The Autodromo di Vallelunga, later named the Autodromo Piero Taruffi in honour of the celebrated Italian racing driver, sits approximately 32 kilometres north of Rome near the locality of Vallelunga di Campagnano. The facility was first developed in 1951 as a sand oval measuring 1.773 km, making it one of the smaller venues in Italian motorsport at the time.
The Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI) acquired the track in 1967, adding a new loop to the layout that gave the circuit more definition and established the configuration that would run in various forms through the following decades. Further refurbishment work was undertaken in 1971. The total track length in this era ran to roughly 1.988 km in its most common configuration, though the precise measurement varied with different iterations of the layout over the years.
From 1963, Vallelunga hosted the Rome Grand Prix, and after the ACI took ownership and made improvements, the event became a mainstay of the European Formula Two Championship through the 1970s. The circuit also hosted rounds of the European Touring Car Championship on multiple occasions — 1974, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1988 among them — making it one of the busier touring car venues in Italy during that era.
The old Vallelunga layout proved particularly well-suited to single-seater racing. The FIA European Formula 3 Championship visited on multiple occasions from 1976 to 1983, and the Rome Grand Prix continued as a prominent round of the International Formula 3000 series from 1985 through 1991, with Vallelunga's modest size producing close, tactical racing that suited the 3000 formula.
The World Sportscar Championship visited Vallelunga in 1973 and from 1976 to 1980, with the venue providing a compact and spectator-friendly environment for prototype racing. The 6 Hours of Rome endurance event was a long-running fixture from 1973 to 1994 and resumed in various guises thereafter.
Through the 1990s the old layout hosted Italian Formula Three, French Formula Renault categories, and occasional appearances from smaller international series. Luca Badoer set an outright track record of 0:56.335 in a Ferrari F2004 during Formula One testing in October 2004 — a benchmark set on the former International Circuit just as the extension that would replace it was being constructed.
In August 2004, construction began on a 0.863 km extension that added a new section beyond the previous circuit's limit. This brought the total length to approximately 2.851 km in the new International Circuit configuration and fundamentally changed the nature of the venue. The extended layout received FIA homologation as a test circuit and was subsequently used by several Formula One teams for off-season testing. Anthony Davidson set the unofficial all-time track record for the new layout at 1:12.804 in a Honda RA106 during Formula One testing in April 2006.
The old shorter configuration was retained as the Historic International Circuit, preserving the original character of the course for events that suited its compact dimensions, including the enduring Italian Formula Three championship and historic motorsport gatherings.
Vallelunga's old layout was the definitive home of Italian club racing for four decades. Its closeness to Rome gave it a unique audience among Italian circuits, drawing crowds from the capital for events that the more distant circuits at Imola or Monza could not easily access. The circuit also serves as the home base of Kunos Simulazioni, the Italian studio responsible for Assetto Corsa — one of the most technically respected racing simulation platforms in the world — whose offices occupy a pit garage at the facility. This connection has kept Vallelunga's layouts, both old and new, among the more faithfully modelled tracks in sim racing software.