On Saturday, 15 February, nearly 200 people gathered in Paris, at the Gabriel Pavilion situated between the FIA headquarters at the Place de la Concorde and the famous Champs Elysées, in order to honour the laureates – including two women – of the 2013 Historic Championship season. The prizes were awarded by Paolo Cantarella (President of the FIA Historic Motor Sport Commission), Jean-Louis Valentin (FIA Secretary General for Sport), Rod Parkin, Stan Minarik and Alessandro Degan (respectively Presidents of the Historic Sub-Commissions for Rallies, Hill-Climbs and Appendix K).

With Championships and Trophies for everything from the old Formula 1 cars to the cars of the regularity rallies, the variety of the winners’ cars was not inconsiderable, ranging from the little NSU TT of the Czech Adamek, winner of Category 2 in hill-climbs, to Thornton’s Formula 1 Lotus 92, which, back in the day, was driven by Nigel Mansell and Elio de Angelis.

Given the disparity of the ages and levels of the cars, in hill-climbs, as in rallies, all the championship classifications were established exclusively by category, without any taking into account any general classifications.

The 2013 laureates of the hill-climbs, split into in five categories, were the Czechs Vladimir Konicar (category 1, BMW), Miroslav Adamek (category 2, NSU), Josef Michl (category 3, Porsche 911) and Petr Tykal (category 5, Formula Easter). The only non-Czech to lift a trophy was the Italian Uberto Bonucci (category 4, Osella PA9/90).

The historic rallies are run either in sporting mode or in regularity mode. As in 2012 and 2013, the men dominating the regularity rallies were the Irishman Charles Reynolds and the Briton Ian Tullie (co-driver). In the sporting rallies, where the names of certain competitions simply ooze prestige and history (San Remo and Acropolis), the Champions called up to the stage were the Italian Luigi Zampaglione (category 1, Porsche 911), the Swede Mats Myrsell (category 2, Porsche 911), the Austrian Karl Wagner (category 3, Porsche 911) and the Italian “Pedro” (category 4, Lancia Rally 037). Their teammates were rewarded separately and the trophies for categories 1 to 4 were awarded to the Italian Giuseppe Livecchi, to the Swede Esko Juntilla, to the Austrian Gerda Zauner and to the Norwegian Erik Pedersen. The Sandro Munari Rally Team lifted the Team prize. Over the course of the 2013 season, no fewer than 33 different makes of car were represented in the dozen competitions making up the Championship, and among the participating crews there were 18 nationalities.

A refreshing wind has rippled through the historic circuit competitions, thanks to a Formula 1 Championship reinvigorated through its co-organisation partnership with Masters Historic Racing and the creation of a Championship for Sports Cars from before 1974. The latter was dominated by the dynamic duo of Leo Voyazides-Simon Hadfield, at the controls of a Lola T70 Mk3B. The American John Delane, in a Tyrrell ex-François Cevert, and the Briton Gregory Thornton, in a Lotus 92, lifted the two historic Formula 1 trophies. In defiance of their 50 years, the little 1000 to 1100 cc Formula Juniors of the Lurani Trophy seem to be indefatigable and frequently provide some very animated races. The honoured drivers for the 2013 season were the Briton Andrew Tart (winner in the general classification and in class B2), the Italian Daniele Salodini (class A), the Belgian Luc Deneve (class D2), the American John Delane (class C2) and the Britons John Fyda (class E1) and Gil Duffy (class B1).

To see photos of the ceremony, click here.