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Thruxton, March 30, 1970, European Formula 2. My second race on the British mainland. I turned up with a private Brabham BT30 with a couple of ex-Roy Winkelmann engines, completed qualifying on the Goodyear tyres that were supplied, and ended up on the front row of the grid for one of the heats alongside the so-called king of F2 Jochen Rindt and Jacky Ickx. A surreal experience.
That weekend in the first months of a new decade, my car had a tube frame, treaded tyres and fairly rudimentary aerodynamics. It was not a lot different to what my forebears had been driving 10 years earlier. Look at that period and slick tyres were the first ‘big thing’ when F1 adopted them for 1971. Aerodynamics didn’t change things dramatically in the first half of the decade,