Formula Three Review

With five rounds of the popular Motor Sport/Shell Formula Three Championship now run, Tony Trimmer is still in front on points-score. His lead has narrowed considerably, though, and Gold Leaf-Team Lotus drivers Bev Bond and Dave Walker are poised only two points behind Trimmer in joint second place.

The last two rounds have both seen new winners, the first being Bond at Oulton Park on May 25th. This event was a revived British Empire Trophy race, which proved well worthy of the name after a lapse of several years. Trimmer won the first of the two qualifying heats, which was notable for a most alarming accident in which Walker came into contact with Bert Hawthorne’s Chevron, which promptly cartwheeled spectacularly into a thinly-populated grandstand. No injuries resulted, although both cars were wrecked. The other heat was won by local man Cyd Williams in his privately-owned Brabham.

Williams’ engine let him down on the warming-up lap of the final, which developed into a battle for the lead between Trimmer and James Hunt in his Molyslip-sponsored Lotus. But Bond was sitting right behind them and he managed to slip through with a couple of laps to go, staying there for a well-judged win.

The Championship returned to Silverstone on June 6th when the F3 race provided by far the best entertainment of the day. Walker was back with a new car, fitted like many of the other Lotus 59s with a new-type “shark” nose, and he featured in the noisy, weaving slip-strearning group which battled out the lead for all 25 laps. The bunch had no fewer than 12 cars in it, any one of which could have won the race but the man who timed his moves properly was Mike Beuttler, no stranger to F3 close racing. His Brabham led four Lotuses across the line after the thrilling F3 race which by now is traditional at Silverstone.