Race Report: Brands Hatch, 20 June 1971

A reasonable field made it to this Lombank Championship round and at the end of practice a rather surprised Roger Williamson (March-Holbay 713M) found himself on pole position. Surprised because Roger spun the March off at Clearways fortunately with only minor damage to the radius rods so the car was soon made as good as new for the race. Alan Jones (Brabham-Holbay BT28) and Barrie Maskell (Chevron-Holbay) were the other front row occupants.

Williamson led from the start and built up a small lead over Jones, Vandervell and Maskell but as the Chevron dropped back a little the two Brabham drivers were able to close up again to the leading March. On lap 10 Jones took the lead but on the next lap Williamson retook the Brabham to get in front again with Vandervell looking for an opportunity to get past both cars in third. Jones took the lead again on lap 14 and held it until the last lap, lap 20, when Williamson managed to nip through and take the victory by 0.2 seconds. Vandervell took third a further 0.4 seconds down with Maskell fourth although McCully’s Lotus nearly snatched the place on the line. David Purley managed to go off removing his nosecone, continuing down the field and Bob Evans had the Puma in the top six early on until a knock up the rear set his fire-extinguisher off.

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