New Equipe Classic race to support British GT Championship at Brands Hatch

At the invitation of Brands Hatch owner, MotorSport Vision, Equipe Classic Racing – which organises the popular Equipe GTS and Pre ‘63 series for historic sports cars – is to run a 30 minute support race on the venue’s Grand Prix Circuit at the high-profile British GT Championship meeting on August 4.

Holding modern and historic races on the same day is set to be a rare treat for spectators, and an opportunity for drivers of the older cars to test their mettle on one of Europe’s best loved race tracks.

The newly-announced race swells the already busy Equipe GTS calendar to 10 weekend’s worth of competition. The series has already boasted full grids and extra races at most meetings throughout the season so far, and saw in excess of 100 cars entered for a meeting on the Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit earlier this month. The newly-established sister series for pre ‘63 cars is also proving popular with strong grids and an ever-widening spread of drivers and marques.

Now relatively rarely used, Brands Hatch’s 2.43 mile long Grand Prix circuit is beloved by drivers of all eras of race car, and was the scene of many titanic battles when hosting the British Grand Prix biannually between 1964 and 1986 – the most successful driver was Niki Lauda with three wins (Ferrari/McLaren), while the last F1 race held at the Kent circuit fell to Nigel Mansell at the wheel of his Williams FW11 in 1986.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to field a strong historic grid with close, competitive racing at one of the country’s top modern racing meetings,” said Equipe Classic Racing partner John Pearson. “Many regard the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit as the Holy Grail of race tracks, and we are very much looking forward to some tremendous racing.”