1977 Tony Brise Memorial Trophy
The 1977 Tony Brise Memorial Trophy was a non-championship Formula One race and the inaugural running of the Tony Brise Memorial Trophy, held at the Silverstone Circuit on the 23rd July, 1977.
A season high of 50 entries had been received for the British Grand Prix, reaching the limit on the number of entries allowed in the rules at the time. Of those 50 entries, only 22 were safe from Pre-Qualifying, and of those who competed in the extra Friday morning session, only 6 would progress into Qualifying proper. The fact that a large number of these entries were British or British based, and that a majority of them would not progress from Pre-Qualifying was not lost on the British Racing Drivers Club, who began searching for a way to give these smaller teams more exposure both to the thousands of spectators present and the people watching at home on television. Into the second full season of broadcasting, more and more viewers were tuning in to watch the races - and the BRDC were aware of this, given the success of the previous two runnings of the BRDC International Trophy non-championship race. Looking to exploit the patriotic nature of the British spectators and the cult interest in the pre-qualifying highlights program on Saturday mornings, the BRDC announced that all teams who failed to pre-qualify for the British Grand Prix along with a select few runners from the ShellSport F5000 series would compete in a non-championship race on Saturday afternoon. The trophy was named in honour of Tony Brise, a British rising star in Formula One who was tragically killed just two years prior in the same plane crash as Graham Hill.
