F3 History

It was Kuwashima in his GRD who made the best start and and the end of lap 1 he led from Mike Walker with a hard charging Roger Williamson already up to third, Andy Sutcliffe was fourth with Peter Hull and Bob Evans in fifth and sixth. For the next three laps the field circulated nose to tail with no change of positions, then on lap 4 Walker passed Kuwashima into the Esses and at the hairpin Williamson and Sutcliffe followed suit. For the remainder of the race it was a three-cornered battle between these three top drivers, Walker led most of the race although Williamson got ahead at Gerards on lap 9 but the Ensign was back in front at the Esses. Williamson made his move on lap 19 when he took the lead again at Gerards and he immediately eked out a small lead he held to the finish. Walker fought hard to keep Sutcliffe behind him aided by the GRD driver being hampered by a misfire. Kuwashima had fallen back into a long battle with Hull and the GRD and the Brabham swopped places continually until near the end of the race when Kuwashima had to drop back when his engine started to loose oil from a loose filter.
Most of the rest of the field ran the race without difficulty the only notable retirement being that of Barrie Maskell with sundry problems, both Tony Brise and Alan Jones were disappointed with their lowly finishes for no obvious reason.