We had an 11-week wait between the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit meeting with the French on the 1st July, until our next meeting at Brands Indy on the 22nd and 23rd September. In between another successful Historic Grand Prix at Zandvoort had taken place on the 1st September where 8 UK drivers took part in an entry of some 30 F3 cars, 6 of them being UK regulars in the form of Tom Bradshaw, David Thorburn, Pat Gormley, Keith White, Rudolf Ernst and Nick Taylor.

The Brands Indy entry of only 20 cars (15 CF3 and 5 URS), after the 33 that we got for the Silverstone International meeting and 33 for the Brands GP circuit, was somewhat disappointing. We were pleased to see the return of Gaius Ghinn our 2017 Champion, who had not previously been seen in 2018. Andy Langridge handed over his March 803 to his son Adrian, Andy making a return to the Batty March 733. James Denty was out again in the beautiful ex DART GRD and Ed Clayson was making a debut appearance in his Eldon PRH15.

Gaius Ghinn had lost none of his speed and headed qualifying from Richard Trott and March debutant Adrian Langridge. Championship contender Pat Gormley in his Safir was in 4th place just ahead of Paul Smith, but Keith White experienced mechanical dramas and after competing only one lap was last of the 20 qualifiers. Qualifying was held in cloudy but dry conditions, but the heavens opened for the first race on Saturday afternoon and the 20 runners duly took to the grid in very wet conditions.

Chris Lord in the URS 2000 Van Diemen had been 9th in the dry qualifying but suddenly found tremendous grip from his better patterned wet Avon tyres and stormed through to the front, winning the race by some 18 seconds. Gaius Ghinn heading the Formula 3 contingent from Richard Trott and Adrian Langridge who were right on his tale at the end.

There were several spinners in the wet conditions, Graham Hill bend was particularly tricky, catching out John Finch, Paul Smith and Pat Gormley and after a safety car racing continued. Following his spin Paul Smith worked his way back up to 5th place, but Pat Gormley wasn’t quite so lucky finishing 12th one place behind Keith White who had clawed his way from the very back up to a very fine 11th place.

It rained again all Sunday morning, but the sun came out at lunchtime and it looked as though our Race 2 3:40 pm start would be in dry conditions and this was duly the case. Unfortunately there was a river running across the track just after clearways and this caught out Richard Trott on lap 1 and Hugh Price on lap 8 both spinning into the pit wall. Paul Smith however got everything together and after an epic dice with Gaius Ghinn managed to win the race by just over a second. Adrian Langridge kept the March 803 in contention and was a few seconds back ahead of Pat Gormley who had worked his way up from his lowly position to finish 4th just ahead of David Thorburn and Keith White. Unfortunately the organisers decided that with Hugh Price’s car in a dangerous position they would wave the flag after only 12 laps and ten minutes of racing when a safety car would have sufficed to move the Chevron out of the way. Unfortunately, the clerk of the course made totally the wrong decision on the day and we all suffered a shortened race as a consequence, though the HSCC kindly gave us an extra 5 minutes on our two races in the Silverstone Finals to make up for it.

Silverstone Finals

The Championship was keenly poised when we arrived for the Finals at Silverstone, with Pat Gormley and Keith White both being in a possible position to win the 2018 CF3 Championship. A good entry of 28 cars, 20 CF3’s and 8 URS 2000’s made up a healthy grid for the season Finale.

David Shaw had entered his ex-Piquet Ralt RT1, but was unable to make the race at the last minute, so asked his preparer, Greg Caton, to drive the car. Greg promptly put the Ralt on pole position 0.3 seconds ahead of Gaius Ghinn, Paul Smith and Richard Trott. Andy Smith having fixed his gearbox problems from the Brands July meeting was 5th just ahead of Pat Gormley in the Safir. Adrian Langridge making his second appearance in the 803 was 7th just ahead of Keith White, the other Championship contender. Chris Levy headed the URS 2000 runners and Paul Tompkin making a welcome return in his Brabham BT41 led the only other Class B contender Andy Langridge’s March 733 for Class B honours.

Greg Caton and Gaius Ghinn had a good battle for the lead in Race 1, eventually going the way of Greg, crossing the line a couple of seconds ahead of Gaius. Keith White had a storming drive from 8th on the grid to finish 3rd just ahead of Richard Trott and Anthony Hancock with Pat Gormley down in 6th place. Paul Smith unfortunately spun at Becketts on the first lap, causing some mayhem, but luckily no damage to anyone and worked his way back up to 10th place at the end, just behind David Thorburn in a similar Ralt RT3. Andy Langridge got the better of Paul Tompkin in the Class B race and Chris Levy came home the winner of the URS 2000 category. Andy Smith unfortunately had to pull out after 13 laps with mechanical problems when he was going pretty well in the March 783 and so the Championship went down to the wire, with both Pat Gormley and Keith White having an opportunity to seal it in the last race of the season.

