The low-key sensation of the Red Bull Ring Classic: Half-liter Formula 3!

Text and photo: Roman Klemm

You can read a lot about how the later great protagonists of F1 such as Sir Stirling Moss, Ken Tyrrell or Bernie Ecclestone started in the half-liter Formula 3. Seeing cars in this class racing, where Charles Cooper first applied his idea of installing the engine behind the driver, doesn't happen often. The organizer of the Red Bull-Ring Classics event had the original idea of inviting the English group "500 Owner Association" - i.e. the technicians and drivers who still maintain such cars and move them very quickly - on a long pilgrimage to Austria at the beginning of June.
And so a pack of "small Auto-Unions" of the brands Cooper, Kieft, Staride, Comet and others rushed onto the track with roaring JAP or Norton two-strokes and with pilots sitting very far forward and low. An incredible spectacle and an essential lesson in the history of racing single-seaters…