Here is Lotus driver Jochen Rindt at the non-Championship International Gold Cup race which took place at Oulton Park on August 22, 1970. To provide more racing for the spectators, the Gold Cup was run in two 20 lap heats with the overall finishing order being determined on aggregate time. Grid positions for the first heat were decided by practice times and for the second by the finishing positions in the first heat. Rindt is driving a Lotus 72 with Ford-Cosworth DFV power. The field was made up of both F1 and F5000 cars.
There was rain in practice which tossed the qualifying times into a hat as it were as some drivers got in a quick dry time and others, like Rindt did not. That left poor Rindt down in 12th grid position with his main competition of John Surtees (Surtees TS7) who had a three second margin over Jackie Oliver (BRM 153) and six seconds over Frank Gardner (Lola T190-Chevrolet) up front. Like Rindt, Graham Hill with another Team Lotus 72 had a similarly slow practice time as did Jackie Stewart with is new Tyrell 001.
Heat 1 saw Rindt quickly up behind Surtees and Oliver which is how they finished. Hill retired with oil pressure woes and Stewart’s motor blew up after he had started from the back row but set a new outright lap record working his way up to seventh. Rindt had found his Lotus under-geared on the straight so the ratio was changed between the heats.
On the left is Rindt at Old Hall on his way to winning Heat 2 from Surtees and Oliver. Although Rindt was much quicker than in Heat 1 he could not quite get ahead of Surtees on aggregate, finishing second overall by 3.4 seconds. The first two plus Oliver, Frank Gardner and Howden Ganley having lapped the remaining F5000 cars. The F1 cars were obviously superior.
Poor Rindt would have only two weeks more before his fatal accident in practice at Monza.
Photos by Tom March ©The Klemantaski Collection – http://www.klemcoll.com
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