History
The development of Eastern Creek International Raceway was approved in 1989 and the circuit was opened on 10 November 1990. The track is fast and flowing and operates year-round. The pit facilities provide fifty garages with immediate access to the paddock area and a covered 4,000-seat grandstand overlooks the finish line, providing a view of eighty percent of the circuit.
Eastern Creek hosted the Australian motorcycle Grand Prix from 1991 to 1996 before the race as moved back to Phillip Island. The circuit has also hosted rounds of the Australian Superbike Championship.
Eastern Creek first hosted a round of the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1992 and went on to hold an ATCC or V8 Supercar round every year, excluding 2006, until 2008. In 2009 the circuit was dropped in favour of a new event at Homebush. In 2003 and 2004, the V8 Supercars Grand Finale was held at the circuit. Marcos Ambrose won the event on both occasions. In the 1990s Eastern Creek hosted the Winfield Triple Challenge, an event which featured ATCC teams and drivers alongside Superbikes and drag racing. V8 Supercars returned to Eastern Creek in January 2011 for a pre-season test day.
It has being announced that Eastern Creek will be once again a round of the 2012 V8 Supercars championship.
The Australian round of the A1 Grand Prix championship was held at Eastern Creek from the 2005–06 season to the 2007–08 season. It was during the 2006–07 event on 4 February 2007 that German driver Nico Hülkenberg set the outright lap record at Eastern Creek with a 1:19.1420 lap of the 3.930 km (2.442 mi) circuit in the A1 Team Germany prepared Lola A1GP Zytek.
On 11 August 2006, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Ron Dickson, the A1 Grand Prix circuit designer who also designed the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit, suggested that Eastern Creek was not up to modern standards and needed to be upgraded. On 28 April 2008, it was announced that Apex Circuit Design Ltd had been commissioned to perform a $350,000 feasibility study on upgrading the track to suit more purposes and hold larger events such as the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, however nothing came of this proposed upgrade.
In early 2011, it was announced that Eastern Creek would receive a $9 million upgrade, with the New South Wales Government providing $7 million and the Australian Racing Drivers Club funding the other $2 million. The upgrade will see the track reconfigured into four layouts, with two able to be operated at the same time and will have a total length of 4.7km. The upgrade also includes an additional pit lane facility to cater for the new configuration, a new race control tower and new amenities buildings. Work on the upgrades began in June 2011, with a new piece of road joining turns four and nine being constructed. This link road, finished in October 2011, created the new "north circuit".
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