Visitors to this year’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival won’t just be paying to drive a Formula 1 car, they’ll be taking a friend with them.
The three-seater Arrows AX3 will be at the event, ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on the weekend in late March. The Adelaide Motorsport Festival is a shortened version of the street circuit that hosted the country’s round of world championships 11 times from 1985 to 1995.
Enthusiasts can pay to ride in one of the two passenger seats in the car, which are placed on either side and behind the driver of the machine.
The AX3 was originally powered by a three-litre 670bhp V10 engine mounted in a chassis adapted from the A20 raced by the team during the 1999 F1 season. When launched in January 2001, Arrows claimed the car could reach 355 km/h (221 mph), although recent performance claims with the current 3.5-liter Hart V10 engine put it at 330 km/h.
The team, managed by Tom Walkinshaw, folded in the year after AX3 launched due to mounting debts and other financial problems. Many pools were built for three seats, and at least two full display cars were used on the tracks at the time to pay fans. They have since been sold, and the car in Adelaide has been on display in New Zealand for several years.
The Adelaide Motorsport Festival runs from March 25-26 and features heritage Formula 1 cars, other open-wheel racers, touring cars, bikes and more. Cars are paired against each other in a super sprint race around the track.
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