PARC FERMÉ
The Motul Action Box also forms an additional role in each WorldSBK race as this is where the podium riders from each race exit the live pit lane to go to the custom Parc Ferme area, specially reserved for the top three and the best Independent Rider. Bikes and riders get the full red carpet treatment as they ride out of the Motul Action Box, and through a wall of fans, held back by temporary tapes raised up on either side of the red carpet. As long as you stand behind the coloured tapes (designed to keep both
you and the riders’ safe at such an adrenaline fueled moment for all) you could not just get on TV but maybe even get a fleeting high five as the best riders of the day ride through this human tunnel of enthusiasm. The always popular Victory Lane experience is yet another clear example of how the fan can have unrivalled proximity to the epicentre of the biggest production-derived global race series there is - WorldSBK.
VICTORY LANE
At the end of each race or Tissot-Superpole session the lucky top three riders arrive in the golden glare of publicity at WorldSBK’s special Parc Ferme area, after riding their machines through Victory Lane. The very first TV interviews are done right there and then, in Parc Ferme. The riders are soon escorted onto the podium set-up inside the paddock itself, which is specially designed to let the fans get close to the competitors. Another post-race initiative that has proved popular is seeing the riders immediately taken
to the Paddock Show stage, after the Parc Ferme formalities have been completed. In the Parc Ferme, usually right in front of the podium ceremony, the fans can see all the podium riders’ machines from quite a close proximity. At several venues you can also go see all the other hard-working riders and machines starting their debriefs with their pit crews inside the main Parc Ferme area of pit lane.
FAN ZONE & WorldSBK OFFICIAL EVENT MERCHANDISE
Inside the dedicated Fan Zone Area are stalls featuring promotional and retail activity at each WorldSBK weekend. From having the chance to sample the celebrating race winners’ Prosecco DOC, to buying WorldSBK’s own branded merchandise (available in all shapes and sizes) the Fan Zone is another option for fans to explore between the races and practice sessions themselves. Official WorldSBK-branded material can be found at the dedicated WorldSBK sales area. From a latest season’s souvenir T-shirt to all manner of other clothing and branded merchandise, it’s all there. In the Fan Zone area you will also find the top team’s clothing lines and other products to let you show off your true colours not just at the races but at home as well. You can also visit some of WorldSBK’s close partners, like Barcelonabased bike luggage experts Shad, who operate a dedicated travelling display and customer advice area. As well as the regular stall holders who follow the whole Championship there will be diverse local retail displays at most rounds.
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If you’re enjoying your visit to Donington Park this weekend for our big international showpiece event, there’s many more excuses to come back this year, with several top-line events across two, four and even six wheels coming up during the remainder of the season.
2/3 AUGUST CRMC CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE FESTIVAL
We go back in time early next month, with the return of the Classic Motorcycle Festival. Hundreds of retro bikes primarily from the 1960s, 70s and 80s will be in action, with an array of star guests included. Look out for the numerous parades and display areas, with legendary machinery always a part of the event, and dozens of races on the schedule.
9/10 AUGUST CONVOY IN THE PARK FEATURING BRITISH TRUCK RACING
The super-sized Convoy in the Park event is back and bigger than ever, with the heavyweights of British motorsport, the British Truck Racing Championship, headlining the on track action in addition to a packed support race schedule. Hundreds of show trucks will be the centrepiece of the off-track offering, with manufacturer and trade areas plus live music and a live action arena featuring truck drifting and the caravan smash finale, creating fun for all the family!
30/31 AUGUST BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP
The UK’s leading tin top category visits Donington Park for the second time this year at the end of August, and this time they race on the full Grand Prix circuit. Expect three battle royale headline races as the country’s top saloon car racers go wheel to wheel, in addition to a frenzied support race package featuring sports cars, single-seaters and more tin tops.
44 OFFICIAL PROGRAMMETickets for all events at Donington Park are always available online in advance , offering savings compared to on the day rates . Further discounts are available for teenagers aged 13-15 , with free entry for under-13s at every race meeting . Visit www . donington-park . co . uk to view the full calendar and to book .
5-7 SEPTEMBER BENNETTS BRITISH SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
With the end of the season rapidly approaching, September ’s return visit of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship will feature red hot action from the world’s leading domestic superbike category. Three headline Bennetts BSB races are the main attraction, and there’s loads more support racing to look forward to, including the British Supersport Championship.
