1956 Maserati 250F

The SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2005 featured the Maserati marque, and in particular the Maserati 250F. One of the races was a Celebration Maserati Invitation Race, and I took this photograph at McLean's Corner during that race.

It's one of 10 Maserati 250F replicas built by Cameron Millar and this one has the chassis number CM2. Cameron Millar acquired a genuine Maserati 250F in 1964 (originally 2501, later renumbered 2523) which he kept and raced for 8 years. In this time he purchased all the remaining cars and spare parts belonging to the Scuderia Centro Sud who had competed with the 250F in the 1950s, and also the chassis jigs from the Maserati factory. He then set about creating this series of replicas, using as far as possible genuine period parts, which are so well crafted that the FIA has allowed them to race alongside the genuine Maserati 250F and its contemporaries in competitive historic racing events. At the time of this Donington Park event CM2 was owned by Ian Duncan and was driven in the Maserati Invitation race by Rick Hall.

Celebration Maserati Invitation Race

The SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2005 featured the Maserati marque, and in particular the Maserati 250F. One of the races was a Celebration Maserati Invitation Race, and I took this photograph at McLean's Corner during that race.

Leading is the Tec-Mec F415 of Barrie Baxter, a car that Valerio Colotti was working on as a development of the Maserati 250F when Maserati pulled out of racing at the end of the 1957 season. Colotti set up the Studio Tecnica Meccanica to build the car for the 1959 season, but only one car was built, and it only started in one race, the 1959 US Grand Prix, where it only lasted for six laps. There were 12 Maserati 250Fs listed in the programme of the event for this race and two of them are behind the Tec-Mec here but I can't identify which ones they are - although the one to the right of the Tec-Mec may be the Cameron Miller replica CM7 of Allan Miles. The car with the blue band round the nose behind that trio is the V12-engined Maserati 250F (2531) of Thomas Bscher and the car bringing up the rear is the Cameron Miller 250F replica (CM2) of Ian Duncan, being driven by Rick Hall.

Lotus 24

This car took part in the Pre '68 GP and Tasman Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.

It's the 1962 Lotus 24 of Hall & Fowler and was driven in the race by Rick Hall. The Lotus 24 had a then standard spaceframe chassis and was intended as a customer car, while Team Lotus used the new monocoque Lotus 25. In effect, although Lotus team leader Jim Clark drove the Lotus 25 throughout the season his team mate Trevor Taylor mostly drove the Lotus 24. Both the 24 and 25 used the Coventry Climax FWMV 1,495cc V8 engine.

On 11 September 2016 I showed a couple of photographs of the Lotus 24, including one of Trevor Taylor's car in the paddock at the 1962 British Grand Prix at Aintree.

Maserati 250F V12

The featured marque at the VSCC SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2005 was the Maserati and the photograph below shows one of the cars which took part.

The car isn't shown in the programme of the event, but it's Thomas Bscher's Maserati 250F V12.

The 250F was introduced in 1954 to compete in the new 2½ litre Formula, but by 1956 it was finding it difficult with the 6-cylinder car to compete with the Lancia-derived Ferraris and the British Vanwalls and it was decided to explore the possibility of fitting a V12 engine into the chassis of the 250F.

This car was purpose-built to use the V12 engine (in other words they didn't take an existing car and replace the 6-cylinder engine with the V12) and is serial number 2531.

The car only had one outing in a World Championship Grand Prix and that was at the 1957 Italian Grand Prix at Monza in the hands of Jean Behra where it retired due to overheating.

Before any further development was able to be carried out financial problems caused Maserati to pull out of racing at the end of the 1957 season.

Here's the car during the race at Donington Park at McLean's Corner leading the 1956 Maserati 250F driven by Rick Hall. Maserati retained the V12 engine when they sold the car and it was by this time fitted with a 3-litre V12 engine from a Maserati Tipo 63 sports car.