The Ordos International Circuit, about 10 kilometres east of Kangbashi, was built in 2011 to host Formula 1 and other international motor racing events. The circuit hosted a Chinese Touring Car Championship round and various domestic racing events before the racing programme contracted; the original plan for Formula 1 did not materialise. The track itself — designed by the same firm responsible for Shanghai's F1 circuit — is genuinely impressive, with a challenging layout that winds through the desert landscape.
The circuit is one of the more physically impressive objects of Ordos's infrastructure ambition: a full-scale international racing facility built in the middle of a desert for reasons that remained slightly unclear. It is not an obvious tourist destination, but for visitors fascinated by the scale of Chinese infrastructure projects and the optimism that drove them, it is a compelling site. Public access to the track area is occasionally possible; the surrounding desert landscape is dramatic regardless of whether the circuit is in use.