02/08/2018
NEWS STORY
At both last Thursday's and Friday's FIA press conferences, Hungarian journalist Peter Vamosi asked the assembled drivers and team principals if there were to be a 2018 version of the Jack Brabham Trophy race, who did they think would win.
Looking at the blank faces, Vamosi explained that said event was held at Brands Hatch in 1971 and featured the various team principals of the time in identical Ford Escorts.
Asked which of the current team bosses he thought would win were a similar event to be held today, Carlos Sainz replied: "I think Christian Horner has been a racing driver."
"Toto as well," added Esteban Ocon.
"I think some of them can drive, at least Toto very much thinks so," grinned Valtteri Bottas. "No, he is alright, so I think he would be up there, thereabouts."
"If it was between team bosses' wives I would win," laughed Toto Wolff, when the question was repeated on Friday. "The other thing is I am more ambitious than talented. But I think against Christian maybe it's still enough."
Asked if he would be up for such a race, the Austrian grinned and replied: "I would be up for it, yeah, immediately. Let's do that."
Needless to say, Sky Sports was all over it, and after speaking to Christian Horner, who was equally "up for it", promised that it would arrange a race between the two.
No doubt Sky Sports will prove true to its word and one afternoon very soon we shall be treated to Toto and Christian racing one another, the film then being repeated on the F1 channel along with all the others on a seemingly endless loop, much like those signals NASA sends into space to advise that there is life on earth.
The Jack Brabham Trophy race was from a different era, an era when there was scant TV coverage, when drivers contested other series alongside their F1 commitments, when there were privateers entering just one car and when there were non-championship F1 races.
At that time, Brand Hatch was run by the highly entrepreneurial John Webb, and never one to miss an opportunity, organised a celebratory race to mark Jackie Stewart's second world championship title and Tyrrell's.
While the main event, the Rothmans World Championship Victory Race, would see F1 stars take on their F5000 counterparts, the day kicked off with the Jack Brabham Trophy Race, which saw the team principals of the time at the wheel of Ford Escort Mexicos.
Along with Brabham, who had retired from racing a year earlier, lining up on the grid was John Surtees, Frank Williams, Max Mosley, Ken Tyrrell, Colin Chapman, Eric Broadley, Tim Parnell and a whole host of others, with their regular race drivers - who included the likes of Stewart, Ronnie Peterson, Mike Hailwood, Brian Redman, Jackie Oliver and Emerson Fittipaldi - in charge of the pit-boards.
To say the drivers took it seriously would be an understatement indeed, legend has it that Chapman hunted down the local owner of a Mexico in order to get some vital pre-race practice in, the Lotus founder thrashing the unfortunate man's car around Hethel for lap after lap.
Rather than tell you the result, better that you watch the race, which includes some pithy commentary from Graham Hill, and which sees action from start to finish.
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Sadly, a day of fun and celebration was marred by the horrendous crash during the main event which resulted in the death of Switzerland's Jo Siffert.
A day that began with laughter ended with tears, the Swiss legend perishing in the worst imaginable circumstances at the same circuit where three years earlier he had scored his maiden Grand Prix win.
As a result of the events of that late October afternoon, the Jack Brabham Trophy race had been pretty much overlooked, until Peter Vamosi posed his question last week.
However, as much as a 2018 version for team bosses would be welcome - after all, who wouldn't enjoy watching Christian Horner, Helmet Marko and Cyril Abiteboul trading paint - how about a similar event for the drivers.
In 1979 and 1980, the BMW M1 Procar Championship was run in support of a number of rounds of the Formula One World Championship and featured F1 drivers as well as racers from Sports Cars and the European Touring Car Championship.
While the cars for the series were "identical", they were built by a number of different companies including Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing.
The 1979 season, which saw wins from Elio de Angelis, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet, Jacques Lafitte and Hans-Joachim Stuck, saw Lauda walk away with the title, while in 1980, Piquet won the trophy courtesy of wins in the final three races.
With BMW entering F1 in 1981 in partnership with Brabham, owned by a certain Bernard Charles Ecclestone, the German manufacturer opted to focus its attention entirely on F1 and as a result, much to the dismay of fans and drivers alike, the series was no more.
A one-off event was held in 2008 as part of the support programme for the German Grand Prix, and using the original cars, Lauda once again took the win.
At a time fans and drivers are sick of the 'big three', the 'best of the rest', at a time drivers talk of two categories and it being pointless fighting with rival drivers from the 'big three' who are out of position, a race, or better still, a series, that sees the F1 stars in similar equipment would not only be F1 gold, it would be sport and TV gold.
Speaking last week, Chase Carey revealed that there are plans to resurrect Grand Prix Masters, the ill-fated series that saw former F1 'stars' at the wheel of 3.5 litre single-seaters.
The 'series' such as it was, was mired in controversy from the start, not only in terms of the fitness of some of the drivers, but also claims that one driver (no names) insisted on having a more powerful engine than his rivals.
Were Liberty Media to organise a one-make race, or better still series, for contemporary F1 stars, the cars would need to be independently prepared, perhaps with drivers extracting the 'keys' to their car from a hat on the morning of the race.
The idea of the current twenty drivers able to do battle in similar equipment, would surely appeal to drivers and fans alike, and though it might not take Nico Hulkenberg any closer to that maiden podium, or Sergey Sirotkin to that maiden point, it would at least allow each to give a good account of himself without the restrictions of their current chassis or engine supplier.
Watch the replay of that 1971 race and then think about a 2018 version, albeit with Hamilton, Sainz, Vettel, Leclerc, Verstappen and Grosjean in the thick of it.
At a time race organisers are having to put on pop concerts to get bums on seats, perhaps a one-make series for the real stars of the show might be the answer.