Welcome to Who? What? Where? When? Why? on the World Wide Web. Your comments, criticism and suggestions: editors#8w.forix.com (replace # with @).

8W is forix.autosport.com's motorsport history section and covers the drivers, cars, circuits, eras and technology that shaped the face, sounds and smells of motor racing.

Who?

DRIVER BIOGRAPHIES

What?

CONSTRUCTOR PROFILES

Where?

TRACK RECORDS

When?

SEASONS' PORTRAITS

Why?

TECHNICAL FOCUS

2025 Zandvoort Historic Grand Prix report
Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side

Author

• Mattijs Diepraam

Date

• June 23, 2025

Related articles

• Zandvoort - The quintessential GP track in the dunes, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Historic crowd-puller, 2012 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Treasure in the dunes, 2013 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Seaside sensations, 2014 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Lucky stars, 2015 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Down to the wire, 2016 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Dune tragedy, 2017 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Epic sand fights, 2018 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Miracle in the dunes, 2020 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - The boys were back in town, 2022 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam
• Zandvoort - Sunscreen, umbrellas and heated racing action, 2023 Historic GP report, by Mattijs Diepraam

Who? Lukas Halusa What? Brabham-Cosworth BT49C Where? Zandvoort When? 2025 Historic Grand Prix (June 20, 2025)

Why?

In the 12th running of the Historic Grand Prix at Zandvoort, the heat was on so much that on Sunday morning it had to be cooled off by a near tropical rain shower before conditions returned to a pleasant chill that is more familiar to the Netherlands. On Saturday, though, the Caribbean evergreen of ‘Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side’ was more in tune with the laidback beach vibes created by the hot weather – although with a majority of homegrown drivers doing the winning, also in the Masters races, not too many Dutchies were passed on either side!

The star of the show, however, was a Dutch resident instead of an actual Dutchman. With a perfect weekend, Lukas Halusa crowned himself king of the Historic Grand Prix at Zandvoort, as the Austrian, who lives in the Netherlands, won both 3-litre F1 races by leaving the Masters Racing Legends regulars in his wake. Halusa may have dominated the headline act, he did not win the most races. That honour went to local heroes David & Olivier Hart, who ticked off no fewer than three victories and a class win.

Halusa, a former historic F1 champion in the pre-78 class, is only competing once in the Masters Racing Legends this year. He chose his ‘home race’ for the occasion, since the Zandvoort circuit is close to Amsterdam and remains a challenging track. Moreover, the young Austrian took the opportunity to debut his latest acquisition – the Brabham BT49C once owned by Bernie Ecclestone and winner of the Historic F1 title in 2012 in the hands of Joaquin Folch.

In qualifying, Halusa stuck the car on pole, before dominating the Saturday race from start to finish. On Sunday, he was forced to start from sixth due to the partially reversed grid for Saturday’s top six, but a string of decisive overtaking moves allowed him to cut through the field until the safety car came out. With this, the four-second gap to leader Mike Cantillon was negated in one fell swoop. At the restart with two laps to go, Halusa jumped on the Williams FW08 when the two leaders came out of Hugenholtz corner side-by-side and charged up to Scheivlak at a rapid rate. Only going into the circuit’s most daunting corner did the Irishman admit defeat. After the race, Halusa was convinced that he would have caught Cantillon even without the safety car, showing the amount of confidence that he had in Nelson Piquet’s title-winning car.

Behind Halusa, the championship regulars fought for the remaining points important to their title race. After two victories in two weekends, Warren Briggs (McLaren M29) had to settle for a fourth and a fifth, but Cantillon and reigning champion Matt Wrigley (Tyrrell 011) were not fully able to take advantage, as they had to contend with the returning Nick Padmore. The four-time champion was competing for the first time this year, in the German-owned Lotus 87B previously raced by Marco Werner, and grabbed a second and a third in each race, leaving Cantillon to finish sixth and second, while Wrigley, after his third place on Saturday, was forced to retire with a broken rear suspension on Sunday.

In fourth overall, Andy Soucek clinched victory in the pre-78 class on Saturday, driving the most appropriate car imaginable – the Hesketh 308 with which James Hunt won the Dutch Grand Prix exactly 50 years ago. Soucek was honoured to be able to pay tribute to his hero in this way. On Sunday, the Spaniard dominated the class once again before the Hesketh dropped out. As a result, Jann Mardenborough was handed the class victory. The young GT driver felt completely alive in the March 741 that once belonged to Reine Wisell, he said afterwards.

