Aurora AFX British F1 Championship Round

Mallory Park, 5 May 1980

All cars are 3-litre F1 unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Chevron B45 [45-78-04] (Jim Crawford): New to Fred Opert Racing for North American Formula Atlantic as a second car. Used as a spare by Keke Rosberg and as his race car at Lime Rock. Also raced by Eje Elgh and by Arturo Merzario at Trois-Rivières. Raced by Rosberg at Macau in November 1978. Advertised by Opert from ATS Engineering, where he had moved to become team manager, in March 1979 as a lightweight B45 with 1979 rear suspension and F2 fuel tanks. Then sold to Mike Peers and entered in the revived British series for Jim Crawford in 1979, winning five races and finishing second in the championship. Fitted with a BDX engine for 1980 and run by Plygrange Racing for Crawford in the F2 class of the Aurora series. Stayed with Plygrange for 1981 when raced by Vin Malkie (Northwich, Cheshire) in libre racing. Reappeared in 1983 when raced by Duncan Gray in the British Formula Atlantic series. It was entered by Peers himself in libre in 1984. Then to Steve Raine for Sprints, co-driven by Robin Boucher, and then hired to Bob Fearnley's RK Racing for Tiff Needell to drive in a pair of races in India in early 1985. Then reportedly to Stuart Ridge for 1986. To John Lloyd then to Simon Hadfield (Shepshed, Leicestershire) but damaged in an accident at Mallory Park. Restored with original Excita condoms bodywork and sold in 1998 to Jeff Wright, a Scotsman then living in Canada. Still with Wright (Wilmington, NC) in 2014 and raced regularly in vintage racing. By 2019, the car had moved to Scotland and was owned by George Coghill (Halkirk, Highland) and was prepared by Steve Worrad (Whitchurch, Shropshire) for sprints.
2. Chevron B40 [40-77-08] (Ron Harper): New to Fred Opert Racing and used for guest drivers in Formula 2 in 1977, using Hart 420R engines. Its primary driver was to be Jacques Laffite, who drove it at Hockenheim, Pau and Nogaro. Alan Jones drove it the 'Ring, and then American Gregg Young hired the car for Mugello and a few other races. When Young was committed to a Formula Atlantic race, Maurizio Flammini took it over for the Rouen race with Gulf sponsorship. It was also driven by Alex Ribeiro at Misano, Eje Elgh at Estoril with Marlboro backing and Tiff Needell at Donington Park with Unipart support. Retained for 1978, and raced by Alan Prost at Pau in May. Sold to Paul Gibson later in 1978, and used in libre at Croft. Retained by Gibson for 1979, then to Ron Harper (Middlesbrough) for libre and Aurora in 1980, and for libre in 1981. Sold to Peter Himsworth (Ware, Hertfordshire) late 1981 but reportedly little used. Sold to Richard Ames (Cirencester, Gloucestershire) for sprints in 1984 and 1985, and again for 1986, when he used a 2.5-litre Hart engine. To David Keer (Woking, Surrey) for 1987 and used in speed events, mainly in South West England. Then to Chris Hill (Hertfordshire) for sprints in 1988, 1989 and 1990. Sold to Ray Rowan (Walsall, West Midlands) who used it at two events in 1992, in the new 2-litre class, and raced once by his nephew Martin O'Connell at Thruxton's 25th anniversary meeting in 1993. To John Crowson (Horsforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire) in 1998 and used in Historic F2 in 2003. Repainted to Opert's blue livery in 2007 and raced by Richard Evans at Oulton Park in August 2007, then by Crowson from 2008 to 2011. To Sandy Watson and raced by Martin O’Connell using a BDG engine from 2012 onwards.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

These results were compiled primarily from the race reports in Autosport during the season, with some additional information from the results section of Autocourse, and some details compiled by Jeremy Jackson from a variety of sources, including Autosport, Motoring News and the Formula One Register books. All the chassis identities were taken from research elsewhere on this site.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.

Individual sources for this event

Autosport 8 May 1980 pp40-41. Marcus Pye's report gave full practice times, chassis numbers (even for Robinson's spare Chevron B48), all finishers and all retirements.