The Adelaide Motorsport Festival is back with big crowds turning out for the East End Street Party and the Victoria Park Sprint.
Highlights of the Saturday of the event included a Repco demonstration featuring the Brabham BT19, with two generations of Brabhams driving Sir Jack Brabham’s 1966 Formula 1 championship-winning Brabham BT19 for the first time at the same event.
Sir Jack Brabham’s son David Brabham and grandson Sam Brabham both drove the BT19 in a special demonstration. The BT19 won the Formula 1 drivers’ and constructors’ championships in the hands of Sir Jack Brabham in 1966, the last and likely only time a driver has won the Formula 1 world title in a car he built.
The 2023 Adelaide Motorsport Festival celebrates the history of the Brabham team; commemorating the team’s 30-year history in Formula 1 30 years since its closure and on the 40th anniversary of its last Formula 1 drivers’ championship win (Nelson Piquet in 1983). The last Brabham grand prix car to score a podium in Formula 1, the 1989 Brabham BT58 Judd, and the last-ever Brabham grand prix car, the 1992 Brabham BT60B, also hit the track, making their debuts at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival.
Other highlights included Stefan Johansson getting back behind the wheel of the 1985 Ferrari 156/85, the Australian debut of the Rodin FZED, the first appearance of a modern IndyCar on the streets of Adelaide, the unveiling of the Airspeeder Mk4 aerial racer, Hayden Paddon demonstrating his revolutionary Hyundai Kona EV rally car, driver signings and car launches in the Grand Marquee and the appearance of Aston Martin’s Valhalla.
On the Friday night of the event, a parade of cars and bikes headed from Victoria Park to East Terrace, along the original Adelaide Grand Prix layout, greeted by thousands of people along the roads. The parade parked up at East Terrace where the likes of Johansson, Paddon, David Brabham, Craig Lowndes, Tim Slade, Todd Hazelwood and more were introduced and mingled with the crowd
No Comments