Donington Park owner Kevin Wheatcroft says he would still like to see the British Grand Prix at the circuit, despite the crisis caused by a failed bid to secure the race.

The chairman of Donington Park Racing said securing the race would be the "ultimate prize" as he prepared to host a car racing event at the track for the first time in 12 months.

For much of the past year, the circuit has been unusable after former lease-holding company Donington Ventures Leisure collapsed in November in the middle of a multi-million pound upgrade of the track to bring it up to F1 standards.

Another company, Adroit Group, took up the lease and restored the 2.5-mile track to racing standards before Mr Wheatcroft took back the running of the circuit last month.

By that time the F1 governing body had signed a deal with rival circuit Silverstone to host the race for 17 years.

Mr Wheatcroft said yesterday: "I'd be lying if I said I did not want to see Formula One back here. It is the ultimate prize in motor racing.

"I still feel there is unfinished business.

"It would be a long way off but we are here for the long-term. The key would be getting a deal that would make a profit.

"We would not necessarily want to make a lot of money but we certainly would not want to make a loss.

"I would rather be pursued than actively pursue it but my door is always open."

Mr Wheatcroft, whose late father, Tom, built the circuit into a world class racing venue said he felt no ill-will towards businessman Simon Gillett, the man behind the failed Formula One bid.

He said: "I haven't had any contact with him and I don't really want any contact with him.

"It's one of life's lessons. It was a real bid and a very ambitious bid. If he had tried it 15 months earlier, he might have succeeded but he took it on in the middle of a global recession."

Mr Wheatcroft said Adroit would be paid £2 million for the work already completed at Donington and said his firm would have to pay a further £2 million to bring it up to the standard he wanted.

He revealed he had been approached by 25 parties interested in taking the lease of the circuit, as well as developers interested in using it for housing or industrial development.

He said: "They were offering a lot of money and I was tempted, but there has been racing here since 1931 and I didn't want to be the one to end that."

Mr Wheatcroft revealed he was considering changing the name of the circuit and the possibility of developing a hotel or some other form of leisure use alongside the racing.

He said he was pleased that racing had returned to the track with this weekend's Masters Historic Racing Festival but wished his father, who died, aged 87, in October, had been alive to see it.

He added: "I would have loved my dad to have been here for this. We lost our entire calendar for the year. Now we want to revisit those events and try to get them back.

"I am fairly confident for the future."