When a controversial title showdown took place behind closed doors

As the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic began to shatter the best-laid plans of the motorsport world, it first appeared that some events might take place behind closed doors - first the Bahrain Grand Prix was taking such a measure, then the St Petersburg IndyCar Series opener and two NASCAR events prior to their cancellations.

Eventually, it will all begin to subside and, who knows, perhaps the path back towards a full motorsport programme will involve some races taking place with no spectators as an interim measure.

It wouldn't be the first time this has happened - one example happened in the UK right at the end of the 1993 season, but for entirely different reasons.

Vauxhall Sport, apart from having a two-car team in the British Touring Car Championship, operated two single-spec junior single-seater categories in those days: Formula Vauxhall, introduced in 1988 for 2.0-litre slicks-and-wings machines, and the acknowledged feeder into Formula 3 at the time; and Formula Vauxhall Junior, born in 1991 for 1.6-litre wingless cars, and intended as the first step into cars for karting graduates.

Emboldened by the success of the first season of the BTCC-supporting TOCA package - on which its two championships appeared - in 1993, Vauxhall Sport organised a Winter Series that would take place at Donington Park.

Each of the two Vauxhall categories were scheduled to kick off with a double-header supporting the BTCC's non-championship end-of-season TOCA Shoot-Out, then have a single-race decider at a subsequent one-day meeting.

The TOCA Shoot-Out is famous, of course, for Nigel Mansell crashing his Ford Mondeo at the Old Hairpin and getting carted off to hospital, but what the tin-top fans probably didn't realise was the quality of the youngsters in the Formula Vauxhall support races.

Richard Westbrook, a star of GT racing in the 21st century with Porsche and latterly Ford, won the opening race, and was leading the second when clutch problems struck.

That enabled future Formula 1 driver Ralph Firman (still with the 'Jr' suffix in those days as his dad, Van Diemen founder Ralph Sr, was still more famous than he) to get a run into the chicane, only for the two to collide.

Owen McAuley, who went on to make a BTCC cameo a couple of years later, scampered through to win that race from future Formula 3000 star Jason Watt, who had been brought into the fold at David Sears Motorsport, which had run his karting buddy Jan Magnussen in that year's Formula Opel Euroseries (the same category as FVauxhall, just with a different name). Westbrook and Firman trailed home fifth and sixth.

Other strong contenders in the field were Le Mans 24 Hours winner-to-be Guy Smith, future IndyCar ace Darren Manning, and a group of Americans, among them Geoff Boss, who would become an Indy Lights frontrunner and IndyCar part-timer.

"I had no idea why we racing midweek - I was young and stupid and didn't ask any questions"Richard Westbrook

McAuley and fellow frontrunner Dan Liddle were both ineligible for the Winter Series crown - which was intended as an incentive for FVauxhall newcomers stepping up to the category - as they had competed in the main championship throughout 1993, so that meant that Westbrook led Watt in the standings with the single-race decider to come. Then came the bombshell...

Someone, somewhere realised that the relatively late organising of the TOCA Shoot-Out had bumped Donington up to its maximum permitted days of racing usage for the calendar year, and there was no way that the final meeting could take place.

But a solution was found, whereby the FVauxhall and FVauxhall Junior qualifying sessions and race could take place during the downtime of a midweek Jim Russell Racing Drivers' School day.

The teams were notified, but such was the cloak-and-dagger nature of the whole exercise that even Autosport - which was title sponsor of the Winter Series - was unable to find out the day it would take place, until it was pointed out that the deciding round would receive no coverage in the magazine or its then-rival Motoring News if the journalists didn't know when to attend.

Danish driver Watt (below), who had pretty much no experience of car racing, unsurprisingly hadn't yet shown the speed that would carry him to the Formula Opel Euroseries crown in the category in 1995 (after winning the British Formula Ford crown in 1994), so Westbrook was the resounding favourite - but even he was a wet-behind-the-ears relative unknown when the Winter Series had begun.

"I had no idea why we racing midweek - I was young and stupid and didn't ask any questions," says Westbrook, who will race for Aston Martin in the Le Mans 24 Hours and Audi in the Nurburgring 24 Hours this year - coronavirus permitting, of course.

"We were really limited on budget, so I'd done a bit of Formula First just to get the licence signatures, and then I had a couple of Formula Renault outings in an old ex-Jason Plato Van Diemen.

