Mixture as Before

Mixture as Before

THE FIA have whittled the International calendar down to a very bare minimum of categories, leaving all saloon car racing to take place under National categories, with some events having what is called I + status, which means semi-international with certain specified foreign entries allowed. Formula One still remains as the F1A/FISA/FOCA top category, with sixteen events spread worldwide. As we closed this page for printing, nobody seemed to know where the Brazilian GP is to be held, but Page and Moy in their comprehensive Racing Tours brochure have gambled on it being at Rio de Janeiro. However, recent feeling on the part of some people close to teams have said “We don’t know where it will be held, but it will not be at Rio de Janeiro”! If, at the last moment, it is cancelled, then the HA theory is that the first reserve is moved in, except that the FIA reserve event is listed as Austria, and most people say they can’t see that happening. Hopefully, by January 26th when this issue of MOTOR SPORT appears, a decision will have been made.

Formula Three has been put into a ludicrous situation, for each country runs its own F3 Championship as a National series and then all the National Chainpions are supposed to take part in a single event to decide who is European F3 Champion. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but did not work out properly, for not all the countries sent their best drivers, with the result that the European F3 Champion is not the best F3 driver, but just someone who happened to be there and didn’t have trouble. For what it is worth the 1990 European F3 Champion will be decided on September 25th at Le Mans; not on the famous Circuit de la Sarthe, but on the “Mickey Mouse” Bugafti circuit that runs through the 24 Hour event car parks. The FIA Historic Championship is another category that exists Internation

ally on paper and does actually happen, but in the old car world the VSCC Silverstone and Oulton Park races carry far more prestige. There are plenty of events for the FIA Championship throughout Europe, and at some good circuits, any of which would provide a good motoring holiday, but the FIA Championship somehow does not generate the interest of the Formula One Driver’s Championship.

The last FIA Championship is that for European Mountain Hill-climbs, with a very full and varied list of events of a really challenging nature, any one of which would equal a whole season of British Hill Climbing, yet they are almost unknown to the outside world which is probably a good thing for the contestants can get on with their sport without too much “help” from officialdom. It is a fairly open secret that behind the scenes FIA/FISA are working to get rid of so-called Sports Car Racing, and then Formula One racing, as we know it today, to amalgamate the two into a single category for “racing cars”, without all the detailed definitions we suffer from at present. If the plans bear fruit we may start the next century with a World Championship for racing cars, with 25 rounds in all civilised countries and with participation by the car manufacturers throughout the world. We shall see Team Trabant with a team of “racing cars”. They will not be Saloon Category B, or Sports Group C, or even Formula One Trabants, they will be “racing cars” built and entered by the Trabant factory, probably vying strongly with Team Wartburg, Team Holden and Team Yugo, along with other famous names like Ford, General Motors, Chrysler Corporation, Volvo, Saab, DAF, Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa Romeo and even Fiat. Hopefully Lotus and Aston Martin will be in there somewhere and McLaren, if their road car project bears fruit. Sounds an intriguing idea. DSJ