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The rollercoaster ride of West Surrey Racing's 40 years

It’s four decades since one of UK motorsport’s most successful teams made its debut at Silverstone in British Formula 3. Now it’s top dog in the BTCC, time to blow out some candles with boss Dick Bennetts

Forty years ago a little five-man team named West Surrey Engineering, thrown together over the previous month, made its debut in the opening round of the British Formula 3 Championship at Silverstone. And Jonathan Palmer, one of those five men, took victory on 1 March 1981 in his Toyota-powered Ralt RT3. This was the same chassis that, at the end of 1980, had won the last four races of the series in the hands of Stefan Johansson, carrying the Swede to the title with Ron Dennis’s Project 4 Racing.

PLUS: The ground-effect wonder behind a generation of F1 stars 

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