In the two HGPCA races for F1 cars up to 1966, the Dutch crowd’s attention was focused on Michel Kuiper. With his Brabham BT4, he was indeed among the favourites for a pair of podium finishes, although he almost failed to appear at all following a crash at Dijon that required some quick repair work by his team. Unfortunately, things went wrong yet again after three laps into the first race, but this time his engine’s camshaft was the culprit. To allow him a drive in front of his home crowd, Brian Jolliffe graciously handed Kuiper his Cooper T45/51 for Sunday’s race. Kuiper relished his strong advance through the field, which took him from 28th to 13th, while in the final laps, he drove side-by-side with the Lister-Jaguar ‘Monzanapolis’ of Rod Jolley, the man who had introduced Kuiper to the world of pre-66 Grand Prix racing.

Both races went to Will Nuthall’s Cooper T53, but the man who is usually the best driver in the field wasn’t handed his victories on a plate, as especially in the second race, Rüdi Friedrichs (in another Cooper T53) and Tim Child (Brabham BT3/4) were hot on his heels. Meanwhile, John Spiers was supreme in the front-engined class: no one could match his Maserati 250F. On Sunday, the race was marred by a start incident in which Graham Adelman's BRM P261 rolled over to end up upside down in the gravel trap having just exited the Tarzan corner. It looked nasty, as the BRM’s roll bar dug in, forcing the medical team to extricate the American from his car with extreme care. As a precaution, Adelman was taken to hospital, but he remained conscious throughout and it was soon reported that he was doing well.

Another Dutchman was in the spotlight in the F1 Time Attack, in which Klaas Zwart easily kept his opponents at bay in his Jaguar R5, going on to record the fastest lap of the entire weekend with a time of 1.23.876. By comparison, Halusa’s pole time in the Brabham was a 1.33.004. That said, Halusa was faster than several other Time Attack participants in their Dallaras from GP2 or the World Series by Renault.

Alexander Müller, who shared the Corvette Daytona Prototype with Matteo Ferrer and won both Masters Endurance Legends races, also failed to beat Halusa’s time in qualifying. An early retirement by David & Olivier Hart in the ferociously quick Renault RS01 GT3 eliminated their main rivals, but the safety car became their new opponent, as it virtually wiped out the lead that Ferrer had built up, which was needed to offset their longer pit stop (with both Ferrer and Müller having Silver status). After the pit stop, Müller came back onto the track well behind Cor Euser, who had now assumed the lead in his Marcos Mantara LM600evo. The German then had to pull out all the stops to pass Euser on the final lap. The next day, the safety car stayed in, but now Hart & Hart kept on racing! This made the second race just as exciting towards the end, although Ferrer – now doing the second stint – needed slightly less time to regain the lead.

In the concurrently run Masters GT Trophy, Jac & Ties Meeuwissen won twice on the road, but were only allowed to keep one victory, as Meeuwissen Sr had not turned off the engine during the pit stop on Saturday and was hit by a time penalty. This allowed Neil Glover and Luke Reade in their Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 to claim victory. The next day, the Meeuwissens made up for it, since Meeuwissen Jr managed to outfox Glover on the penultimate lap.

David & Olivier Hart proved absolutely dominant in Masters Sports Car Legends. In a modest field, their Lola T70 Mk3B was so much faster than the rest that they could consider both races as a practice run. In fact, Hart Sr admitted afterwards that this was exactly how he approached it, deliberately taking corners in different gears to learn from it – and so be even better prepared for the Le Mans Classic that would follow in two weeks’ time. That event was a major reason for the low turnout.

In the pair of Formula 2 races, James Lay (March 762) and Wolfgang Kaufmann (March 782) battled it out to split the victories. On Saturday, the Briton won, but on Sunday, the German turned the tables on Lay. Matthew Watts (March 772) was also challenging for victory on both days, but only managed to secure the remaining step on the podium of the first race. On Sunday, he was dropped to fifth due to a time penalty for overtaking under the safety car. However, this hadn’t actually cost him the podium, as Manfredo Rossi (March 762) had already secured that spot on his own. Further back, Julian Stokes made it five out of five for the season so far in the 1600cc class in his Brabham BT30, but on Sunday his winning streak was broken when he got disqualified, handing class victory to Jeremy Caine in the March 712. In the HSCC’s Derek Bell Trophy held concurrently and also allowing F5000s and Atlantics, Tom Smith (March 74B) proved unstoppable twice.

