F3 History

In view of the generally low turnouts for these early season races and the relative remoteness of Cadwell Park it is not perhaps too surprising that only seven cars arrived at the circuit for this Forward Trust round and this was almost immediately reduced to six when Brendan McInerney’s road car died on the way north stranding him. A welcome newcomer to the F3 ranks was the Palliser WFD3 of Derek Lawrence with an unusual engine tuner for F3, BRM.

Dave Walker, running a very low profile set of Firestones took pole position by the relatively huge margin of 1.6 seconds from Ian Ashley’s similar Novamotor powered Lotus 69. Completing the front row was the March 713M of Tom Walkinshaw with a new Harvey tuned engine to replace the now destroyed Lloyd version. Derek Lawrence was next up, the car showing its newness with only a few laps at Silverstone behind it, fuel surge blighting the Palliser’s qualifying. Slowest by quite some margin was the Brabham-Holbay BT35 of Chris O’Brien.

Ashley made a quick getaway, too quick as it turned out and he was duly rewarded with a 1 minute penalty. Walkinshaw took the lead and managed to hold Walker and Ashley at bay for a few laps but eventually Walker got ahead and strolled away to an easy 14 second victory. The rest of the field toured around to complete the race distance without incident.