The 1st F3 race I did was at Thruxton and with two fresh engines from Holbay I was ready to try my luck in F3. Practice did not last long as the freshly rebuilt Holbay motor blew before I had done a time. We begged some workshop space at Henleys in Andover and cleaned out the chassis then fitted the spare engine.
The race was very wet, I started from the back of the grid, by lap three I was in the lead having caught and over taken Alan Rollinson. It did not last long as my over confidence had me spinning off on the far side of the track, I recovered to my best place, 3rd overall and got awarded the Motoring News “Man of the meeting”.
It was a vintage F3 season, racing with Ronnie Peterson, Reine Wisell, Howden Ganley, Alan Rollinson, Tim Schenken but my lack of experience in the formula plus the fact that the Chevron was not the best F3 car as it only ever went well in the wet.
Martini F3 race at Silverstone was another rain soaked race, saw me starting at the rear of the grid 35th to finish 7th on the day in front of a host of seasoned F3 men.
I was laying second in Dijon when the near side front wheel fell off! Very disappointing.
At the British GP F3 event I got onto the end of the leading bunch of 6 cars when in the middle of Club corner an arm went up ; I lifted to avoid a collision and spun, kept the motor running but was stopped in the centre of the track facing the wrong way with 25 cars racing towards me!
Most managed to miss me but I got hit by two MacNamara cars, one driven by Helmut Marko, the other by Werner Riedel. MacNamara was not best pleased and neither was I!
The Chevron B9 was rebuilt with a new chassis and sold to the USA.
That was the end of my sortie into F3. I did drive an old Lotus F2 FVA for D&A developments at Thruxton in 1970 where Ron Dennis’ new Brabham B36 won. It was driven by none other than Grahame Hill. I think this was Ron’s first win with his new team Rondel.
F3 was a Chevron B9, the ex Red Rose Motors car I drove in 1969. Barrie recalls: Tim Hammond advised against this purchase, he said if you want to do F3 you need a new car, a Brabham BT28, the top car that year or an Italian Tecno. He was right of course…