Aintree Motor Racing Circuit

Race track in Merseyside, UK

Aintree's Grand Prix Years

Built inside the home of the Grand National, Aintree shared the British Grand Prix with Silverstone and gave Stirling Moss his first home victory.

The grandstands at Aintree were built for horses. In 1954 a motor racing circuit was laid out within Aintree Racecourse, home of the Grand National, in the Merseyside village of the same name, and spectators came to watch cars from the very seats that faced the steeplechase, now with rather fewer jumps to watch. Billed as the Goodwood of the North, the three mile Grand Prix course had a good surface and little climb, its elevation varying only between about 15 and 30 meters above sea level.

From 1955 the British Grand Prix alternated with Silverstone, and Aintree took its turn five times. Mercedes owned the first of them. Stirling Moss took his first British Grand Prix by 0.2 seconds from his teammate Juan Manuel Fangio, and Mercedes cars took the top four places, a result that left little room for debate. In 1957, with the race carrying the title of European Grand Prix and some 150,000 people watching, Moss and Tony Brooks shared a winning Vanwall, the first World Championship victory for British drivers in a British car.

Jack Brabham had begun his Formula One career at Aintree in 1955, and in 1959 he came back to win for Cooper, a handsome way to repay a debut. Wolfgang von Trips headed a Ferrari sweep of the top three in 1961, and Jim Clark won for Lotus in 1962, the fifth and final championship round held there. Between the Grands Prix the circuit also staged eleven non championship Formula One events under the name Aintree 200.

The full circuit saw its last racing in 1964. What remains is a club circuit of about 2.5 kilometers inside the Grand National course, curling around a public golf course, where motorcycle racing carries on alongside sprints and track days. The horses never left, and on a smaller scale the engines never quite did either.

Every Grand Prix here

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