FRANK WILLIAMS MEMORIAL TROPHY FOR MASTERS RACING LEGENDS
Friday 13:31 - 13:51
RACE 5 Saturday 13:05 - 13:25 RACE 15 Sunday 13:30 - 13:50
Over the years , Formula One has gone through many technical and visual changes , but no other era has been as transformative as the two decades that spanned the 3-litre formula .
Originally billed as ‘ The Return to Power ’, the era soon also hailed the advent of slicks , wings , turbos and ground effect . Meanwhile , the cigar-shaped Grand Prix car morphed into the airbox-sprouting and sidepod-carrying monocoque chassis that is still the basic design of every Formula One single-seater today . Moreover , national colours were abandoned in favour of sponsorship liveries . TV ratings soared , as did driver salaries and team budgets .
Still , a long way into this formula , anyone could do it . If you could weld and fabricate , had saved enough money to source a Cosworth DFV engine , a Hewland FG400 gearbox and a few sets of Goodyear tyres , you ’ d just started your own Formula One team . That ’ s what Peter Connew and his mates did back between 1970 and 1972 in a garage in Chadwell Heath . It resulted in a backmarker car that to its credit did make it to a proper Grand Prix grid , so you ’ d be tempted to think that ’ s as far as heroic 3-litre kit-car efforts could go . But in essence Connew ’ s project was no different from what Ken Tyrrell and Derek Gardner had done in the very same time span – starting from Gardner ’ s home , their hands and minds created a winning car for multiple World Champion Jackie Stewart . It was still just about the same when Frank Williams and Patrick Head rented a warehouse in Didcot to build their Williams FW06 and the subsequent FW07 with which they would dominate racing in the early eighties .
It ’ s cars from this era that feature in the Masters Racing Legends series . After rounds at Barcelona , Donington Park , Brands Hatch , the Red Bull Ring , Zandvoort and the Nürburgring , The Classic is the seventh round of the series , and Silverstone ’ s round has been aptly christened the Frank Williams Memorial Trophy . Late last year , we mourned the loss of Sir Frank Williams , the last of the great garagiste team owners to survive from this era . Three Williams cars from that first period of success are on the grid . Irishman Mike Cantillon and Belgian Christophe d ’ Ansembourg are both proven race winners in their ground-effect Williams FW07Cs while Mark Hazell has been a frontrunner in the flat-bottomed post-1982 class for years now . As an additional point of interest , Hazell ’ s car is the exact chassis in which Ayrton Senna made his Formula One test debut at Donington Park late 1983 . In fact , Hazell has done everything to restore it to the look of that day , and that includes the ‘ Save the Children ’ decal on its sidepods .
Strong opposition is expected from several cars that emerged from the workshop of that other illustrious garagiste – Ken Tyrrell . Ian Simmonds brings a flat-bottomed Tyrrell 012 in Benetton colours while Jamie Constable and Ken Tyrrell will race a pair of Denimliveried 011s from 1982 . Wait , Ken Tyrrell ? Yes , absolutely , since the American happens to be the namesake of the late team owner ! He does know how to pedal , though , and earlier this year
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