Photographing test days at Donington Park

I’ve been meaning to get to an unsilenced test day at Donington Park for some time.  You don’t know what’s going to turn up or how long it will run for so it’s a bit of a gamble. 

PistonClick has featured Graham Atkinson’s reports from test days for a while now. These often feature the output from conversations with drivers to give an insight into the man or woman behind the wheel. 

What happens on a test day?

The format is very simple. Cars of similar specification are let out on track for half hour sessions. That’s sort of it. Red flags may feature in the event of cars off track or dropped fluids. Arrive late and you may miss cars that are out early and complete their test programme.

Where can I go on a test day?

As well as the usual areas around the track, the pit garages are typically open to walk into but pit lane and pit wall are for teams only. As Graham has demonstrated, teams are often very happy to talk to you, although it is worth remembering that they are working. 

In the pits

Arriving mid morning, I wandered up and down the pit garages before lunch.

Around the track

After lunch at Garage 39, I walked across to my favoured inside of Coppice spot for a blustery, sunshine and clouds sort of day. Time for spot of panning practice.

Moody monochrome

A test day gives a good opportunity for slow shutter speed panning practice – and why not try a bit of monochrome. This was shot at 1/15th second – you don’t get many keepers at that speed !

Moving towards McLeans

With only my 70-200mm zoom to hand, I moved towards McLeans on the inside of the track for a panning shot approaching Coppice.

Looking down to Starkeys

I’ve not used this angle before looking down as the cars come up through Starkeys towards McLeans. Perhaps we see the early stages of the re-forestation of Donington.

Ending the day at Redgate

I finished the day at Redgate for some more panning shots. Of course, on a test day there is little in the way of wheel to wheel action.

Photographers Notes

I used my usual Nikon D850 with either the Nikkor 24-120mm zoom in the pits and the Nikkor 70-200mm zoom out on track.

Thanks to David Harbey for this Photographing test days at Donington Park report. You can find out more about David from the links below.