2025 ADAC Hockenheim Historic report
The purity of history
Author
- Mattijs Diepraam
Date
- May 13, 2025
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Who?Matt Wrigley, Werner d'Ansembourg What?Tyrrell-Cosworth 011, Brabham-Cosworth BR49C Where?Hockenheim When?2025 Bosch Hockenheim Historic (May 9, 2025) |
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Why?
If your automotive industry is on the back foot, you will be more eager than ever to celebrate its glorious past. We saw it in France, where tens and tens of thousands turned up for the their historic Grand Prix at Paul Ricard – and the same happened in Germany, which is equally lacking a modern Grand Prix. Again, people swamped the paddock and the grandstands during a sunny and bright spring weekend. This time, it wasn't about Renault, Citroën and Peugeot. Here, BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Opel and their motorsport prowess of the past took centre stage. So was the ADAC Hockenheim Historic, otherwise known as ‘Das Jim Clark Revival', an Ersatz experience to compensate for an actual German Prix? Or did the legions of spectators turn up to revel in the purity of history?
Whatever the answers, reigning historic Formula One champion Matt Wrigley came away from Hockenheim with a win and a second place from the two Masters Racing Legends races for 3-litre-era F1 cars. On Sunday, however, the Briton had to concede to Warren Briggs, who surprisingly took his first-ever F1 victory.
Martin Bullock twice won his class in the Williams FW06, but just came up short of the overall pre-78 win
on both occasions. (photo 8W)
The two F1 races on the programme both turned out to be rather scrappy affairs, with five safety cars and a red flag adding up over the weekend, in which relatively large number of cars failed to make it to the finish while others crashed into each other. As champion Wrigley said afterwards – on weekends like these, it's key to stay focused and bring the car home in one piece. On Saturday, he did that from the front, resisting strong pressure from Jamie Constable in a similar Tyrrell 011. Behind the pair, Mike Cantillon was in hot pursuit but unable to threaten the Tyrrells. Following a pirouette in his Williams FW08 – brought out for once instead of his regular FW07C mount – the Irishman equally decided it would be wiser to get the car to finish unscathed.
On Sunday, Briggs was allowed to start from pole on the partially reverse grid for the top five drivers from race 1. After a few laps in the lead, he had to give way to Constable, but the New Zealander continued to poke at his rival while keeping Wrigley behind with relative ease. It had been the best race of his life, Briggs acknowledged afterwards. Then he was handed the victory spoils when Constable was penalised for jumping on the throttle too soon during one of the safety-car restarts. It was not just Briggs's first F1 victory, but a debut win for his McLaren M29 as well, which in period had failed to make an impression. Chasing home Briggs and Wrigley, Werner d'Ansembourg (Brabham BT49C) drove a storming race through the field to steal third. It was redemption for the Belgian who had suffered so much bad luck at Paul Ricard and earlier in the weekend at Hockenheim.
Ewen Sergison had the perfect weekend, winning all of his four races. (photo 8W)
Among the pre-78 cars, Ewen Sergison and his Surtees TS9B stole a march on all of their competitors. The Surtees is the only pre-72 car in the field, and yet Sergison twice managed to stay ahead of all the more recent cars. Both times these were led by Martin Bullock in the Williams FW06, while Peter Williams (Lec CRP1) moved up to third after a strong comeback race on Saturday. However, Williams was among the many drivers to drop out on Sunday, allowing Toni Seiler (Shadow DN1) through to take the final podium spot.
Sergison also hit the jackpot twice in both the Historic Grand Prix Car Association races for pre-66 GP cars. In his Lotus 16, he won Saturday's front-engined only race before racing to fifth overall (and the class win) in the combined race for all cars on Sunday, on both occasions leaving his Maserati rivals trailing, led by Guillermo Fierro's 250F. Rüdi Friedrichs was another double winner in his Cooper T53. On Saturday, the German clinched victory in the rear-engined only race while on Sunday he also triumped in the big race. Both times, the Brabhams of Tim Child and Michel Kuiper proved tob e his strongest opponents. Kuiper was forced to retire on Saturday, allowing Mark Shaw to finish third in his Lotus 21, but made a strong comeback on Sunday. He found himself in second place for the briefest of moments when he outsmarted Child in traffic, but one lap later Child's BT3/4 was back ahead of Kuiper's BT4.
