Report and Gallery: Historic Grand Prix Zandvoort 2024

Submitted by Marcel Hundscheid on July 10, 2024

By Marcel Hundscheid / Speed-O-Graphica

Circuit Zandvoort hosted the Historic Grand Prix for the 12th time over the 21st to the 23rd of June. Scroll along and enjoy our coverage of the weekend’s historic motor racing.

The largest historic motorsport event in the Netherlands, the meeting featured Masters Historic Racing from the UK, which brought no fewer than five series including the Masters Racing Legends, Masters Sports Car Legends, Masters Endurance Legends, Masters Gentlemen Drivers and Masters GT Trophy. In addition to a number of demonstrations, the program also included the NK GTTC for historic GTs and touring cars, the Historic Grand Prix Car Association, Formula Junior and Historic Formula 2.

With the return of the Formula 1 world championship to the Zandvoort circuit, the presence of historic F1 cars acted as a magnet for the public. This was also the case during this edition of the Historic Grand Prix Zandvoort, where no fewer than twenty seven iconic single-seaters from the seventies and eighties descended on the North Sea coast.

As is often seen during historic races, not all oldies make it to the end of the weekend. This was the case in Masters Racing Legends, where twenty-seven single-seaters from a bygone era competed with each other.

During the first race, three-time Le Mans winner Marco Werner took victory from pole position. The second race on Sunday started with a reverse grid, and Lukas Halusa took the lead and secured the win despite a technical problem at the end of the race.

Recent Le Mans prototypes and GTs appeared at the start in Masters Endurance Legends. During both races the battle for the top step on the podium was between the Zytek 04S of Jamie Constable and the Lola-Judd B12/80 of Marco Werner and Nick Padmore. Although Werner held sway during the first half of Saturday’s race, teammate Padmore had to admit his superiority to Constable in the second part.

On Sunday the tables were turned, until Werner hit the Zytek at the chicane. Although both cars were slightly damaged, they were able to continue and Werner reached the flag first. However, a five-second time penalty ended the former Le Mans winner’s victory, meaning Constable was declared the winner.

Felix Haas and Michael Lyons dominated both races of the Masters Sports Car Legends. During the first race on Saturday, the combination from Switzerland and England took home an unchallenged start-finish victory in the bright yellow Lola T294 of Felix Haas.

On Sunday, a safety car phase seemed to throw a spanner in the works, although Lyons fought back as soon as the lights were green. Jason Wright was comfortably in the lead at that moment thanks to a favourable pit stop. However, when Lyons found the connection and took first place, Wright could only follow at a distance.

As we have come to expect in recent years, the Masters Gentlemen Drivers and the Masters Pre-66 Touring Cars are combined into a joint grid. In the Gentlemen Drivers the battle was between the combination of Julian Thomas and Calum Lockie and Nicky Pastorelli and Olivier Hart.

Thomas benefited from a mandatory longer stop for Pastorelli and took the lead. The Dutch-Italian managed to connect again and again through neutralisations. However, Thomas kept a cool head and crossed the finish line first. Sam Tordoff drove in his own league with the touring cars and even crossed the finish line first with a lap lead.

In addition to the various series of Masters Historic Racing, the packed program also included competitions from the GTTC national championship, single-seaters from the Historic Grand Prix Car Association and Formula Junior, historic Formula 2 cars and a number of regularity races for pre-war cars from Dutch Vintage Sports Car Club.

One of the very remarkable cars during this edition of the HGP was this Group 5 Simca Talbot Rallye Turbo. The car is owned by a Dutch driver who initially wanted to recreate this remarkable dwarf originally driven by DTM champion Per Stureson from Sweden.

Stureson built such a car for the DRM (Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft). The Dutch driver wanted some information on how to recreate the monstrous Simca, contacted Stureson and was surprisingly offered to buy the original.

This March 741 was built for the 1974 Formula 1 World Championship, and was presented in the same livery as used in the Swedish Grand Prix in 1974, when Reine Wisell came in for regular driver Hans Stuck. Wisell drove chassis 741/1 at Anderstorp but retired.

The March 741 was built by Robin Herd, based on the March 732 Formula 2 car but with side mounted radiators. Besides regular driver Stuck and the one-off appearance by Wisell, Vittoria Brambilla and Lella Lombardi race it.

After its Grand Prix career 741/1 was used in hill-climbing events, equipped with a enlarged 3.3 litre Ford-Cosworth. From 1985 the car retired from racing and is now used in historic events.