Greg Caton decided not to run the Ralt in Race 2, which left Gaius Ghinn a free hand to win comfortably by 8 seconds. Behind him though, a fair battle ensued. Pat Gormley worked his way up from 6th on the grid to finish 2nd just ahead of Paul Smith in the last of the podium places. Anthony Hancock was 4th just ahead of Andy Smith who put in a remarkable drive from the back of the field to finish 5th, just ahead of Keith White who didn’t have the best race slipping from 3rd on the grid to 6th.

Amazingly, Keith and Pat then finished on 80 points each, tied for Championship honours. There was a short Steward’s enquiry over some yellow flag issues, but eventually Keith White was declared Champion on countback. A very close Championship result after a highly competitive season, in which both Pat and Keith had taken part in all the rounds of the Championship. Unfortunately, Paul Dibden and Adrian Langridge battling for position had a coming together at the exit of Luffield and spun off damaging both cars. Both were running well up the order at the time. Andy Langridge won Class B finishing a second ahead of Paul Tonkin and Andrew Lancaster won the URS 2000 race in his Pilbeam SP1.

2019 Prospect

Unfortunately, three of our meetings in 2018 were one day meetings. In other words we had qualifying and 2 races on just one day of a two day schedule. The other two, the Brands Hatch GP Legends and Silverstone International meetings were 2-day affairs. We have tried to put this right in 2019 but unfortunately three of our meetings, the first at Donington, second at Snetterton and the third on the Brands Indy Circuit are just 1-day meetings for the HSCC, so we will get one race at Donington, but double headers at Snetterton and Brands, but all on the one day. There will be Friday testing at both Snetterton and Brands which will be Saturday meetings, effectively making them two day meetings if one takes advantage of the testing.

Our other three meetings at the Silverstone Classic, Oulton Park Gold Cup and Silverstone Finals will be double headers spread over the 2/3 days of the meeting. We therefore have an 11 race Championship.

We have dropped the Silverstone International meeting in 2019 because with the Classic that would have meant we had 3 meetings at Silverstone and replaced it with Snetterton on the 300 circuit.

The French have their bi-annual Historic Grand Prix at Magny Cours on the same day as the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit in July which would deplete our entries, and as track time is in great demand at this meeting, we have stood down from this meeting for 2019 and replaced it with the Oulton Park Gold Cup. The timetable for this meeting has not yet been finalised, but it is quite likely that we will have qualifying and race 1 on Sunday and race 2 on Monday, but this is not finalized yet.

The Silverstone Classic is obviously a big deal for CF3 and our French friends have committed to providing a significant proportion of the grid. As the Nurburgring Oldtimer F3 race will not be taking place we can expect Marcel Biel and some of his German cars to also fill the 45 car grid. For those who may not be aware this is a very big event, so early booking of accommodation is recommended.

The Zandvoort Formula 3 race run by the FIA will go ahead again for the third year in succession. So along with the French F3 Classic Series dates there are plenty of opportunities for Classic Formula 3 car owners to race their cars both in the UK and overseas in 2019.

We are already aware of several new cars appearing on our grids for 2019. Former CF3 Champion, Steve Maxted, has acquired a Ralt RT3 with an Alfa Romeo engine from Italy and will be a welcome returnee. Fraser Gray, a friend of David Thorburn’s, has acquired an RT3 to be run alongside David’s car, by Graham Brunton from Knockhill and Richard Cooke who has been racing a Van Diemen URS 2000 in our races has acquired an ex-Michael Korton March 793 that has not seen the tracks for at least 30 years. He hopes to be on the grid at Donington if he can get the car re-built and ready by then. Russell Busst who goes very well in a Chevron Sports car in the CER championship has acquired the ex Remers/Piper B43 and should be out in most of the UK races.

We will try and improve the scrutineering experience in 2019 as it would be nice if we could have the scrutineers visit the cars and drivers in the paddock, but it is essential that we all park together to make that work. We are working on that arrangement as we speak. We will also try and get a dedicated MSA Scrutineer for CF3 to be able to apply our rules fairly amongst all competitors.

Hopefully the weather will be kind to us for our first meeting at Donington on the 30th March 2019, but in the meantime I wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year!

Hugh Price
Chairman