Spry and retiring
he early-season European Formula 2 rounds at Silverstone and Thruxton always gave British enthusiasts their tantalising first view of talents we’d often only read about in the back pages of Autosport through their exploits in foreign F3 races. When F2 was dropped for 1985 and replaced by Formula 3000, the field that assembled for the very first race at Silverstone included John Nielsen and Claudio Langes (at least we’d seen them in European F3) and reigning Italian champion Alessandro Santin. How would they get on? Nielsen did well, of course, but the emerging
