Jonathan Palmer on the legend of Brands Hatch

It's been 25 years since Brands Hatch last hosted the British Grand Prix, and the event found a permanent home at Silverstone.

It may have lost its most prestigious event, but the popular Kent venue lives on under the management of Jonathan Palmer and his Motor Sport Vision (MSV) concern. Palmer has ensured that the track has a future as well as a past, and it is currently in good health.

The circuit played a big part in his career as he worked his way up through the ranks. He made his grand prix debut there in 1983, and three years later he took part in the last Formula 1 event. Having been a spectator in his youth, he knows more than most about the magic of the place.

"I think my first real exposure to Brands was a consequence of my mother having a nursing home," he recalls. "She had a lady there whose husband and sons raced Minis and a [Vauxhall] Firenza - Jack Davies and Tony and Mick, who had a motor accessory shop called Transpeed in Brighton.

"I used to belt around the field in front of the nursing home on my old banger of a motorbike, and we got chatting about cars and racing. They said come up and see us racing. That's really what got me into it, so my father used to take me to Brands when I was 10 or 12 to watch club racing.

"We went to big meetings as well, and I remember being there when Jo Siffert was killed in 1971.

"Because of my enthusiasm my father thought if he was going to go along to races he might as well do it as a circuit doctor, so he joined the BARC, and ultimately became chief medical officer.

Palmer finished fourth in a Ford C100 at the 1000km in 1982 with Desire Wilson © LAT

"I suppose the next landmark for me was when I drove on a track for the first time. I did the initial trial at Motor Racing Stables and went round in an Escort Mexico and had the assessment from Syd Fox. I've still got the little chit - it said '91 per cent, too fast for first time, but lots of potential.' That would have been when I was about 17, in 1974.

"The following year I got myself a half-share in an Austin Healey Sprite with David Mercer and started racing as a medical student at Guys [hospital]. My first race was in the BARC Modsports at Thruxton, but I raced at Brands as well, and had some success.

"As a student I was running it on a shoestring budget, and I used to get secondhand tyres from a guy called Ron Livingstone near Gatwick. If the car understeered I used to go get bigger front tyres, and if it oversteered I used to get bigger rear tyres. That was the extent of my tuning!

"In November I failed scrutineering at Brands, and when I asked the scrutineer why, he said 'just look at it, it wouldn't even pass an MOT, it's got rust everywhere. I was completely devastated at not being able to race. But then the meeting was cancelled because of thick fog, and that was the day Graham Hill was killed trying to get back into Elstree.

"For the next two years I raced there with my Marcos in Modsports, and had a bit of success. I remember once part of my exhaust came off when I was going through Surtees and into Clearways, and it went through the windscreen of a chap called Rob Haig, who had a beautifully prepared MGA. I had a mechanic who used to help out, a mobile greengrocer, and this bloke came up and threw this bit of exhaust pipe at him and said 'Call yourself a mechanic, this has just gone through my windscreen!'

"Then I went into Formula Ford, so I did the Festival at Brands. The last year I did it BBC Sportsnight covered it and followed two drivers. I had a sponsor - West Surrey Engineering, which led to West Surrey Racing - and I was being followed as the 'professional'."

In 1981 Palmer won the British F3 title, but he has no memories of the championship's only visit to Brands - on the Indy circuit - when he finished second to Thierry Tassin.

The European F2 series didn't go to Brands, but in 1982 he had his biggest race to date there when he took part in the 1000km on the full circuit, sharing a works Ford C100 with Desire Wilson. After an eventful wet event, in which team-mates Marc Surer and Manfred Winkelhock collided, Palmer and Wilson gave Ford some cheer by finishing fourth.

For 1983 he had a Williams drive at Brands © LAT

In September 1983 he was back at Brands for his F1 debut at the European GP. After a spell as Williams test driver he was given a chance in a third FW08C, alongside world champion Keke Rosberg and Jacques Laffite.

"Brands Hatch for a grand prix was absolutely heaving in those days, it was just tremendous show business. There were air displays and a huge crowd, and to be making my debut in a Williams as an F2 and F3 champion, there was certainly a lot of pressure. I was completely star struck by the whole experience.

"It was tough in those days because the Williams had a normally aspirated engine, and it was very much the turbo era. The Goodyear tyres of the time would last forever because they were built around the turbo cars, so they were very hard for a normally aspirated car. We had pitstops then for fuel, but you didn't change the tyres - they were so hard it was better to keep the original tyres on for the whole GP distance!

"Rosberg's gung-ho driving style helped him qualify 16th, and I qualified 25th, and just squeezed on the grid. Laffite didn't make the cut, so I'd come in as the test driver and displaced my team-mate.

"In the race itself, I should have driven harder. Everyone around me was saying just take it easy, be sensible, finish the race. And I did what I shouldn't have done, and that was apply the advice. I should have said 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' and gone out and given it everything. I ended up 13th. I didn't dazzle in the race, but I did finish, so that was something."

He didn't manage that the following year with the unwieldy RAM-Hart when he crashed and brought out a red flag.

"The steering broke in Clearways and the thing just piled into the tyre wall and stopped the race. I think Niki Lauda was leading, and he wasn't very impressed, as they started all over again! It wasn't a great day for John MacDonald because Philippe Alliot was off on the first lap, so both RAMs were out."

