Race Report: Snetterton, 1 April 1973

The track was wet as the cars came out to practice for this second round of the Forward Trust Championship and during the session it began to dry out causing some confusion as to whether to run wet or dry tyres. At the end of qualifying it was Mike Wilds who set the best lap in his Dempster Developments Ensign ahead of Ian Taylor and Brian Henton who had switched to dries at the end of the session after puncturing one of his wets. Fourth fastest and going well in only his second F3 race was Australian Larry Perkins in his year-old GRD.

Mike Wilds made the best start hotly pursued by Henton who soon lost his place to Ian Taylor, it wasn’t Henton’s day as he spun at the Hairpin on the opening lap dropping to thirteenth. At the end of the first lap it was Mike Wilds from Ian Taylor, Alan Jones, Mo Harness in his Ensign and Neil Ginn’s GRD. Jones moved into the lead on lap 2 with Wilds dropping to third behind Taylor whilst Harness was closing on these two. Jones began to pull away from the rest as fifth place runner Ginn was out when his Novamotor threw a rod, Richard Robarts moved up to take Ginn’s place closely pursued by Masami Kuwashima. The Japanese driver’s run was soon over when his clutch failed as was the Royale of Andy Sutcliffe with similar problems.
As Jones extended his lead at the front of the field the battle for second intensified and Wilds who had moved back to second found himself demoted by Taylor at the Esses on lap 11. Wilds wasn’t about to give in without a struggle and fought back hard over the next three laps and he regained second again at the Esses. Into the last lap and it was Jones who took the flag some eight seconds ahead of Mo Harness, to the amazement of Wilds and Taylor the Ensign of Harness got through to second at the Hairpin on the final tour and coolly held on to the finish.

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