Race Report: Brands Hatch, 11 August 1974

For their second race in two days 13 F3 cars made it to Brands Hatch for this Lombard North Central round, however practice saw one car eliminated, the José Espirito Santo March was out with front end damage. One notable absentee was Tony Rouff following the problems he suffered at Oulton Park the day before. Mike Tyrrell showed his Oulton pole position was no fluke by once again being the fastest runner at the end of qualifying.

Unfortunately for Tyrrell his pole position came to naught when he was a first lap retirement with clutch failure in his March 733. It was Brian Henton who took the lead from the start and for the rest of the race his rivals had to sit and watch his gearbox from a distance as the works March cruised to a nearly 4 second win.

Brazilian Alex Ribeiro took second at the start initially chased by the March of Nick von Preussen but it was Danny Sullivan who quickly moved ahead of von Preussen to chase Ribeiro. For the rest of the race the GRD and the March fought a great battle, Sullivan had a bit of a moment on lap 8 which dropped him back a little but by the finish he had closed right up again to finish 0.8 seconds behind the Hollywood sponsored car. Nick von Preussen stayed close to the duo in front to finish fourth while Derek Lawrence had another steady run in the Ehrlich to take fifth ahead of the second works March of Jose Chateaubriand.
Two new runners this weekend were Norman Pierce in the Dastle normally pedalled by Barrie Maskell who went quite well despite a spin at Druids and Frank Scurria who had an outing in his 1600 cc Ensign F372 and needed a push start but did well to catch up and pass several runners ahead of him.

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