Silverstone

A measured victory in the BRM

FMG gave Silverstone a race of two distinct characters. At its head there was certainty: the BRM P83 was in front at the completion of every lap, and its driver carried that command to the end of the 42-lap distance. It was a controlled start-to-finish victory, founded not on a late reprieve or a disputed reversal, but on the steady maintenance of first place from the opening circulation onwards.

There was speed to match the result. FMG set the fastest lap at 1:25.111, and the first win of this Championship campaign was thus an emphatic one in its own restrained fashion. Simone Porcu brought the Eagle T1G home second, while Florian Masse completed the podium in the Honda RA300. The three leading cars all covered the full distance, but the race behind the BRM was shaped by contests which had rather more movement in them.

For FMG, whose previous best work in the season had not yet yielded victory, it was a result with a particular weight. Silverstone was not merely another collection of points: it established a new winner in the campaign and gave the BRM driver a result from which the remaining races must now be approached differently.

Masse holds off Elia Porcu

The more sustained contest near the front concerned Masse and Elia Porcu, the latter also in an Eagle T1G. Their struggle began to take shape before half-distance and became a long argument over the final podium place. At the end of lap 12, Elia Porcu had moved ahead of the Frenchman; by lap 18 Masse had reclaimed the advantage.

That exchange did not settle the matter. For 31 consecutive laps, the Honda and Eagle were separated by no more than two seconds at the lap's end, the pair repeatedly keeping one another in view as the race developed. It was a contest requiring patience rather than extravagant gesture, and it remained the principal uncertainty among the first four places.

Masse ultimately took third and Elia Porcu fourth, both completing all 42 laps. For the Championship leader, it was a useful containment of a rival who had briefly held the upper hand in their direct contest. Simone Porcu's second place, meanwhile, preserved his position immediately behind Masse in the table.

A compact fight in the middle order

There was another race within the race behind the leading group. From lap 14 to lap 35, pitman, Alex Senna and DriK formed a compact three-car company, never spread by more than five seconds across that long passage of the afternoon. Their machinery was varied - pitman and DriK in Lotus 49s, Senna in the Ferrari 312 - but their pace kept the issue unresolved for much of the middle distance.

Pitman and DriK were especially closely matched. Their private duel had already changed hands early on, when pitman moved ahead by the end of lap 7. Later, in the closing phase of their battle, DriK won the place back at the end of lap 35. Senna had remained part of the same group from the fourteenth lap, and had moved ahead of pitman during that period, ensuring that there was no simple procession to the chequered flag among the three.

DriK reached the flag seventh, pitman eighth and Senna ninth, each having completed the full distance. It was not a battle which altered the podium, but it supplied much of the race's changing texture once FMG's hold on the lead had become apparent.

Pichon and Stevenson trade places

The contest for fifth also had its moments. Romain Pichon, in the Lotus 49, and Nat Stevenson in an Eagle T1G exchanged their order more than once. Pichon was ahead at the end of lap 9 after Stevenson had held the place on the preceding lap; Stevenson then moved back in front by lap 15. Their final reversal came on lap 30, when Pichon regained the advantage.

Pichon duly came home fifth, with Stevenson sixth, both on the full 42 laps. The earlier part of their contest had been particularly close, but the final classification gave Pichon the place after a race in which neither could afford to disregard the other. Further back, the Italian gilvil77 was classified 12th after completing 41 laps, a difficult result for a driver who had begun the day third in the Championship standings.

The points picture changes

Masse remains the Championship leader after Silverstone with 114 points, with Simone Porcu second on 104. Their ten-point separation is unchanged, but FMG's victory has made a material difference behind them. The BRM driver rises from fourth to third in the standings and now has 102 points.

Before the race FMG stood 15 points behind Masse; after it, the gap is 12. Under the Championship's dropped-score arrangement, the Silverstone victory is presently the result set aside for FMG, which gives the arithmetic an unusual cast, but the official table records the BRM driver as closer to the leader than before. With two rounds still to come, the win has brought a further serious contender into the foreground.