1953 RAC Tourist Trophy


The 1953 RAC Tourist Trophy was a motor race for sports cars, held on 5 September 1953 at the Dundrod Circuit in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was the sixth round of the 1953 World Sportscar Championship, held just six days after the previous round, the 1000km of Nürburgring. The race was the 20th running of the RAC Tourist Trophy.
The race was won by Peter Collins and Pat Griffith, driving an Aston Martin DB3S.

Report

Entry

A total 45 cars were registered for this event, of which only 28 arrived for practice and qualifying. None of the leading works teams made the trip across to Northern Ireland from mainland Europe. However, from England, the two works teams of Jaguar Cars Ltd. and Aston Martin took part. The team from Coventry arrived with three cars, Jaguar C-Types for the all British pairings of Tony Rolt/Duncan Hamilton, Stirling Moss/Peter Walker and Peter Whitehead/Ian Stewart. Aston Martin also brought along three of their DB3S, with Reg Parnell pairing up alongside Eric Thompson. Roy Salvadori/Dennis Poore and Peter Collins/Pat Griffith made up the crew of the other two Astons. Also from England came three works entered Frazer Nash Le Mans Mk IIs and Kieft-Bristols.
Going into this round, Ferrari were leading the Manufacturers Championship by just two points from Jaguar. With no representation in the race, Ferrari would be unable score any points, but due to the nature of the scoring system where only the best four results out of the seven races could be retained by each manufacturer, Jaguar would need to finish at least second to score any points, with only one race remaining in the championship- the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico some 2 1/2 months away.

Race

Although World Championship points were awarded based on scratch order, this race was run as a handicap race. The race was run over 111 laps, but no cars started from scratch: the largest cars, the Jaguars, had a handicap of 4 laps and 5 minutes, 11.21 seconds. The race would end once any car completed 111 handicap laps.
Conditions of the race were foggy. Despite this, Aston Martin would finish in first and second places, both cars on the same lap. Car number 20, driven by Collins and Griffith took an impressive victory, winning in a time of 9hrs 37:12 mins., averaging a speed of 81.715mph. Second place went to Parnell and Thompson, in their DB3S, just 3:23 minutes behind. The podium was completed by the winner of the two previous Tourist Trophy races held at Dundrod, Moss, aided by his co-driver, Walker, in their Jaguar C-Type.

Scratch Classification

Class Winners are in Bold text.
ClassWinners
Class C – Sports 50007Jaguar C-TypeMoss / Walker
Class D - Sports 300020Aston Martin DB3SCollins / Griffith
Class E – Sports 200025Frazer Nash Le Mans Mk IIWharton / Robb
Class F – Sports 150036Gordini T15SCahill / Gallagher
Class H – Sports 75049D.B. HBR PanhardTrouis / Hitchings

Standings after the race

Championship points were awarded for the first six places in each race in the order of 8-6-4-3-2-1. Manufacturers were only awarded points for their highest finishing car with no points awarded for positions filled by additional cars. Only the best 4 results out of the 7 races could be retained by each manufacturer. Points earned but not counted towards the championship totals are listed within brackets in the above table.