Photography by Nat Twiss
One of my favorite series to watch whenever I’m at an event like the Silverstone Classic, Donington Historic Festival, or the Brands Hatch Historic is the Masters Formula One series. An FIA-sanctioned collection of racers from the mid ’60s through to the mid-’80s, it won’t win points for being period correct, but it certainly steals the show with the visuals of a huge grid of cars going wheel to wheel.
Liveries stay period-correct (with the exception of more than a few entry stickers to events at places like Monaco and Goodwood), and most of the races are run at circuits that haven’t changed much since the cars visited for their first times. Not so at Silverstone, obviously, but the racing is intense nonetheless.
When cars have names like Fittipaldi, Lauda, and Hunt on the side, you know you’re in for a treat. Those names aren’t necessarily at the wheel, but if you squint hard enough, you might just be able to teleport back in time to the days when they were, and that’s really all that matters.
The F1 cars of today are so reliant on computers that they might not be able to do what these cars are doing, and that’s a crying shame. Thankfully, there’s a legion of vintage F1 specialists, mechanics, and owners dotted around the UK and Europe who don’t just care about owning and maintaining them—they care about racing them. Who says analog is dead?