"Paul Ozanne, who I knew from karting, had driven the car and said, 'Good luck with that chassis', and sure enough, without the right car and the right budget it was extremely difficult.

"I did a Formula Vauxhall test with Paul Stewart Racing and thought it went really well, but they chose Kirsten Kolby to join Owen in the Winter Series, but then I just managed to get a deal with Martin Donnelly Racing.

"This was the last roll of the dice for me, and I was told in no uncertain terms by my family that I had to do well."

Westbrook, ironically, found himself in another ex-Plato car - the future BTCC superstar had been racing for Donnelly, whose team was in only its second year of operation, during the main 1993 season.

"I really clicked with Martin," he recalls, "and I feel he really clicked with me and brought a lot out of me. It was great to be in Formula Vauxhall - everyone had the same chassis, same engine, and it was a good amount of power and really good racing.

"And also, I was back racing against the people I'd been competing against in karting - Ralph, Darren, Guy and the rest."

Firman, however, wouldn't be at the decider - it clashed with a trip to Japan to work on his racing programme for 1994, which was ultimately in FVauxhall with Paul Stewart Racing. But there was a new name added to the field - in his rookie season of car racing, James Matthews had been the form man of the second half of the Formula Renault UK season with the Manor Motorsport team of future F1 team boss John Booth.

Matthews's turn of pace had come too late to overhaul the points advantage of early-season dominator Ivan Arias, but he was regarded as one of the UK's hottest properties. He found the more-agricultural, albeit more-powerful, chassis of FVauxhall a little difficult to get used to, and finished a distant seventh in that one-off at Donington before returning to Manor to clean up in the 1994 FRenault season.

Now, Matthews is far better known as the husband of Pippa Middleton, sister-in-law of future king the Duke of Cambridge.

Watt had yet to show the speed that would carry him to the Formula Opel Euroseries in 1995, so Westbrook was the favourite - but even he was a wet-behind-the-ears relative unknown

Up front, Westbrook grabbed pole from McAuley and Boss in the second qualifying session in dry conditions - the opening session had been wet, and had turned up another surprise: Westbrook's team-mate in the Donnelly squad, who had contested only a few car races in his homeland and a handful of Vauxhall Junior outings during the season, had gone quickest.

"My team-mate was Narain Karthikeyan (image below)," remembers Westbrook, "and he struggled to begin with, but you could see there was some talent there.

"Then we had that wet session and he went P1, and the organisers thought it must be a mistake so they deleted his time!

"Everyone found out a few years later that he could definitely drive..."

Westbrook was leading from McAuley when the race was red-flagged because one of the Americans had shunted, so it would become a two-part race decided on aggregate.

Westbrook jumped the restart, and although he won on the road a 10-second time penalty demoted him to an aggregate third behind McAuley and Smith, with bearded (at a time when beards definitely weren't fashionable) American Barber Saab graduate Luis Zervigon fourth and Watt fifth.

That was still enough to give Westbrook the Winter Series title from Watt, but the drama wasn't over yet...

In those days, Watt's David Sears Motorsport team and Westbrook's Martin Donnelly Racing squad operated out of neighbouring workshops on the little industrial estate on the infield at Snetterton.

It's fair to say that both Sears and Donnelly are chaps who have always worn their hearts on their sleeves, and it's easy to imagine that relations would have been a little strained during those mid-November 1993 days. A protest was put in on Westbrook's car, which at the time Autosport reported as centring upon the catalytic convertor.

Westbrook remembers differently: "Martin was too tight to pay for the mandatory gearbox oil and had a load of free stuff that wasn't mandated for the series.

"David Sears told me years later that one of his mechanics walked past our pit garage, saw one of our mechanics pouring it in, and that's why he put the protest in."

Westbrook was excluded from the race, and his loss of points meant that Watt was declared champion.

But Westbrook had made his name - what little money the family had to spare had been well spent, and "my whole journey started from that Winter Series".

He went to the Formula Opel Euroseries for 1994 with the team of future Ferrari F1 engineer David Lloyd, and continued for 1995, but eventually the money ran out - Westbrook was stranded on his own in Europe and had to jump trains across the continent to get home. Salvation came from Dutch team AR Motorsport, and Westbrook finished 1995 - and his FVauxhall/Opel career - alongside his 1993 Winter Series nemesis.

"Ironically me and Jason ended up being team-mates," laughs Westbrook. "Those were crazy times."

Crazy times that had started with an Autosport headline that read 'Behind closed doors'...