This year, not one but two Formula 3 races appeared on the programme. In the F3 Interseries for F3 cars from the late 1970s and early 1980s, Davide Leone (March-Toyota 793) added a another double to his previous double at Brands Hatch. Once again, Rossi (Ralt-Volkswagen RT3) was the fastest rival who needed to be defeated by Italian. Among the 1000cc ‘screamers’, Peter de la Roche was best twice, as on Saturday, his Alexis Mk17 beat Jason Timms' Brabham BT21B and Ludovic Ingwiller's Pygmee F3, after which De la Roche outpaced Ross Drybrough's Merlyn Mk14A and Roland Fischer's Tecno 169 on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, the Masters Gentlemen Drivers and Masters Pre-66 Touring Cars contests were also held concurrently. It remained dry for the touring cars, but towards the end, the GTs were hit by the only rain shower of the weekend. The Ferrari 250 GTO '64 shared by Alexander van der Lof and Yelmer Buurman had just claimed the lead from David & Olivier Hart’s Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupé, but Hart Jr was better able to cope with the wet conditions than Buurman, who had pushed his tyres to the limit. So young Hart pulled away from his compatriot after a duel that had lasted their entire stint. Before the driver changes, Van der Lof, Hart Sr and John Spiers in the TVR Griffith had already been battling each other, before Spiers outbraked himself into Tarzan and was launched into the barriers.

Bram Bontrup's AC Cobra and Michiel Campagne/Allard Kalff's Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport made it an all-Dutch 1-2-3-4, as they also benefited from the rain by overtaking the two quickest Lotus Elans of Peter Reynolds/Daniel Quintero and Alexander Schlüchter at the end. Rob & Jop Rappange finished 13th in their Porsche 904, winning the C1 class.

Among the touring cars, Reinier van Abbe had taken pole position, but in the race Robert Ross and Matt Johnson in another Mustang grabbed the initiative – or rather, Van Abbe allowed them take it, as he had two run-ins with the officials – once for overtaking under yellow flags and once for a mandatory pit stop that fell outside the pit window. Nevertheless, the Dutchman still managed to finish second, while his countryman Dante Rappange shone by guiding his little Mini Cooper S to third place overall.

More touring car action was to be witnessed in the two local series on the programme. As the Dutch-based SuperSixties series had voluntarily forsaken its spot to celebrate their national club’s half-century anniversary at the Historic Zandvoort Trophy, the Belcar Historic Cup was invited to make its debut at Zandvoort.

Samuel Verheggen dominated the NK HARC 82-90 twice with his Mercedes 190 2.5 16V in DTM-spec, leaving the usual dominant force in the series – Pieter Bikker’s BMW E30 325i – to trail him home on both occasions. The similar BMW of Shirley van der Lof/Yelmer Buurman finished third on Sunday and effectively on Saturday as well, as Jeroen van Breda’s Porsche 944 was competing hors concours.

In the Belcar series, Dutch brothers Wim and Tim Kuijl took on Belgium’s Erik Qvick, while Verheggen also competed for top honours. Wim Kuijl’s Ford Capri RS3100 proved no match for the others twice, but Qvick’s BMW GTR and Verheggen’s Mercedes each moved up a place on Sunday when Tim Kuijl’s E36 325i broke down after four laps.

The big demos by BMW and Porsche are a thing of the past at the Historic Grand Prix, but there was enough local interest to make it a special event, leaving the grandstands and paddocks well occupied. The undoubted highlight was the presentation of two cars belonging to Gerrit van Kouwen – the JQF Ford Sierra RS500 from his British touring car days, but above all the Lola T644E in which he achieved the most dominant victory at the Formula Ford Festival in 1984. It was a wonderful tribute to Van Kouwen, who passed away at the beginning of last year. The demonstration was attended by his widow Suzy and his younger brother Martin, while Gerrit's best racing buddy Kees van de Grint and Van Kouwen's engine wizard Graham Fuller of Minister Engines was also present. Van der Grint’s son Corné was allowed to drive the Lola around the circuit.

The full event gallery