If Josef Newgarden rocked up at Silverstone and used his Team Penske-run Dallara-Chevrolet to break Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Formula 1 lap record, it would be a sensation. Given that Colton Herta’s best time in IndyCar’s 2019 visit to Circuit of The Americas was more than 12 seconds slower than Charles Leclerc’s fastest lap from that year’s United States Grand Prix, that would never happen. But there was a time when an American invasion broke records at the home of the British GP.
Thanks to a chance meeting between Brands Hatch impresario John Webb and United States Automobile Club president Dick King, a plan was formed to bring Indycars, then under the auspices of USAC, to the UK. Webb, who died earlier this year aged 92, was a visionary always looking to find new ways of promoting motorsport – and was prepared to try novel ideas. Formula Ford and F5000 were just two of his most-famous initiatives, which stuck a lot longer than the USAC experiment.
Webb, whose Motor Circuit Developments concern ran Brands, Snetterton, Oulton Park and Mallory Park, hired Silverstone so that two events – both counting for the USAC championship – could be held in late 1978,