4/5 OCTOBER BRITISH GT FEATURING GB3 AND GB4
The British GT season finale is back at Donington Park, and titles will be on the line in the country’s premier supercar racing series. Lamborghinis, McLarens, Porsches, Aston Martins and more will provide a visual and aural spectacle in a two-hour race, while there’s single-seater thrills from the GB3 and GB4 Championships, plus more sports car racing from Ginettas.
30 NOVEMBER DONINGTON STAGE RALLY
Donington Park’s season comes to a spectacular conclusion courtesy of stage rallying from the Dukeries Motor Club. This event always attracts a sold out entry list as cars take on the challenges of a transformed venue layout. Drivers will go off-road, the ‘wrong’ way around the circuit and tackle additional obstacles as they go against the clock.
CIRCUIT FAN GUIDE 45
In 2004 Pirelli took on the role of single-make tyre supplier for the FIM Superbike World Championship, revolutionising many aspects of global racing over subsequent years.
This Pirelli/WorldSBK partnership has grown and blossomed thanks to continuous product development inside the hottest crucible of production derived racing, resulting in great advances in both track and road oriented Pirelli products.
When the best Superbike riders on the planet provide expert feedback before, during and after World Championship level races there can be no better ‘end-toend ’ analysis of each new tyre’s real world capabilities.
WorldSBK was, and still is, the main sporting and development focal point for Pirelli to continue to expand its high performance product lines.
Taking on the responsibility as a single make tyre supplier means that Pirelli must match the individual requirements of each competing manufacturer, from cutting-edge Superbikes produced by globally recognised mega-brands to the smallest capacity emerging manufacturers inside the increasingly cosmopolitan WorldSBK paddock.
Pirelli is more than a vital technical supplier in WorldSBK.
Pirelli is an integral partner of the whole series and very often a race weekend title sponsor.
Proof, if more is needed, that Pirelli is providing appropriate material for each and every competing manufacturer is that BMW joined several other major companies in winning a WorldSBK Riders’ Championship last year.
Ultimately, once all the race trucks start heading home, and the noise and fury of another race weekend gradually abates, Pirelli’s track and road customers become the real beneficiaries of this long-term partnership with WorldSBK.
“We sell what we race, we race what we sell,” is a Pirelli mantra that is literally true. Any tyre you see raced at full WorldSBK level (if it is not a development option) forms part of Pirelli’s commercial range of products. They can be bought by members of the public for track use as a slick - or as an equivalent DOT approved road legal product.
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Throughout Pirelli’s long and continuing WorldSBK partnership there have been both evolutions and true step-changes. Given that the performance of each manufacturer ’s flagship Superbike and Supersport models increases over time, Pirelli is always aiming to provide not just higher performance but greater durability and a wider window of usability for each new solution.
Central to this desire for improvement in recent times has been a series of tyre designs that were initially aimed at either qualifying sessions or the ‘sprint’ races. These options have - at some tracks - now been successfully raced beyond their original design briefs.
Once the teams have experience of a new tyre design Pirelli works in partnership with them to find an overall set-up to make - for example - an SCQ (qualifying ) tyre take on a real ten-lap race. Or let an SCX (originally designed for just ten laps) hold its competitive pace right to the end of 20+ laps.
So successful has Pirelli’s single make WorldSBK partnership been that single supplier tyre championships are the norm in 2025, not the exception. One-by-one several championships adopted Pirelli as their chosen single make tyre supplier. Most recently and significantly that has included the Moto2™ and Moto3™ classes inside MotoGP™ last year. Records were consistently broken in these two important categories, even in the first year of Pirelli’s involvement.
Maybe the biggest surprise for some is that Pirelli refuses to opt for specialised or exotic materials during the manufacturing process, even in its highest performance options. Even the most advanced Pirelli race tyres are made from entirely conventional and readily available components - which makes their well-proven capabilities over the widest possible spectrum of pure performance all the more remarkable.
In 2025 Pirelli will continue its mutually beneficial partnership with WorldSBK, aiming to not just meet but exceed the demands of all the competing manufacturers and teams.
