Niki Lauda in the McLaren-Cosworth MP4/1B from the Ferrari 126C2 of Didier Pironi and Patrick Tambay. The winner speed was . It was a non-Grand Prix year at Brands in 1983, but the Marlboro Daily Mail Race of Champions was successfully staged on 10 April, notwithstanding the fact it was only a week before the French Grand Prix and clashed with a tyre test at Paul Ricard. It was also the last non-championship F1 race to be held in the sport's history. It was won by the reigning world champion Keke Rosberg in the Williams FW08, who narrowly beat Danny Sullivan in his Tyrrell 011. Meanwhile, former world champion Alan Jones finished third in his last drive for Arrows. To bring some real excitement, noise and spectacle back into British motor racing, the BRSCC invented Thundersports. The new series had its debut on Easter Monday and the country's first major sport car race since the mid-1970s was a resounding success. Then, the year turned into a Grand Prix one after all; following the cancellation of the proposed New York Grand Prix, John Webb lobbied FISA in company with the RAC MSA and was granted the opportunity to run the Grand Prix d’Europe on 25 September, thus giving Britain its second Grand Prix that season. The full circus arrived in Kent and Elio de Angelis placed his Lotus-Renault 94T on pole position; the race was 76 laps/199 miles long which Nelson Piquet in the Brabham-BMW BT52B won at . Alain Prost followed him home 6 sec later in the Renault RE40 with Nigel Mansell in the second Lotus in third. In 1984, Brands become the first British circuit to hold Grands Prix in three consecutive years since the 1950s. This was officially the year for Kent to host the British Grand Prix but it was fraught with politics as Tyrrell was adjudged by the sport's governing body to have infringed the rules at the Canadian Grand Prix and was excluded from the remainder of the season. A court injunction ensured that the cars started their home race, but Stefan Bellof and Stefan Johansson qualified the cars on the back row of the grid, the former finishing 11th but Johansson being eliminated in a first-lap accident. The win went to Niki Lauda, driving a McLaren-TAG MP4/2. Second was Derek Warwick in the Renault RE50 and Ayrton Senna driving the Toleman-Hart TG184 into