F3 History

Robarts jumped into the lead at the start with Friedrich slotting into second followed by Rouff and Passadore, entering Woodcote Passadore demoted Rouff back to third as Sheldon moved up to tag onto the back of the leaders. Robarts and Friedrich looked as if they were going to pull away but Rouff put his head down and reeled them back in. Friedrich sat on Robarts tail and on lap 5 he slipstreamed into the lead at the end of Club Straight, Robarts tried to regain the lead at Woodcote without success. Next lap Robarts tried again and this time he made it stick as Friedrich dropped another place to Rouff who was now looking very strong and on lap 8 the American made it to the front.
For the next two laps Rouff lead his first F3 race but on lap 10 Robarts went back to the front with Rouff dropping to second, third was Passadore from Sheldon, Friedrich, Santo, “Teleco” and Spitzley making up ground after a bad start. Andy Sutcliffe had been next but he had to retire his Elden with a broken throttle cable so next up came Lawrence ahead of Bernard Vermilio (Merlyn) and late entrant Damien Magee (Brabham).
Robarts continued to lead for the rest of the race although Friedrich got a second wind and moved up again from fifth and challenged hard but finished up 0.6 seconds behind the Myson March. Rouff and Passadore had a great battle for third with the two cars being given the same finishing time as were Sheldon and Santo fighting over fifth. “Teleco” had a spin at Becketts on the penultimate lap but was far enough ahead of everyone else to retain his eighth place whilst Vermilio and Magee made contact at Woodcote on the last lap with Magee spinning his car across the finish line.