REVIVAL OF DAILY MAIL RACE OF CHAMPIONS BY HISTORIC FORMULA ONE CHAMPIONSHIP
Round six of the FIA Historic Formula One Championship, which will take place at Brands Hatch on July 1st, is to witness the revival of the Daily Mail Race of Champions event title.
The original Daily Mail Race of Champions events were run between 1963 and 1983 and were traditionally the first glimpse that European F1 fans got of the new seasons’ machines. In a world before mass television markets, the World Championship would begin in Brazil and contest events on the other side of the world prior to arriving in the UK at Brands Hatch. That meant that the fans would only have had the slightest information about the new cars; the Race of Champions event showcased the actual world championship cars and drivers in a non-points scoring event – inconceivable in today’s modern era.
The Daily Mail Race of Champions saw James Hunt’s debut in an F1 car, witnessed Peter Gethin’s remarkable win in his Chevron F5000 car over the F1 machines and finished in 1983 with the then newly-crowned World Champion, Keke Rosberg, winning in a Williams.
The Daily Mail was a long time partner to this event – which habitually attracted crowds of around 50,000 spectators – and this 2007 revival at the Autoglym HSCC Historic Festival will see many of the actual cars that raced in period going wheel-to-wheel around the iconic circuit once again.
The event is being promoted by TRMG, publishers of F1 event programmes and numerous other titles and is backed by Autoglym, manufacturer of professional and motorist's vehicle care products.
Stuart McCrudden, director of Race of Champions Ltd: “It used to be that we were prevented from taking historic grand prix cars to Brands because of their circuit licence restrictions, so we decided to revive the Daily Mail Race of Champions brand. That way, we could try to encourage the circuit owners to get the licence upgraded with the promise of the creation of a successful historic festival based on the 1963-1983 period. We created Race of Champions Ltd and approached the original event partner with a proposition to get involved. Shortly afterwards, MSV took over the circuits and Jonathan Palmer, a fan of historic formula one, focussed on the track with a view to having us race there again. Now, with the re-association with the Daily Mail, we hope that going forward we can look to return with a historic motorsport event centred around the Race of Champions for many years to come to give fans a chance to see these legendary cars race at this superb circuit.”
