Donington expects record crowd.

The 200mph plus MotoGP racers only make one appearance in Britain a year and already over 40,000 British fans have bought tickets, as fast as they were being printed, for the Cinzano British Grand Prix at Donington Park on July 13.

It looks certain to be a record crowd for the event, which is the eighth round of this year's MotoGP World Championship and has been watched by massive crowds and millions of world-wide television viewers.

Donington is following a world-wide trend with last year's 16 grands prix spread throughout five continents and 13 separate countries, attracting a massive 1,698,312 spectators.

Last year over 60,000 watched the British Grand Prix on race day with 93,595 making the trip to the Midlands over the weekend. This year all pre-event sales indicate an even bigger attendance to watch the likes of Valentino Rossi and co. in action.

This year BBC television - much slated by hardened fans for its 'delayed highlights' coverage - will be showing the MotoGP race live on Sunday afternoon. The event date slotting between the end of Wimbledon and the start of the Open Golf tournament.

With Eurosport continuing their massive race day coverage - from warm-up to the end of the MotoGP race - British TV viewers will have no excuse for not joining the truly massive world-wide audience who are already hooked by the excitement of the two-wheeled gladiators.

Silverstone can offer F1 cars 'going fast', but the fans that will descend on Donington can expect a real fight between hardened racers.

Last year an average 320 million viewers in 208 countries watched live or same day delayed transmissions of each grand prix through 43 networks, along with a further 38 outlets offering edited highlight packages. That means the total number of television viewers enjoying MotoGP last year was a staggering 5,130 million.

So a record crowd at Donington, a television audience of over 300 million world-wide, lets just hope the sun shines on 13 July at one of the biggest days in the British sporting calendar.