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The true WorldSBK grandaddy of them all, the Donington Park layout continues to beguile and bewitch riders of all nations. The reason is simple. Its layout since the addition of the tight Melbourne Loop section has two contrasting themes. There is one long, fast and flowing early section, then a much shorter hard braking/slow cornering final loop. There is therefore no ‘perfect’ set-up to be found. Frustrating for the teams, enthralling for us, Donington is simply a solid gold WorldSBK classic. Here is how some top names of now and yesteryear describe their favourite bits of the 4.023km track.
T4/The Old Hairpin
A hard right after some very strong downhill braking, the Old Hairpin is the classic place to try to pass on the inside, but maybe then lose out again as the other rider cuts back on the exit.
A certain Tarran Mackenzie, he of BSB championship-winning fame like his father Niall, says that the Old Hairpin is his favourite bit. “I am not a massive fan of Craner, but when you do come left after that there is always a big crowd. It’s good when you get the Old Hairpin right. And it is a good passing spot. I asked my Dad as well but he said Redgate, because apparently he passed people into Redgate. The trickiest part of the whole track is the last sector, because you cannot set a bike up for both that and the fast, flowing early parts.”
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T1/T3 Redgate Corner/Hollywood/Craner Curves
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The first right-hander of Redgate sees many a rider nibble a bit of the pitlane exit at the end of the Wheatcroft Straight during their final approach. It’s more important to exit Redgate well, as from then on you are trying to cascade down the asphalt waterfall that is the combination of Hollywood and Craner Curves just as fast as you dare. Sam Lowes describes it thus. “My favourite bit is down Craner Curves, in the transition after Hollywood to Craner - the right and left. When I was young, in my first time on a proper track, let’s say, going down there was an eye-opener. I had ridden smaller tracks but first time down there, even on the out-lap… it stuck in my head. I found it quite hard there last year on a World Superbike, but it’s still my favourite.”
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Can Sam may also answer a question that’s been bugging many fans for decades? Where does Hollywood truly end and Craner truly begin? He laughed as he said, “It’s like a joining word… When you get it wrong, Hollywood never ends because the bike is still trying to go into the old Motocross track, but you are trying to go left into Craner!”
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T5/T6 Starkey’s Bridge/Schwantz Curve
The Old Hairpin is the track’s lowest point, so you are actually climbing hard around the next two fast lefts. Starkey’s was actually a bridge, not a corner. The riders are leaning into T5 and soon choosing their line exiting T6/Schwantz into the braking zone for the next right. This is two-time WorldSBK Champion James Toseland’s favourite linked section. “If you nailed the Old Hairpin that then allowed you to nail that Starkey’s Bridge and Schwantz section. On most of the bikes I rode if you get that bit exactly right you would be able to open the throttle a certain way to hit the rev-limiter just before McLeans. I can’ t stress to you how good you had to get it to hear that little bit of an ‘rrrrpp!’ At Donington, from the first corner all the way up to Coppice, if you hadn’ t got one corner right out of all of them, the rest of it was knackered.”
T7/T8 McLeans and Coppice
Two right handers but each is very different. McCleans is almost a normal right hander, not quite 90°, but once negotiated it is a short and very sharp approach to the uphill entry (and then the completely blind flat plateau) of Coppice. A super-important ‘opening-out’ corner. You have to enter fast enough to defend but you also really need to get your exit spot-on to drive hard down the Dunlop straight to set-up and ideal approach to the chicane.
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T9/10/11/12 Foggy Esses/Melbourne Hairpin/Goddards Hairpin
This is where Donington’s precise, flowing nature gives way to three sharp and sustained stabs of the brake lever and some violent changes of direction. Don’ t let the slower corner speeds fool you, these intense corners are all tricksters that have caught out even true legends. Ryan Vickers, in his first year in WorldSBK, actually really likes Donington because of its split personality, not in spite of it. “I really enjoy the fast and flowing sections but I also enjoy coming into the Foggy Esses and then the Melbourne Loop. When you come over the crest you are braking extremely hard into the Melbourne Loop. It actually creates a lot of character having these two halves, because it is difficult to set the bike up. You need a bike with really good agility and turning for the first part of the track; but you also need a bike that is stopping and braking very well for the final part. And, obviously, the Melbourne Loop is where all the overtakes are done for the race wins and finishing positions. That is a great part of the track; my favourite in a track of two halves.”
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