Over the weekend of 30/31 May, Masters Historic Racing at the Brands Hatch Historic Festival appeared to struggle with entries. Generally Masters has two stand out grids; the Gentlemen Drivers and the Pre 66 Touring Cars. Sadly these were well down on normal grids and so the races were combined. There were still only 11 cars. Likewise the Formula 2 and Formula 3 Classic Interseries races only produced 17 entries overall (8 in Formula 2 and 9 Formula 3). And finally, there were only 10 entries for the Masters Endurance Legends. There is a suggestion in some quarters that Brexit has impacted the ability of European competitors to enter UK races, hence reduced grids. You can make your own minds up on that one. Alternatively, there were two other events with grids for historics in the UK, at Donington and Silverstone, which may well have had a bigger influence.
Ok, having got the difficult bit out of the way, there were lots of good bits, and I include the foregoing grids, to talk about. Because what we actually got was a Formula 1 racing festival. The 1966 to 1985 Masters Racing Legends had a reasonable entry of 18 cars, and the biggest grid of the event came in the form of the Historic Grand Prix Cars Association with 31 Pre 1966 entries. With a supporting cast of saloons, GTs and lesser formulae we got a Grand Prix weekend that felt like the old days.
Saturday dawned sunny and warm and would remain so for the entire weekend. That said it was pretty hot on the Saturday and thoughts were already turning to cold beers by lunchtime! But there were races to qualify and win, so the beers would wait.
Masters Gentlemen Drivers & Pre-66 Touring Cars
First out of the blocks was qualifying for the combined Gent Drivers and Pre 66 Touring Cars.
You only need two cars and you have a race. A theory proven during the afternoon by the two TVR Griffiths of John Spiers/Nigel Greensall and Mike Whittaker who qualified 1st and 2nd. Before the pit stops these two were only about two cars length apart most of the time.
Among the chasing pack, the Cottingham/Littlejohn Shelby Cobra started third and remained there for the duration. The only retirment was the MGB of Holmes and Sheppard which only managed thriteen of the 34 laps of the leader.
Waving the Touring Car flag was Geoffrey and Alan Letts’ Ford Lotus Cortina finishing 7th with 33 laps.
HGPCA Pre 1966 Formula One
This one covers the period of Formula One that arguably had the most changes through its 13 years. Cars went from upright designs such as the Alfa Romeo 8c, via the sleek front engined Ferrari 246 Dino and the Maserati 250F, to the rear engined Cooper T53 and finally the petite Lotus 18.
Qualifying on the Saturday morning, there would be two races, the first that afternoon and the second on the Sunday afternoon.
Race 1
The pattern for both races was set in the first when Tim Child landed pole position in his Brabham BT3/4 followed by Rudi Freidrichs and in third Tom Waterfield, both Cooper T53 mounted. Tom Waterfield would only make it to lap 6 leaving Justin Meers to claim third place after a race long battle with Peter Horsman’s Lotus 18/21 who lost out two laps from the end when tagged by a backmarker heading through Clearways.
Worth noting that these cars carry a substantial amount of history. Take the Nick Topliss T53 Low Line. The history is painted on its flanks:
Race 2
Another Tim Child fest. Tim was followed home by Friedrichs in second and this time Michael Gans who bumped Justin Meers down to third.
There was some fairly close racing throughout both races. Here Clinton McCarthy and James Denty squabble over 5th and 6th in Race 1:
Classic F2 Interseries
The timetable gets a little messy here, so bear with me. Obviously with such a small entry for both F2 and F3 it made sense to send them all out to practice in the same session. You either needed a good memory of the various chassis in both international series of the day, or you needed Timing Solutions to tell you which cars were F2 and which ones were F3.
Race 1
Fortunately qualifying was less confusing and the F2 Grid for Race 1 would be led off by Mark Charteris in his March 782 followed by James Lay’s March 762 and the Matthew Watts March 772. For the race, James Lay worked his way up to first from third leaving Charteris and Watts in second and third.
Race 2
The race one result set the grid for race 2 and so James Lay led away followed by Charteris and Watts who were never far behind, or indeed far apart throughout, but they finished as they started.
Charteris and Watts chasing the winner.
Classic F3 Interseries
Race 1
Alexander Wiess in his Ralt RT3 dominated the qualifying session to take pole position. He would go on to win ahead of David Leone’s March 783 and Greg Caton’s Ralt RT3 which had started from the pitlane due to a technical infringement in qualifying so this was a particularly good drive.
Race 2
The grid was settled by the result of race one and in this case the starting positions remained to the end. So, another win for the Weiss RT3 followed home by Leone and Caton.
Masters Racing Legends
Race 1
In 1978, at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Williams team scored their very first World Championship points with their FW06 driven by Australian Alan Jones. So it was appropriate that Australian Martin Bullock should be pedalling the only FW06 to grace this grid. In my opinion it was a pretty car for its day.
Qualifying for race one provided Werner D’Ansembourg with pole position in his Williams FW07C, followed by Yutaka Toriba in his similar car. Pole would have gone to Jamie Constable’s Tyrrell 011 but he suffered a two place grid penalty thus he started third. Leading the Fitipaldi class was the March 761 of Clive Chapman folowed by James Hagan’s Tyrrell 011B and that FW06 of Martin Bullock. The Lauda class was headed up by James Hagan’s Tyrrell 011B.
To the race and Werner D’Ansembourg was never headed. Meanwhile, Tom Bradshaw and Warren Briggs in Mclaren MP4/1 and M29C respectively took second and third.
Race 2
The reverse starting order for this race put Mark Hazell’s Williams FW07B on pole followed by Valario Leone; Arrows A6 and Warren Briggs; Williams FW07C in second and third. At the flag however, Tom Bradshaw (starting fifth) crossed the line ahead of D’Ansembourg and Briggs.
Masters Endurance Legends
Race 1
Having qualified on pole, the LIgier LMP3 of Andy Perry/Ben Clucas would get no further than lap 12, leaving the spoils to the Neil Glover/ Michael Lyons Lamborghini Gallardo GT3, followed home by Phil Quaife/Kenny Murray Lola B12 and the Max Brown McLaren MP4 12C GT3 in third.
Race 2
Starting from pole, the Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 of Neil Glover and Michael Lyons leapt into a race 2 lead it would not relinquish. Max Brown brought his Mclaren home in second ahead of the Zak Brown (yes, he of McLaren fame)/Richard Dean Ferrari F430 in third.
Wrapping up with a few thoughts:
First, Brands Hatch was looking stunning in the early summer sunshine. The lack of cars on the grid didn’t appear to worry the spectatators who were variously sunbathing, watching, eating ice creams and generally enjoying themselves.
Ultimately what were we all there to see? I think it was to watch some pretty awesome cars being put through their paces. Whilst some races were processional and Formula 3 was ever thus, there were some glorious examples of competition machinery to savour. As mentioned, the Williams FW06 which kicked off the Williams Grand Prix success story, for one.
So, whilst I know some have expressed concern about the entries, I also know many who had a great weekend. I’m among the latter.
I have purposely left the Formula 1 Demo laps from this review.
Finally, I haven’t tried to “report” the details of each race because that’s the job of the professionals. However, I hope you get a flavour of the weekend from this article.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you were there just say “hi”.
All images by http://www.mallettracing.com
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Peter Mallett Racing 
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