Venue | Silverstone Circuit |
---|---|
Corporate sponsor | Autosport |
First race | 1976 |
First FIA WEC race | 2012 |
Duration | 6 Hours |
Previous names | 1000 Kilometres of Silverstone |
Most wins (driver) |
Jacky Ickx (4) Jochen Mass (4) Allan McNish (4) |
Most wins (team) | Silk Cut Jaguar (5) |
Most wins (manufacturer) | Porsche (7) |
The 6 Hours of Silverstone (formerly the 1000 km of Silverstone) is an endurance sports car race held at Silverstone Circuit near the Northamptonshire villages of Silverstone and Whittlebury. First run in 1976 as part of the World Sportscar Championship, the race continues today with the FIA World Endurance Championship. Since 2013, the RAC Tourist Trophy has been awarded to the winners of the event.
In 1975, a round of the World Championship of Makes was not held in Britain for one of the first times since 1966. The 1000 km Brands Hatch which had been run almost consecutively during that period went under hiatus while track upgrades were carried out. Following upgrades of its own in 1975, plans were made for sportscars to return to Britain by using Silverstone instead of Brands Hatch. The event was a six-hour endurance, part of the Group 5 World Championship.
The first running consisted of a small field as some season competitors chose not to compete. British drivers John Fitzpatrick and Tom Walkinshaw managed to upset the factory teams by scoring the inaugural victory in a BMW. The following year, competition grew as the factory Porsche team, under the guise of Martini Racing, earned their first of two consecutive victories for drivers Jochen Mass and Jacky Ickx. The Porsche factory team was not able to continue their streak into 1979 when their lead car crashed, leaving the privateer Gelo Racing Porsche to a dominant win.