I made it back from Scandinavia for the Masters Festival 2016 at Donington Park, which was held this weekend. The Masters Festival forms part of the Masters Historic Racing series for the year, with across Europe and North America. The Masters Festival at Donington is one of three UK rounds, the others being the Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch – a similar name, I know – and the always excellent Silverstone Classic at the end of July. The series also forms support races for the Formula One races at both the Circuit of the Americas for the US Grand Prix, and then the following weekend for the Mexican Grand Prix.
The highlight of the weekend for many is seeing – and hearing – a series of historic Formula One cars compete, although there are plenty of other interesting series over the weekend. The FIA Masters Historic Sports Cars got plenty of attention, and there was also a Masters Three Hour race, the Scottish Classic Sports and Saloon Championship, the Scottish BMW Championship, the Pirelli Ferrari Formula Classic Series, the SRCC 2000 championship, and Masters Allcomers inc Canam Interserie challenge that included a rather impressive cars. There was also the Masters Pre-1966 Touring Cars, which had plenty of interest as among the drivers was former AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson in a rather nice Mini Cooper.
I couldn’t resist the urge to go to have a chat with Brian whilst he was there – last time I had seen him at Donington was when he headlined the Download festival as part of AC/DC a few years ago – and ended up taking a selfie.
I should say too that he was perfectly charming, and felt like he had all the time in the world for the handful of fans who stopped by to say hello. Someone asked him for the hat he had be wearing, and without hesitation, he gave it to him.
One of the challenges that Formula One currently has is that the sound of the cars is not what some of the fans want, and many are nostalgic for the noise of the older cars. For those who wanted that more historic roar, this was a day to be happy. Here are the cars heading off on their green flag lap.
Sunday had the added benefit of being a sunny day, and there was quite a crowd to watch the action, with people even arriving by helicopter. It was great to see the circuit looking busy, and a great event to watch out for future rounds. Here are a few of my photos from the Masters Festival 2016:
