The Roaring Season

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Revson won the Canadian Grand Prix, from Fittipaldi. At least, that was the official result! But it was Lauda who stole the show, pushing his BRM through from eighth on the grid to lead the race by lap three in the wet conditions. He built a healthy margin, but as the track dried, he was forced to pit for slicks. The drying conditions created mass-confusion, with the lap scorers unsure who was actually in front as car after car dived into the pits to change tyres. When Schecker and Cevert collided, the first Safety Car appeared in F1, although driver Eppie Wietzes wasn’t sure who the actual leader was, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else. At the end, Fittipaldi thought he’d won, as did the Lotus team, with Colin Chapman flinging his cap into the air, but, as it turned out, it was Revson who was home first, probably! But the confusion in Canada pushed forward the need for electronic lap scoring in F1, which it soon adopted.

With the two blue Tyrrells missing from the grid at Watkins Glen, the 1973 championship ended on a sour note, with the popular Cevert killed in qualifying. Stewart had already won the championship, Cevert had a chance for second heading to the US. Peterson won the race, from Hunt, in the Hesketh owned March. Fittipaldi finished the championship in second, while Peterson was third, and impressive result given the Swede didn’t even collect his first championship points until Round 6!

The general consensus following the 1973 season, was that Ronnie Peterson was now the fastest man in F1. Of the 15 rounds, he claimed pole position on nine occasions. The Lotus was often the fastest car, but reliability issues kept Fittipaldi from winning back-to-back championships. Lotus, however, did win the Constructors Championship. With Tyrrell, Lotus, and McLaren sharing the victories between them, it was easy to overlook Ferrari, who had a poor season. Jacky Ickx and Arturo Merzario soldiered on in the early races with the 312B2, while the B3 arrived in Spain, but Ferrari’s best results of 1973 were a pair of fourth placings in Brazil and South Africa. Ferrari finished the season sixth in the Constructors Championship, trailing Brabham and March.

For Tyrrell, 1973 would be their last World Championship. Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depallier would fill the two seats, with Scheckter winning two races, and finishing the ’74 championship third, with Tyrrell, over the coming decades, eventually slipping into the role of a mid-pack team that never regained its power-house status.

This beautiful documentary, split into six parts, reviews the 1973 season with stunning highlights from the season. Be sure to watch it, you'll be glad you did.

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Peterson finally claimed his first Grand Prix victory in Round 8, at Paul Ricard. From the middle of the front row, Jody Scheckter, in just his third Grand Prix, blitzed Fittipaldi and Stewart away from the start, and was spectacular, and led until he and Fittipaldi collided for the lead on lap 43. Hulme was caught up in the carnage, leaving Peterson, who’d been running fourth, to now lead comfortably from Cevert. Stewart, who’d pitted early in the race with puncture, finished fourth, and took the lead of the championship. Back in sixth, in just his second Grand Prix, James Hunt scored the first World Championship point for the eccentric Hesketh team in their first F1 season.

Silverstone played host to Round 9, and, following the nine car pile-up at the end of lap one, which required a much-delayed re-start, Stewart made a rare error, missing a gear, and spinning into an outfield corn crop, requiring a pit stop to clear his blocked air intake. He finished out of the points, in tenth, but Fittipaldi also retired, with drive shaft issues. Peter Revson steered his McLaren home to his first Grand Prix win, while, back in fifth, was Cevert, who was quietly gaining ground on the two championship leaders.

Stewart took a hollow victory at Zandvoort, following the Williamson tragedy. The weekend had begun under a cloud when Fittipaldi crashed heavily in practice, following wheel failure, injuring both ankles, and retired from the race, just two laps in, and in great pain. In Germany, Stewart and Cevert cruised to a 1-2 victory, with the Frenchman now moving to second in the points, with Fittipaldi back in sixth. Niki Lauda hit the guard rail on the second lap in his BRM, breaking a bone in his hand, and the Austrian would be forced to miss his home race. But on this occasion, the Nurburgring had let him off lightly.

Peterson took his second victory of the season in Austria, from Stewart, who now held a 21 point lead in the championship, with just three rounds remaining. Peterson had been leading early, but allowed his team mate by, in an effort to close the points gap to Stewart. But it was all for nothing, as Fittipaldi’s Lotus failed him on lap 48. The Swede won again in Italy, by just .08sec, from his team mate. This time, team principle Colin Chapman didn’t ask Peterson to cede, as many thought he would. Stewart was champion.

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Then Stewart began his fight-back, winning at the disastrous Belgian GP, at Zolder, where the track surface completely fell apart following an eleventh hour circuit upgrade. Only 9 cars were still running at the finish. The race nearly didn’t happen, with drivers refusing to even get in their cars on first citing the peeling surface. They wanted the organisers to call the whole thing off. The situation became extremely political, the spectators didn’t know if the race would take place, and neither did anyone else. Eventually, they relented. Cevert charged away to build a huge margin over the chasing pack until he spun when his brakes failed, but he finished second to his team mate.

