Donington Masters Festival 2016

The Masters Festival returned to the famous Derbyshire circuit last weekend (2nd-3rd July) as Donington Park hosted its second large historic racing festival of the season and the grids boasted some of the greatest racing cars of all time…

The event is an FIA Masters meeting and includes vehicles from Pre 66 Saloons and Sportscars to modern day Sports2000 cars. Its a two day event and on the Saturday drivers head out to qualify, but this year the day included one of the highlights of the weekend, the Masters Three Hours series. This is a race that runs until dusk and drivers race into the evening and the low lying sun in some legendary cars. A couple other highlights of the Saturday were split over to Sunday too with the Can-Am Interserie race as well as the ‘people’s favourite’, the FIA Masters Historic Formula 1 Championship. Out there howling around, Ensign, Shadow, Williams and Terrell to name but a few plus the extremely famous Hesketh of a certain Mr. James Hunt. The Hesketh was out racing hard in race 1 of the weekend but did not have pace in qualifying or even in the race and didn’t appear again until race 2 on the Sunday but only briefly.

One sight and sound that a lot of the race fans were excited to witness were the thundering beasts of the Can-Am series along with the FIA Masters Historic Sportscar Championship featuring in both races were some of the most stunning Lola T70’s in multiple iterations. The Can-Am cars had two 20 minute races over the weekend where as the FIA historical sportscars had 60minute race on the Sunday meaning the Lola’s had their fair share of track time over the weekend, with those engine noises, this was something I don’t think anyone was complaining about.

A regular thing at most historic race meetings is the fact that many drivers drive multiple vehicles over the weekend, some owners and some pro drivers but there are often big names to be found in the paddock, and last weekend a certain Mr. Brian Johnson (AC/DC) returned to racing after a two year break piloting his Austin Mini Cooper S over the weekend.

Martin Stretton was also doubling up, running in his Tyrrell 012 in Benetton colours as well a stunning Lola T210 which took the chequered flag in the 60 minute Historic Sportscar race, despite trying everything, he couldn’t beat Nick Padmore to the flag in both Historic F1 races. Race 1 saw a battle from the start between Padmore and Stretton, swopping time at the front and the lead until the final few laps where Stretton attempted an overtake but just caught the rear wheel of Padmore’s Williams and it flicked the nose up on Strettons Tyrrell and ended his race. Race 2 rolled around on Sunday just after the lunch break, the grid was missing a few cars this time, the Ensign was pushed off the grid and the Hesketh never arrived. As expected, as soon as the lights went out the battle commenced between Padmore and Stretton again, but this time Padmore seemed to have the edge, Stretton was trying everything and again nearing the end of the race was giving it everything lap after lap setting the fastest lap despite locking his front left tyre every time. By the end of the race though he couldn’t find a way past and the Williams of Nick Padmore took the double win – as he did previously at Brands Hatch a few weeks ago.