THERE will be a significant Australian flavour to this July’s Goodwood Festival of Speed as part of a special McLaren Racing Celebration marking 60 years of McLaren racing.
The 1970 Australian Grand Prix-winning McLaren M10B driven to victory at Warwick Farm by the great Frank Matich from pole position will be driven at the famous event by his son Kris.
The Rothmans Team Matich McLaren M10B also scored five podiums in the 1971 Tasman Series and won at Riverside in the United States in the 1971 L&M Series.
The car is owned by Graham Wadsworth, who spent more than 20 years in Melbourne as part of Ford Australia’s design team and now lives in the UK working with McLaren Cars on its road car design team.
“When we received the invitation from Goodwood to have the car be part of the 60 Year McLaren celebration, I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a Matich driving the car to celebrate that fantastic association that led to the development of the M10B’, so I reached out to Kris Matich who immediately agreed,” says Wadsworth.
“This will be a wonderful celebration of the Matich/McLaren association which I am proud to own a small but important piece of.”
Kris Matich, a former racer himself in Formula Fords in the 1980s, sees the opportunity as bucket list stuff.
“Just attending Goodwood is a bucket list item for me but to be actually driving one of my father’s cars, and such a successful McLaren race car, is just on another level,” he said.
“I am very grateful to Graham for the invitation and look forward to helping recognise my dad and his team’s achievements during this amazing era of Australian motorsport.”
The M10B is looked after by Frank Matich’s chief engineer from his Formula 5000 days, Derek Kneller.
The Brit was recruited from McLaren by Matich in 1969 and stayed in Australia working on the Matich race team until Frank retired from racing in 1974.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed will be held on July 13-16.
