Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Motorsport track in Canada

Mosport, Where Canada's Grand Prix Began

In the Ontario countryside east of Toronto, Mosport gave Canada its first World Championship Grands Prix and has kept its original layout almost intact.

The name sounds like a tribute to Stirling Moss, and the confusion has never quite gone away. In fact Mosport simply joins motor and sport, after the company formed to build the circuit, although Moss did leave his mark. He won its first major race in June 1961, which drew drivers from around the world to the Ontario countryside, and at his suggestion a planned hairpin became two corners, now called Moss Corner. Today the place is Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, north of Orono in the municipality of Clarington, about 75 km east of Toronto. Designed and built late in the 1950s, it was only the second road course in Canada made for the purpose.

Few historic circuits have been left so nearly alone. The ten turn course of 3.957 km still follows essentially its first line, and when the whole track was resurfaced to international standards for 2001, the drivers were asked for their views so that the old racing lines, and the personality that came with them, would survive the new asphalt.

Formula 1 arrived in 1967, the year Canada marked its centennial, and Jack Brabham won the first Canadian Grand Prix to count toward the championship. In its early years the race was shared with Mont Tremblant, which held it in 1968 and 1970, before Mosport kept it for most of the decade. Jackie Stewart won here in 1971 and 1972, and Jody Scheckter won the final Mosport Grand Prix for Wolf in 1977, after which the race left for Montreal.

Mosport held 8 championship rounds in all, from 1967 to 1977. It has known loss as well: the former Formula 1 driver Manfred Winkelhock was killed here in 1985 when his Porsche sports car crashed. Sports cars remain the circuit's main business, with an IMSA SportsCar Championship round every year since 2014, and it has carried the Canadian Tire name since 2012, on a lap that has barely changed since Moss won there.

Every Grand Prix here

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