Wingless Formula One to star at Gold Cup

Early 3-litre Grand Prix cars will be the star attractions of the new-look Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting at the end of August.

In period, the Gold Cup non-championship Formula One race was run for these cars, with Jack Brabham winning in 1966 and 1967 in a Brabham BT19 and BT24, respectively.

Now, the F1 cars will return to the Cheshire track as part of the two-day festival run by the Historic Sports Car Club. Other headline races will include

HGPCA events and the BRDC Historic Sports Car Championship, as well as a full programme of HSCC races.

Oulton Park’s ‘wingless F1’ race will be one of several pilot events run by the FORCE organisation in a bid to encourage such cars back into racing. They will cater for 1966-68 F1 cars, as well as the 2-litre Tasman cars from the same era and early 1600cc Formula Two cars.

“These cars have never really had a place to race before, but they are out there,” said FORCE’S David McLaughlin. “They’ll be superb at Oulton.”

If successful, the as-yet unnamed races will bridge the gap for the period before the FORCE Classic Grand Prix races. “We’ll gauge the level of interest this year and hope to run more races in 2003,” McLaughlin concluded.

Apart from a couple of races in Europe this summer, rumours are circulating of a possible Tasman series for the cars at the end of 2002.