Stewart then won at Monaco, and suddenly Fittipaldi only held a 4 point lead. Amazingly, no driver other than Stewart or Fittipaldi had won a World Championship Grand Prix since July 1972, but after the spectacular, but so far luckless, Ronnie Peterson claimed his fourth pole from seven races, Denny Hulme brought his McLaren M23 home first at Anderstorp. In front of 55,000 home fans, Peterson led all but the final 1 ½ laps, a deflating tyre sinking his hopes. Stewart clipped Fittipaldi’s lead to just 2 points, after finishing fifth. The Tyrrell driver slowed towards the end with brake trouble, but the Brazilian didn’t make the finish at all, when his gearbox failed. This was the first time Sweden had held a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and Peterson looked sure to claim his first Grand Prix victory, but the script didn’t quite go to plan.

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At the final round of the championship, at Watkins Glen, Francois Cevert lost control of his Tyrrell through the Esses during qualifying, thumped the barriers, and was killed instantly. Cevert was expected to become the lead Tyrrell driver on the imminent retirement of Jackie Stewart, who’d only recently been crowned World Champion for the third time. The Tyrrell team withdrew from the event.

Thanks to the heroics of Mike Hailwood, Formula 1 was spared its third fatality of the season, when Hailwood dragged Clay Regazzoni from his burning BRM following a multi-car crash on the second lap of the South African Grand Prix, at Kyalami.

But despite the loss of Williamson and Cevert, and the pre-season bickering over money, and the threats by some circuit owners to do away with F1, replacing it with their own mix of F2, F5000, and USAC, and the broken promises that the sport would become more user-friendly, and accessible to the public, 1973 was quite a successful season. Reigning champion Emerson Fittipaldi got his campaign off to the best possible start, winning the Argentinian GP, then his home race, in Brazil. There were many critics who felt Team Lotus having two number 1 drivers in 1973 would be detrimental to their success, yet after two races, Fittipaldi led the championship by 8 points, over Jackie Stewart.

Stewart cut Fittipaldi’s lead to just 3 after winning in Kyalami, from sixteenth on the grid, where McLaren debuted their new M23, but when the Tyrrell driver retired with brake failure at Montjuich in Barcelona, and Fittipaldi claimed his third victory from four starts, the championship already looked to remain with the Brazilian for another year. Spain saw the introduction of new safety measures requiring a crushable structure to protect certain areas of the car in the event of a crash. Spain also saw the return of Graham Hill, now running his own team, with a single Shadow DN1 painted in Embassy cigarettes colours, Shadow themselves having debuted in Kyalami.

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There was some good progress in the areas of car construction from many teams, and from Round 4 at Barcelona, new crush structure rules would come in to play, providing more protection to certain key areas of the cars. The circuit owners would also play their role, with Armco being installed in more vulnerable areas. By todays standards, these measures fall far short, and even in 1973, would prove woefully inadequate when really put to the test, but they were signs F1 was making progress, if grudgingly so.

There was an air of confidence the sport had turned a corner following the multi-car pile-up at Round 9 of the championship, at Silverstone, where, after trying to get past his team mate, Jody Scheckter lost control of his McLaren M23 through Woodcote, and spun into the pit wall, right in front of the chasing pack. Nine cars were involved in the incident, yet, all but Andrea de Adamich climbed from the wreckage and walked away, and even de Adamich suffered only a broken ankle.

Yet, despite a lap of Silverstone taking around 1min 16sec to complete, the cars that got through the chaos unscathed, and who were still at full racing speed, were only warned of the incident as they arrived back on the scene a lap later at full racing speeds, and where through a combination of good driving, and good luck, they narrowly avoided piling into the wrecked cars and safety crew strewn all over the pit straight. There was still much work to be done!

However, the confidence felt following Silverstone was blown to bits at the following round, at Zandvoort, where Roger Williamson perished inside his upturned March, which burst into flames after one of its fuel pods had been torn off against a guardrail. A fire engine was just a few meters up the track, but unable to reach the burning March against the traffic flow, as the race continued at full speed. David Purley was the only one to try and rescue Williamson, but it was all to no avail. With television crews filming the scene, Formula 1s reputation was done no favours.

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Fatalities were still relatively common in Formula 1 by the early ‘70s, but there were finally some signs the sport wasn’t prepared to just accept death as part of the package, that it actually wanted to start taking some preventative measures. 1973 was perhaps an amalgam of the efforts made by drivers such as Jackie Stewart during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, to improve safety. Stewart had been one of the more vocal on the subject, as his push to make the sport safer slowly gathered momentum, and people began to listen.

Stewart had become the guy other drivers turned to when they questioned the safety measures being taken at certain venues. When the Zolder surface was considered unsuitable for a Grand Prix, it was Stewart who led the driver revolt. The media and the public didn’t always grasp what it was Stewart was trying to achieve, the more cynical among them assumed the GPDA, which he headed, were usually just angling for more money. Apparently, F1 drivers should be prepared to pay with their lives for their earnings, which, for the day were considerable, but paltry by todays standards.

As modern F1 drivers mumble their way through interviews with outstretched bottom lip, they give little consideration to what those before them had to sacrifice for a fraction of what drivers take for granted today. Stewarts efforts were often unpopular, but they would ultimately help make F1 a safer sport. But 1973 would prove that while greater efforts were now being made in this area, much of it would still be reactionary, rather than preventative.