In the No. 12 1978 Lotus, Japan’s Katsuaki Kubota managed to hold on to the lead of the first race of the Masters Historic category at COTA. It was an exciting 10 lap race where the fans could get a taste of the sounds and looks of the beautiful classic Formula 1 cars from the 1971 Tyrrell 002 No. 3 to the 1983 Tyrrell 011 No. 6 and the RAM March No. 71. With the fastest lap time of 2:04.690 set by Charles Nearburg in the No. 27 Williams FW07 B, it’s clear the evolution of the F1 in a 30 year period (Hamilton set pole with a 1:34.999) but still they are pretty competitive times if you consider the fact that the Porsche Supercup cars set a fastest time of time of 2:11.472 and the MotoGP motorcycles run around the track in 2:02.135 (lap record by Marquez from 2015 in Qualifying).
It was precisely Nearburg who attacked towards the end and managed to pass the No. 2 Lotus driven by Gregory Thornton but did not have time to attack the Japanese driver in the Lotus 78 who took the win by 0.807 seconds.
Full results race 1: (Gallery click here)
