The circuit project was led by Spanish engineer Manuel Medina Lara, based on a preliminary concept from Alessandro Rocci. It opened on 8 December 1985, and within months was staging international competition. The circuit's first international motorcycle event in Spain took place in March 1986, and the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix followed in April of that year — the first Spanish Grand Prix since the Montjuic Park event of 1975.
Jerez hosted the Spanish Grand Prix from 1986 through 1990. The circuit's relatively remote location in southern Spain limited spectator attendance despite capacity for up to 125,000. Following the 1990 race, Formula One moved its Spanish base to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmelo.
The circuit nonetheless returned to the Formula One calendar on two subsequent occasions. In 1994 Jerez hosted the European Grand Prix, for which a new chicane — the Senna Curve — was added at the corner where Ayrton Senna's teammate Martin Donnelly had suffered a career-ending accident during qualifying for the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix. The 1994 European Grand Prix also followed a 1992 track revision that had eliminated four corners to create the long right-hander known as Curva Sito Pons.
The most historically significant Formula One event at Jerez came in 1997, when the circuit hosted the European Grand Prix as the final championship decider between Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve. During the race, Schumacher and Villeneuve collided at the chicane; Villeneuve continued to finish third and secure the world title, while Schumacher retired on the spot. The incident resulted in Schumacher being stripped of his second-place position in the championship. However, the aftermath of the 1997 race also produced a separate controversy: Jerez's Mayor Pedro Pacheco disrupted the podium ceremony by presenting a trophy that was meant to be awarded by a Daimler-Benz dignitary. The resulting diplomatic incident led to the circuit being informally banned from hosting a Grand Prix, and it has not held another Formula One race since.
The circuit underwent several modifications during its operational history. In 1992 four corners were removed to create Curva Sito Pons. The 1994 Senna Curve chicane was added at the site of the Donnelly accident to improve safety. The entire track was resurfaced in 2005. In 2013 the final corner was renamed after Jorge Lorenzo, who had won four world championships by that point. In 2018 the circuit was renamed in its entirety in honour of Angel Nieto, the Spanish motorcycle racing legend who died in 2017, and in 2019 the sixth corner was renamed after Dani Pedrosa.
Jerez has remained one of the premier circuits on the Grand Prix motorcycle racing calendar throughout its existence. It hosts the Spanish Motorcycle Grand Prix each spring as one of the most attended rounds of the MotoGP World Championship. The circuit has also hosted the Superbike World Championship annually and has been a primary winter testing venue for both MotoGP and World Superbike teams, with its mild Andalusian winter climate making it attractive for year-round track work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Jerez hosted a replacement Andalusian Motorcycle Grand Prix in addition to the rescheduled Spanish event, giving the circuit back-to-back MotoGP rounds in a compressed calendar.
Beyond race weekends, Jerez served for many years as one of Formula One's principal pre-season testing venues, taking advantage of southern Spain's reliable winter sunshine. Its role as an F1 testing circuit ended in 2015 following changes to the sport's testing regulations, though it continues to host extensive MotoGP and Superbike testing programmes.
Despite missing out on Formula One after 1997, Jerez has remained continuously active as one of Spain's most important racing venues. Its combination of a challenging technical layout, capacity for massive crowds, and a position within a distinctive cultural landscape — the same region famous for producing sherry and flamenco — gives the circuit a character found nowhere else on the international calendar. The 1997 championship decider between Schumacher and Villeneuve remains one of the most discussed races in Formula One history, cementing Jerez's place in the sport's collective memory regardless of its subsequent absence from the World Championship.