GP2 and World Series by Renault cars now form the bulk of the BOSS GP grid. This is Haralds Šlegelmilchs' Dallara-Renault T12 from the Formula Renault 3.5 era. (photo 8W)
It's not really F1 anymore, with just three F1 cars remaining in the field, of which Ingo Gerstl's relatively recent Toro Rosso STR1 ran circles around its competitors. So the real excitement in both BOSS GP races had to come from the swaths of GP2 and FR3.5 cars in the field. Haralds Šlegelmilchs and Simone Colombo eventually split the remaining overall podium places, the Latvian driving his ex-World Series by Renault Dallara T12, the Italian in a Dallara GP2-11.
In both Formula Junior races for the European Lurani Trophy, Danny Baker (Lotus 27), Marco Werner (Lotus 22), Manfredo Rossi (Lotus 22), Mark Shaw (Brabham BT6) and Lee Mowle (Lotus 20/22) competed for the prizes on both days, as double Paul Ricard winner Horatio Fitz-Simon's BT6 proved to be a casualty of Friday qualifying. Werner beat Baker on Saturday while dropping Rossi and Shaw from their tow. On Sunday, Rossi came out on top in his duel with Baker, with Mowle and Shaw not too far behind. In both races, Floris-Jan Hekker's Rayberg FJ fought Daniele Salodini's Taraschi for the honour of best front-engined Formula Junior, the Italian narrowly claiming the win on both occasions.
Jamie Constable doubled up on Masters Endurance Legends wins. (photo 8W)
In the two HRA races for the ADAC Graf Berghe von Trips Pokal, the top prize on Saturday went to Luciano Arnold's older Brabham BT36 F2, which perhaps made sense in a field otherwise consisting of F3s, FF2000s and Opel Lotus cars, but Volker Böhm's much younger Dallara-Alfa Romeo F386 still managed to trounce Arnold's F2 on Saturday.
Jamie Constable ran away with victory twice in the Masters Endurance Legends. His Zytek 04S was the only unhandicapped LMP after Keith Frieser's Zytek 09S failed to survive Thursday's test day. As a result, Constable found himself up against the pro drivers in the ENSO CLM-P1 (Christophe Bouchut) and the Corvette DP (Matteo Ferrer/Alex Müller), both cars pegged back by ‘elite driver' time penalties during their mandatory pit stops. The ex-Wayne Taylor Racing Daytona Prototype was ruled out of contention for victory due to its double driver time penalties, while Bouchut was forced to retire on Saturday and shot himself in the foot on Sunday with a collection of additional time penalties for track limits and a jump start. The GT wins went to the Bentley Continental GT3 of Witt Gamski/Ross Wylie, with Andy Parry and Ben Clucas sharing the fastest Ligier LMP3.
More prototypes came out in the Prototype Cup Germany. The awards were split between Valentino Catalano and Mattis Pluschkell/Maksymilian Angelard, both in a Duqueine.
All was still well for Horatio Fitz-Simon's Brabham BT6 in Thursday testing, but that would soon change. Fortunately, a last-minute call up to partner Danish driver Jakob Viggo Holstein in the Lotus 15 in Masters Gentlemen Drivers allowed the Formula Junior star to shine after all. (photo 8W)
For Rüdi Friedrichs, the weekend was just as perfect, as he added a Masters Gentlemen Drivers win to his two HGPCA victories. In his AC Cobra, the German held off the Lotus 15 shared by Jakob Viggo Holstein and Horatio Fitz-Simon by half a second at the end. After losing two spots at the start, Holstein was back in the lead when he handed the Lotus to Fitz-Simon who despite his Junior's early demise was given an last-minute opportunity to race after all. However, the Formula Junior star was soon seen making an additional pit stop as he was sitting in a bath of coolant – liquid that was no longer doing its job of cooling the engine! Once the reservoir was topped up, an unleashed Fitz-Simon chased fellow series rookie Friedrichs home, only to come up just one corner short. Michiel Campagne in his Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport also had a sniff of victory, but the Dutchman gave up his chase towards the end, still finishing third. Fellow Dutchmen father and son Rob and Dante Rappange won the C1 class in their Porsche 904 and finished a creditable sixth overall.
The grandstands were packed for the two local highlights: the DRM Revival and the Golden Ära touring car championship. Daniel Schrey in his Porsche 935 K3 ran away with the two DRM races, but both Golden Ära races proved to be true barnstormers up front. The Audi 200 quattros of Anton Werner and Altfrid Heger initially called the shots before Kris Nissen (BMW E30 M3), Yannik Trautwein (BMW E36 320i STW) and Sebastian Asch (Ford Sierra RS500) also wanted to have a word. Werner, Nissen and Trautwein occupied the podium on Saturday, while Heger, Nissen and Asch were awarded the trophies on Sunday.