Thierry Boutsen will participate in a festival in Adelaide.

      Thierry Boutsen, a Belgian motorsport veteran who raced in Formula 1 from 1983 to 1993, is returning to the wheel of a racing car — this will take place in Australia during the Adelaide festival, which runs from 28 February to 1 March.

      We have reported on Valtteri Bottas’s participation in the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, and while the Finnish Cadillac F1 driver is set to pilot the historic Ferrari 156/85, Boutsen will sit behind the wheel of a March 871, a 1987 car, and will also bring a Porsche 962C sports prototype onto the city circuit.

      Boutsen, who is now 68, once won the Australian Grand Prix, which was then held in Adelaide — that was in 1989 when he was driving for Williams. In total Boutsen started the F1 race in that Australian city eight times and, in addition to the mentioned victory, stood on the podium twice more.

      Last year he already took part in the Adelaide motorsport festival, then driving the Benetton B190 in which Nelson Piquet won in Australia in 1990.

      Both cars Boutsen is due to drive during the demonstration runs are painted in the bright Leyton House colours, a Japanese real estate company that in 1987 became sponsor of the British March team and bought it two years later. In the car with the 3.5-litre Ford Cosworth DFZ V8 engine that Boutsen will pilot, Ivan Capelli finished sixth in Monaco and scored a championship point.

      Having raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times and having won the legendary marathon in the GT1 class in 1996 with the factory Porsche team, Boutsen has also been entrusted with driving the Porsche 962C, one of the most successful cars in the history of endurance racing. On such prototypes, from 1981 to 1987, Le Mans recorded seven consecutive wins in the top Group C category.

      In addition to Bottas and Boutsen, the Adelaide festival will also feature former Formula 1 stars Mika Häkkinen, David Coulthard and Stefan Johansson.