Silverstone, England, July 19th
During the days before official practising, the Silverstone circuit was a hive of activity, so that at one stage it almost looked as if the Grand Prix had begun. The result of all this was that nearly everyone was ready to go when official practice began on Thursday, with the exception of Team Lotus who arrived at lunch-time. After the very fast practice laps at the International Trophy meeting last March it was no surprise to see the old official lap record of 1min 25.1sec held by Amon since April 1968 being surpassed by everyone who is worth his salt in Grand Prix racing.
As has become the pattern this year Stewart set the pace right from the start with MS80-02, the Matra-Cosworth V8 he normally races, and there was no one out on the first practice session who could even cause him to worry, let alone try extra hard. This was because Team Lotus were not ready and Rindt had no car to drive, for the Austrian is the only driver fast enough these days to cause Stewart any worry. Having set a good standard time of 1min 21.5sec, more than one whole second faster than the next man, Stewart put in some practice with the 4wd Matra MS84 and got down to an interesting 1min 24.1sec. Beltoise was backing the Scot up well with 1min 23.0sec in MS80-01, and the whole Tyrrell team was a model of how to go motor racing and demoralise the opposition.
