Last Updated on January 25 2017, 10:41 am
These days we see the likes of the Porsche supercup, GP2 & GP3 running alongside the F1 race of a weekend, but back in 1972 Ford had better ideas.
Ford had the tractor market cornered in the 60’s and wanted to continue that dominance into the 70’s. Brands Hatch was an ideal place to promote their new model, strangely a significant proportion of the spectators in Kent were in fact farmers.
Thus, on Sunday morning before the race, Ford organised a 10 lap race, in which 10 drivers competed, not in their single-seaters’ cockpits but in those of the firm’s new “weapon”.
The grid was covered by the following: Emerson Fittipaldi, Carlos Reutemann, Sir Jackie Stewart, Francois Cevert, Jody Scheckter, Carlos Pace, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon, Peter Revson, Dave Walker and Jean Pierre Beltoise.
Fittipaldi provided the strongest opposition to the eventual winner Carlos Reutemann. Ironically Jody Scheckter didn’t do so well, something he clearly addressed later in life as now he is an actual farmer running Laverstone Park Farm in the UK.
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Interestingly, we don’t have any open wheeler support races for the Grand Prix in Australia (we have GT/GT3 cars, V8 Supercars and Porsche Carrera Cup). GP2 & GP3 would be cool.
Do F4 run as a support? With a bit of luck the F5000 cars will be there sooner then later haha