After a somewhat foggy start, the sun shone on both days of the Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch, which took place in the UK from May 26 to 27, 2018. New this year was the Masters Endurance Legends race, which brought first-class prototypes to the race track. Another focal point of the program was two races of the FIA Masters Historic Formula One Championship. The FIA Masters Historic Sports Car Championship, the Historic Formula 2, the Masters Pre 66 Touring Cars race and the Youngtimer Touring Car Challenge were also among the highlights.
FIA Masters Historic Formula One
Nick Padmore (Williams FW07C) defended a narrow lead over Martin Stretton (Tyrrell 012) to win the first FIA Masters Historic Formula One race at Brands Hatch. The race was shortened due to a frightening crash involving Lotus teammates Katsu Kubota and Steve Brooks, but fortunately both were uninjured.
In the second race, Stretton beat Padmore by 0.241 seconds. The Tyrrell 012 driver worked his way forward from seventh on the grid and led on lap 2, while Padmore needed up to four laps to move into second place.
FIA Masters Historic Sports Cars
Leo Voyazides and Simon Hadfield came from the back of the grid to win a race that was heavily interrupted by safety cars and ultimately shortened. Their Lola T70 MK3B eventually overtook Jason Wright's T70 Mk3B and Henry Fletcher's Chevron B19 to finish 11 seconds ahead of Wright.
Historic Sports Car Club (HSCC) Historic Formula 2
The Historic Formula 2 series comprises ten races at five events, including the Grand Prix circuits at Silverstone, Zandvoort and Brands Hatch. The season began in April in Hockenheim with the first two races. Races 3 and 4 of the HSCC Historic Formula 2 Championship also took place at Brands Hatch on Sunday. The podium places among the 27 participating cars went to Mark Charteris with March 742, Dean Forward with March 782 and third place went to Mark Dwyer in March 742.
Masters Endurance Legends
Rui Aguas - solo driver in Kriton Lendoundis' Le Mans prototype Peugeot 908X - overcame his additional pit stop time penalty for professional drivers to win the first Masters Endurance Legends race of the weekend. After several laps of strong defense, Martin Rich and Alex Kapadia in the Oreca-Nissan 03 lost the lead and ultimately finished in second place. The final podium place went to Steve Tandy in the beautiful 2004 Lola B12/60.
Rui Aguas also won the second race in a Peugeot 908. 2nd and 3rd places were taken in exactly the opposite order to Race 1.
Masters Pre 66 Touring Cars
Mark Sumpter won the Masters Pre 66 Touring Cars race in his Ford Lotus Cortina, while the duo Gardiner / Wolfe in the Ford Falcon Sprint took second place with a gap of 33 seconds. Third place went to Calum Lockie and Julian Thomas in the yellow Ford Falcon. In the first part of the race, Wolfe battled with Lockie until the Falcon was called for a drive-through penalty. Lockie briefly dropped back to fifth place, but soon made up the deficit.
Youngtimer Touring Car Challenge (YTCC)
Beautiful cars from a great racing era, a fair race and lots of fun - all this can be found in the Youngtimer Touring Car Challenge. Daniel Brown won the race on Sunday with his Ford Escort MK2 RS. In second place was Sean Brown in a Ford Escort MK1 RS, closely followed by Peter Stox in a Porsche 964.
The event once again proved to be a crowd puller, as the meeting is one of the highlights of the season at Brands Hatch year after year. It was a fantastic weekend of racing with lots of great sounding and looking cars being driven as they were intended.
Stuart Adams photographed for us at the 2018 Masters Historic Festival Brands Hatch. You can follow his work on Instagram and Facebook .
