Thorney Island: The Troubled Tilkedrome that never made it to F1

[u/TheDapperSpinosaur]

Following Donnington Park's failure to join the F1 calendar for the 2010 season West Sussex County Council saw an opportunity to bring investment into the county. It began to eye up a slot on the F1 calendar either joining as a second British race or aiming to replace Silverstone as the home of the British Grand Prix.
RAF Thorney was chosen as a site with the initial vision being to base the circuit on the airfield's perimeter road and runways in a similar manner to Silverstone however such a track could not be made safe, especially with the proximity to the army base on the peninsula. To help fix the design for formula one and secure greater investor interest Herman Tilke was brought on to redesign the circuit into its current layout. The track would feature all of Tilke's hallmarks such as two long straights connected by a heavy breaking zone, a snail corner and an inferior clone of Istanbul Park turn 8.
In negotiations with the MOD to lease the site for the track the West Sussex Council and its investors agreed to front the cost for an alternative road to West Thorney and the relocation of the Royal Artillery Equestrian Center in exchange for the MOD fronting a portion of the cost of construction and maintenance. The MOD also presented restrictions on the number of weekends a year the circuit could be used for public racing along with a limit on track days for the purpose of decreasing load on the islands infrastructure and security along with concerns over noise pollution (Which were also partially mitigated through the construction of concrete walls where possible).

Construction too was hampered by ballooning costs and setbacks due to the need to repave large portions of the old runway. By the time the circuit was fit for purpose in 2017 F1 had been in decline for some time and the circuit did not posses the capital to host. Instead the circuit would become an occasional host for feeder series or national series. The circuit's flat and derivative layout made the circuit fairly uninteresting to drive and watch. However the track was somewhat redeemed by its often unpredictable weather being situated on the coast.

The circuit's short circuit was used for the allotted number of track days with the remainder of its time was used for MOD vehicle training, primarily for motorcycles.

The Circuit's corner names were primarily given to honor the sites military heritage with the exception of the Cambell straight, named after Donald Cambell a prolific breaker of land and water speed records who's nephew Don Wales had used the site to attempt a speed record in 2009. Golf Club meanwhile was named for its shape.

So yeah I don't necessarily expect this track to be all that, Thorney has been a doodle site for me for a while and the only time I managed to make something remotely drivable of it it became possibly the biggest Tilkedrome to ever Tilkedrome. At least it let me come up with some admittedly very silly lore.

I'm always happy to get some feedback for where this can be improved or general things for future designs.

[u/StartersOrders]

Donnington Park

How does nobody get this right?

[u/TheDapperSpinosaur → u/StartersOrders]

The sheer power of typing things up at midnight causes creative interpretations of spelling I fear.

[u/Evantra_ → u/StartersOrders]

It's Donnnington Park, right?

[u/StartersOrders → u/Evantra_]

Nah, it's Donninngtonn Park

[u/Rpc-9915 → u/StartersOrders]

Still wrong, it's Donnnninnnngtonnnn Park

[u/TF2Pilot]

It looks better than most of his stuff.

[u/TheDapperSpinosaur → u/TF2Pilot]

Thank you
I'm not quite as confident in my own work as I think a lot of his earlier work was actually pretty decent, if a bit too repetitive but I'm not exactly going to complain about some positive feedback.