F3 History

It began to rain as the cars came onto the grid and after two warm up laps everybody except the three front row men and Julio Caio opted for wet tyres for the race. Then as the cars sat on the grid first Ribeiro and the von Preussen switched to wets and after another exploratory lap and a near spin at Coram Henton joined them just leaving Caio on dries.
Some 20 minutes later than scheduled the race finally got under way and although Preussen got the jump on the others by Russell it was Ribeiro in the lead followed by Henton, von Preussen and the rest. Of the others Rouff got away late, Marcos Moraes spun his March and Caio was dropping back on his slicks. Ribeiro’s lead lasted for a couple of laps before both von Preussen and Henton overtook the GRD whilst further down the field “Teleco” and Dick Parsons had a coming together at Sear, the Brazilian lost his nosecone and the Smiths Crisps Ensign retired with a broken wheel.
Back at the front it was a two way battle for the lead between von Preussen and Henton with a gap back to a battling Ribeiro and Barrie Maskell in his Dastle then a further gap to the fifth place fight between Derek Lawrence (Ehrlich), Jose Chateaubriand (March) and Rouff. Henton continued to harass von Preussen at the front the works March sliding more and more as Henton’s tyres wore down and over the last few laps von Preussen was in similar difficulties but the older March seemed quicker along the straights and von Preussen held onto win by a couple of car lengths. Six laps from the finish Maskell moved the Dastle up to third ahead of Ribeiro, the 1.7-litre engine in the Dastle less of a handicap in the wet, the rest of the field came home fairly well separated as the now dry track caused their wets to wear and chunk badly.