Hint of Rindt as O'Connell humbles F1 field

Oulton Park’s Gold Cup meeting celebrated 50 years of racing at the picturesque track in Cheshire, with HGPCA and FORCE events topping the HSCC programme.

With Stirling Moss, Roy Salvadori, Jack Brabham, Derek Bell and Jackie Stewart all present — along with a Bentley EXP Speed 8 and Tyrrell 001 — fans had more than just a race meeting to savour.

Rather too many non-starters took the edge off the racing, however, and the feature race for FORCE Classic Grand Prix cars became a two-lap dash after a lengthy safety car period.

Ex-Formula Three hotshoe Martin O’Connell was simply awesome in an F2 Lotus 69 and grabbed the lead from the Williams FW06 of Andrew Wareing just before the safety car period, and stayed there till the flag.

Tyrrell 001 should have been in the race after John Delane qualified on the front row, but its brakes seized on the grid — then the spark box failed. Luckily, Sir Jackie had already wowed the crowd with some demo laps.

The Lister-Jaguar of Nick Linney came out on top in a thrilling BRDC Historic Sportscar battle with the Cooper Monaco of John Harper and Martin Stretton in Alan Minshaw’s Maserati Birdcage T61. Stretton drove superbly to squeeze past Harper, but when he found a backmarker in his way, contact put the Maserati out. Linney was then able to fend off Harper to win.

Frank Sytner won the HGPCA’s Pre-1966 GP race, despite starting his Brabham BT4 from the pitlane.

The drum-braked sportscar race fell to the lovely Maserati 300S of Mark Gillies while other wins of note went to Edwin Jowsey (FJunior and Classic Racing Cars) and Sean Walker’s Elan in a lively Classic Sports Car race.