The driver of the red-and-white, Lark cigarettes-liveried March-BMW lay injured in his cockpit, in severe pain.
Seventy laps of the short circuit at Donington Park was hard work for anyone, let alone a 35-year-old for whom this had been the first race in Europe for five years.
That driver, 10 to 15 years the senior of most of his opposition, had just finished fourth in the latest round of the European Formula 2 Championship.
Marcus Simmons is the deputy editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton, before becoming an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. Shortly afterwards, he started reporting for Motoring News and joined the staff in 1990.
After abandoning a parallel Formula First career – which had been as incident-packed as his childhood equestrian exploits – he moved to Autosport in 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelance and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before rejoining Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife, stepsons, dog, cat and guitars, and has two daughters.
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