Just a week later Palmer enjoyed perhaps the highlight of his Brands Hatch career when he won the 1000km World Sportscar Championship event in Richard Lloyd's iconic Canon Porsche, sharing with Jan Lammers.

"That was great because we knew that downforce was going to be critical, and it was all about cornering grip. With a 956 you could always crank up that huge rear wing and get lots of rear downforce, but the limiting factor was understeer.

"We put a front wing on top of the nose, and of course Porsche didn't like it at all, as this Heath Robinson thing spoiled their car. Largely because of this bit of pioneering the car was really quick, and we took pole position and a win, despite the fact we lost fifth gear for the last 40 minutes of the race."

Having joined Zakspeed for 1985 Palmer missed the European GP after being injured in a qualifying crash in the Porsche at the Spa 1000km. But he was back at Brands the following year for what turned out be the final hurrah for F1 at the Kent venue. The Zakspeed was better than the RAM, but any turbo car was still quite a beast around Brands.

"It had a reasonable amount of power, but the delivery was very difficult, you had a lot of lag and a lot of surge, and the aerodynamics were pretty unsophisticated. So you were always wrestling a bit of a brute of a car, whereas later F1 cars had better throttle response, and much more consistent handling. You could trim and fine tune the balance more accurately.

"But in those days you were always struggling with clumsy power delivery and just trying to hang onto the thing. It was pretty challenging, but quite exciting. When you bolted qualifying tyres on you knew you had two seconds worth of grip for the one lap, plus you'd have a qualifying engine that was worth another 2s, so you'd be going 4s quicker than you were in practice. Trying to exploit that in a short amount of track time was always a wild experience."

The 1986 race is remembered for the multi-car crash on the run to Paddock that left Laffite with broken legs. Palmer's medical training clicked into gear when he saw that the French veteran was in trouble.

"We had the startline mayhem when [Thierry] Boutsen speared off to the left and Laffite careered into the marshals' post on the right. I came to a halt fairly close to him, and jumped out to see his car well crushed at the front, and Jacques screaming out in pain. I went across and tried to help.

"In those days that was more customary, perhaps because there wasn't quite the immediacy of the medical facilities that there is now. I remember talking to him, and I could see he was very distressed. We used to sit right at the front of the cars, and their structure was pretty weak. It was clear that he'd got some significant leg injuries, so that wasn't a good day."

Palmer was able to take the restart, and he finished the race in ninth and last place. Laffite's crash was a stark reminder of how safety was always marginal at Brands, but Jonathan denies that there was a feeling that GP cars had outgrown the track.

"I think it was more a question of finances and who was prepared to pay for it. I don't remember having a sense that Brands Hatch was clearly not suited to grands prix any more because of the performance of the cars. That wasn't the prevailing feeling. It was just the commercial deal that Silverstone had offered was better. Having said that of course for F1 cars there wasn't anything like the run-off area that there was at somewhere like Silverstone."

Palmer would return to Brands for the British Rallycross GP in 1987, and later raced there in the BTCC, before he hung up his helmet. Since January 2004 he's been the boss, and the track has played an even bigger role in his life.

A huge crowd watched Mansell beat Piquet in 1986 © LAT

"It's where the main HQ for MSV is and it's our most prestigious circuit. Our biggest events are at Brands Hatch, it gets the biggest crowds. All of our circuits are wonderful in their own way, but Brands Hatch is such a legendary circuit, it has such a huge history behind it.

"People are very fond of it as well, and part of that too comes from it being very close to London. It's the cosiness too, the fact that you can see so much of it, it nestles down there in the bowl. And the GP circuit adds a degree of majesty to it as it sweeps out the back, through the undulations and the fast corners. It's a tremendously exciting circuit to drive a car or ride a bike round. It's one of those rare circuits loved by competitors and spectators, because they can see so much of what goes on."

Before Palmer arrived on the scene there was a famously misguided attempt to return F1 to Brands.

"It was unrealistic of Octagon [which was behind the attempt] to think that they could have had the GP at Brands Hatch with the amount of work that would have had to have gone into the circuit. When Nicola Foulston sold the contract with the option for F1 they certainly weren't realistic about A) the costs of the work required, B) the timescale that it was going to be achievable in and C) the amount of revenue that was going to come out of the grand prix to pay for it all. Of course it didn't happen.

"It would still be a tremendous place for a grand prix, but the scale of facility you need now for a F1 event is well beyond anything that Brands Hatch can provide. But that doesn't concern me commercially, because I don't think there are many circuits that can actually make any money out of running a grand prix anyway. While it's a great thing for a nation to have as a global PR exercise, it's not something that makes sense for a private circuit owner.

"It's been nice to have some international series like WTCC and DTM, but you're always paying a fee and you're competing against other circuits that get government subsidies, which we don't get in the UK. It's the same old story! We've made big losses out of running WTCC - we thought it would be a nice thing to do for the prestige, but we lost £200,000 a year doing it, so we dropped it. It's hard to make any money out of DTM as well. The trouble is there isn't the depth of national following.

"The best events for us are the national events - British Superbikes and BTCC are the most important. They are events that the UK circuits essentially own themselves, we're not paying a fee to a third party promoter.

"They don't require the facilities and run-off area that a grand prix would, and that means Brands is far more appropriate and exciting for those events than somewhere like Silverstone, which is geared up to have the level of facility and scope and run-off that you need for F1. You can see much more of the circuit, you're much closer to the action, and it's a better circuit for those events. We'll certainly continue to grow those."