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The end of Saturday morning was rather noisy in the streets of the Principality, with the “Jackie Stewart” D-Series and the “Niki Lauda” E-Series, contested by F1 cars from the 1966 to 1972, then 1973 to 1976 seasons. These are perfectly preserved single-seaters, equipped with 3-litre engines that are particularly pleasing to nostalgic fans, because they make a lot of noise. One of the favourites was the insatiable Michael Lyons, entered in all four series of the most recent cars. In the D-Series, the Englishman posted a very fast lap (1:34.006) in a 1971 Surtees TS9. This was enough to relegate his main rival, Japan’s Katsuaki Kubota (Lotus 72), to one and a half second, just ahead of another Briton, Matthew Wrigley (March 721), in 3rd place. In a slightly older Lotus, a 49B in superb red livery, dating back to 1968, Adrian Newey, Red Bull Racing’s star engineer, took an excellent 8th place.
At the end of this session, interrupted by a red flag with a minute to go, Lyons jumped into the seat of a McLaren M26 (ex-James Hunt) in famous red and white livery. But another car from Woking, a 1973 M23 driven by Stuart Hall in the colours of Yardley cosmetics, dominated this E-Series qualifier. In the end, it topped the Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) results sheet with a time of 1:31.629. Enough to start from pole position on Sunday, with Nicholas Padmore’s Lotus 77 alongside him. On the second row, there will be another Lotus, the 76 from the 1974 season (ex-Ronnie Peterson), driven by Marco Werner, and the M26 of Lyons, who then took the time to rest a little. He will be back in the afternoon for qualifying in Series F and G. As for local hero Frédéric Lajoux (Surtees TS19), an excellent driver turned honourable family man, he took an excellent 8th place on the grid.
