Masters Historic Festival Brands Hatch

The Masters Historic Festival was held last weekend at Brands Hatch on the GP circuit, it was also a celebration of the 40th anniversary of James Hunt winning the World F1 Championship. A fine display of the many cars Hunt drove throughout his racing career could be seen and enjoyed at the famous Kent track…

The weekends weather fortunately remained dry, a grey and gloomy start brighting up and getting very warm by the end of both days. Saturdays racing came to a halt for a while as oil was dropped during qualifying of the Pre ’66 Touring cars which in turn led to an extensive clean up of Clearways…

On the weekends bill we had the FIA Masters Historic Formula One Championship featuring cars from the 1970’s and 80’s, 18 cars lined up with Nick Padmore setting fastest lap, Michael Lyons, Mike Wrigley and Greg Thornton all in hot pursuit.

Historic Grand Prix Cars Association with cars from the 1950’s and 60’s also competed at the meeting with Philip Walker in the Lotus 16 taking the win in both races and with a Lister Jaguar GP, Ferrari Dino and a Maserati 250F in the chasing pack the soundtrack was tremendous.

Le Mans type sports cars and Can Am cars where present, the McLaren M1B & M8F along with what I think is the prettiest sports car ever to grace my eyes, the Lola T70’s. In the Can Am 50 Interserie Challenge it was the McLaren of Andrew Newall taking a win with the Bradley and Piper March’s taking 2nd and 3rd in race 1, Newall again winning race 2 with Marc Devis in the TOJ 2nd and Richard Piper again securing 3rd.

A 36 car grid in the Pre’ 66 Touring Cars where represented by the usual Lotus Cortina and Minis along with Ford Falcon’s, Mustangs, stunning BMW 1800’s and a hard charging Mercury Cyclone. Overall American muscle prevailed in race one with Craig Davies bringing it home first in a Mustang with Andy Wolfe chasing hard and a mere second behind in a Lotus Cortina.

All in all it was a good weekend, with the smells and sounds you just don’t get in these days of modern motorsport and watching these racers up close you have a real sense respect for the drivers who used to ‘pedal’ these cars hard in a long gone era…

Full results can be found here.