The Imatra Circuit is a
motorsport street circuit in
Imatra
Imatra is a town and municipality in southeastern Finland. Imatra is dominated by Lake Saimaa, the Vuoksi River and the border with Russia. On the other side of the border, away from the centre of Imatra, lies the Russian town of Svetogorsk. ...
,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
. The circuit has existed in two versions, and has been exclusively used for the "Imatranajo"
motorcycle
A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...
road race. From 1962 to 1978 a clockwise street circuit in the east of the town of Imatra was used. The circuit ran along the
Vuoksi
The Vuoksi (russian: Вуокса, historically: "Uzerva"; fi, Vuoksi; sv, Vuoksen) is a river running through the northernmost part of the Karelian Isthmus from Lake Saimaa in southeastern Finland to Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia. The ri ...
river and a railway line that had to be crossed. From 1979 to 1986 a shorter circuit was used. This was only long and consisted mostly of the western part of the original circuit.
From the 1964 season until the 1982 season the
Grand Prix of Finland was run 19 times in Imatra. From the 1983 season the "Imatranajo" lost its World Championship status due to the dangerous nature of the circuit and the death of sidecar driver
Jock Taylor in 1982.
The last road race on the Imatra Circuit for many years was held in 1986 when a six-year-old boy died after falling under a running wheel, but classic races still took place. Road racing returned to Imatra in August 2016 with a round of the
International Road Racing Championship, and another round was held in 2017.
In the "Imatranajo" on June 15, 2019, a fatal crash occurred when a Swiss driver Mathias Gnägi with a Superbike class dropped off the track in the rain and was killed.
Lap records
The official race lap records at the Jarno Saarinen Imatranajo Circuit are listed as:
Finnish Grand Prix results
From 1964 to 1972
From 1973 to 1982
''(Coloured background = the race was boycotted by international competitors)''
References and notes
* Translated from the Dutch version of this page
External links
Imatranajo website
{{Sidecar World Championship circuits
Motorsport venues in Finland
Grand Prix motorcycle circuits