955, 1957, 1959, 1961 and 1962. The races were organised by the British Automobile Racing Club. In 1955 Stirling Moss won his first British Grand Prix, driving a Mercedes. In 1957 Tony Brooks and Moss won in the Vanwall, which made them the first British drivers to win the British Grand Prix, and with it a World Championship round, in a British car. That year the race carried the title European Grand Prix and drew 150,000 spectators. Jack Brabham won in a Cooper in 1959, Wolfgang von Trips in a Ferrari in 1961 and Jim Clark in a Lotus in 1962. The 1962 race was the last World Championship event at the circuit.

Alongside the championship rounds, Aintree staged eleven non-championship Formula One races, known as the Aintree 200. Moss won the first in 1954 and Brabham the last in April 1964. The full Grand Prix circuit was used for the last time in 1964, but the 2.470 kilometre Club Circuit stayed open and was run by the Aintree Circuit Club from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. Sprints, track days and motorcycle racing are still held on it, though only on a small scale.