http://www.motormorph.com/?p=1636

Nardò, Italy
If you thought that Millbrook’s high speed bowl was impressive, check
out the Nardò Ring. Located near the town of Nardò, in the southern
Italian, the track is 7.8 miles long and perfectly round. It has four
lanes for cars and motorcycles testing. The lanes are 16 metres in width
so there is plenty of room not to feel claustrophobic at 200+ mph. In
the ring the lanes are banked at such a degree that a driver in the
outer most lane doesn’t need to turn the wheel while driving at speeds
of up to 149 mph. Aston Martin have been using the Nardò Ring to test
the top speed of the new One-77 where it achieved a VMAX of 220 mph. Unfortunately this was shy of the course record held by the Koenigsegg
CCR which set a speed of 241 mph.

Idiada, Spain
Idiada is one of the best kept secret in proving ground circles. It is
quite hard to get information on it – especially if you don’t speak the lingo. What we do know is that it is found near Barcelona and all the
main track gubbins are held within a 4.7 mile oval high speed circuit.
It is not just standard car manufacturers who go to Idiada though, many
teams test their race cars to destruction here. What Idiada has which
many other proving grounds don’t is a ‘fatigue track’ dedicated to absolutely knackering your brakes, powertrain and gearbox.

Ehra-Lessien, Germany
Now this is the ‘Big Poppa’ of proving grounds. Ehra-Lessien is the Volkswagen Group’s own test track facility. Built during the Cold War
in Ehra-Lessien, specifically because at the time it was in a no-fly
zone near the East German border, safe from prying eyes seeing secret prototypes. Since VW has gone on to buy what seems like all of the car
industry they need the biggest proving ground because they have so many
cars to test. The track is used by all Volkswagen Group subsidiaries and marques; such as Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, SEAT, Skoda as
well as Porsche, which has a 42% share of the firm. But Ehra-Lessien has
one party trick which other test tracks don’t have. It is a big, long,
party trick in the shape of a high speed circuit with a straight
approximately 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) long. As famously noted by James May
when he tested the Bugatti Veyron on the straight, although the straight
is perfectly flat and level, when standing at one end of the straight,
the other end cannot be seen due to the curvature of the Earth. Both the
Bugatti Veyron and the McLaren F1 recorded their top speed, managing
253.81 mph and 240 mph respectively.

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