How a timely change of chassis transformed Formula 3 forever

By:

Marcus Simmons

Mar 25, 2023, 10:08 AM

Emperor Claudius in AD43 had nothing on what would happen 1950 years later in British F3. Three decades on from Dallara driving out the indigenous Ralts and Reynards, it’s time to look back with the guys who fought out the 1993 title

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The title was beginning to slip away, but help was at hand in the form of a shiny new Dallara. Par for the course for Formula 3? Not in 1993, when a belated switch rescued Kelvin Burt’s season.

“Yeah, I would say 100%,” he reflects when asked whether the arrival of the Italian machine 30 years ago was his salvation. “From that point forward we would have struggled to get any more wins.”

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Marcus Simmons

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Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.