The sands of lap time

Niki Lauda won the last Dutch Grand Prix, back in 1985. Local man Mark Koense has researched the host circuit’s history and these are a few pictorial highlights from his forthcoming book, Grand Prix Zandvoort

The project began five years ago, when Mark Koense and his team rifled through the cellars of the Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid – the Dutch Institute of Image & Sound – wherein a significant motor racing film archive was discovered.

The first Zandvoort footage dated back to 1939, when a street race took place through the picturesque coastal town (nine years before the first permanent circuit was built, just across the road from a popular beach).

That and other film extracts, including a colour reel from 1953, will form part of an 80-minute English-language DVD that accompanies the 400-page book: the narrator is Zandvoort resident and former F1 racer Jan Lammers. Many of the book’s images are being published for the first time – and they extend beyond photographs. Koense was given access to Ferrari’s archive and the book includes a post-race report, written for Enzo Ferrari by Mauro Forghieri, and a Zandvoort set-up sheet for the 246 Dino.

The circuit’s setting and sweeps made it a popular venue with the F1 community, but it would eventually be outgrown by the sport.