Damien Smith

RACING LINES

Formula 1 at Spa, the British Touring Car Championship and Formula E capping at Croft its first season of Gen3 cars by crowning a new British world champion in Britain. Yes, there was plenty happening in the motorsport world over the final weekend of July - yet still I found myself drawn to a gem of a circuit for one of the best low-key highlights of the UK season.

Oulton Park in Cheshire is surely among the most beautiful circuits in the world, never mind Britain, and its traditional Gold Cup meeting is cherished among historic racers.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Gold Cup ranked high among the best non-points F1 races, when the world's best drivers and teams regularly turned out for events that didn't count towards the world championship.

Stirling Moss took a record five wins in the late-season event, including his last in the Ferguson P99 in 1961 - the only F1 win for a four-wheel-drive car. Jim Clark won a brace for Lotus in 1962 and 1963, Jack Brabham four between 1957 and 1967. And the Gold Cup always held a special place in the heart of John Surtees: he won in consecutive years driving F1 cars of his own construction in 1970 and 1971, then 10 years later added another in a glorious Maserati 250F, the race by that time having morphed into one for historic cars.