USA and Mexico F1 Support Races 2016

The last 2 races on the master historic racing calendar wasn’t part of the FIA Master Historic Formula One World Championship allowing Greg to swap his Lotus 91 for the beautiful Lotus 77. These races are always special as they are the support races for the Formula One grand prix in the USA and Mexico. First up was the USA support race in Austin. Greg set down a good qualifying lap securing 2 row on the grid in 3rd, 2.063 seconds behind the leader J.Davison in the Arrow FA1. The first race of the weekend got off to a fiery start with J.Davison opting to start the race form the pit lane allowing Nearburg to take the lead from the rolling start in the William FW07B followed by Katsu Kubota in the Lotus 78 and Greg in the Lotus 77. Kubota took the lead from Nearburg in the first corner on lap 2. Allowing Greg to have a chance at Nearburg as well which came in lap four where Greg took second place coming out of the first corner after just setting the fastest lap of the race. Greg then went on to set another fastest lap and was only 1 second behind Katsu when the pair came across the troubled Amon F101 of Jean-Pierre Valentini which meant that Greg backed off allowing Nearburg to overtake who Greg re-passed when they got into some clean air. Going into the last lap 3 laps Katsu had a 1.4 second gap over Greg until Nearburg made his move on the back straight to take 2nd place. Unfortunately Greg was did not manage to finish the second race after battling hard to keep Katsu behind him whilst in 2nd place behind Nearburg. Greg developed Engine problems allowing Katsu past and having to pit in the 4th lap.

 Next came Mexico Grand Prix and the last Masters Race event of the year. Greg ended up with 2 3rd place finishes, finishing behind Katsu who took both wins.  Greg was in a comfortable 3rd with Katsu and Aaron Scott setting the pace. James Hagen in the Tyrrell 011 started to push Grg for the podium place before Charles Nearburg was optimistic about the space in turn 3 and took himself and Hagen out of the race. This gave Greg a clean race to take the 3rd spot on the podium. The second race was a smaller grid with both James Hagen and Charles Nearburg ruled out after their collision and Davidson was out of running with a crack engine mounting. Kaysu seem to sail from the rolling start until the chequered flag taking his second win of the weekend. Greg was pushing Aaron Scott in the March 761 right until the end whilst also being chased down by Jean-Denis Deletraz (Surtees TS19) in the early laps but had to retire after hitting a kerb and buckling his front upright. In the 7th lap Greg manged to get past Scott and up into 2nd place, unfortunately this wasn’t long lived as Scoot took his 2nd place back a lap later. Greg finished the race in 3rd place only 2.7 second behind the leader Katsu and 0.6 seconds behind 2nd place Scott.

 You can find the full race reports on the Masters Website here:

 USA – http://www.mastershistoricracing.com/news/charles-nearburg-and-katsu-kubota-took-a-win-apiec/

 Mexico – http://www.mastershistoricracing.com/news/kubota%E2%80%99s-mexican-wave/