Jody Scheckter, a champion full of surprises

Jody Scheckter had a very unusual Formula 1 career, full of surprises. He literally burst into the scene, a very fast, unruly driver in his first outings with McLaren in 1972 and 1973, proving extremely crash prone. He had a famous come together with Emerson Fittipaldi in France, while leading, caused a pile up in the first stages of the race at Silverstone, plus crashed in Canada. His mount was great, a first year McLaren M23, and he could have scored quite a few points. After all, smooth driver Jacky Ickx in fact scored a podium at the Nurburgring in his first try.

Then Jody was hired by Tyrrell for 1974. He was obviously not a first pick. Tyrrell was indeed a very conservative type of guy, at the time very much used to constant success. Unfortunately, things went from excellent to bad at the end of 1973. Tyrrell won the driver's title at Monza, then lost both Francois Cevert and Jackie Stewart at Watkins Glen, one dead, the other retired. I find it unusual that Tyrrell would hire two relatively inexperienced drivers for 1974, but that is what he did, after Chris Amon failed to strike Ken's fancy.

Surprisingly, the explosive Jody became a very sedate driver, in fact, he was not that fast in the early 1974 races, the 006 model known as a difficult to drive car. Only after the new 007 came onboard the results appeared, and by the end of the year he became quite the opposite of the 1973 Jody, a reliable driver who was expected to score points. The transformation was amazing, but quite a lot of the speed was gone - forever.

A couple of years more with Tyrrell proved inconclusive, then he was surprisingly hired by Wolf, for 1977, and more surprisingly still, won the first time out. A third surprise, he continued on the pace for the rest of the year, becoming runner up to Niki Lauda.

Then another surprise in 1978. He continued at Wolf, and all that pace and reliability disappeared. At the end of the year he was hired by Ferrari.

At Ferrari, he picked up the pace again, although he had a very tough internal battle, as his teammate was the extremely talented and fast Gilles Villeneuve. On the strength of reliability, a favorable scoring system and some luck (Williams did not debut its new challenger FW07 before), Jody finally became world champion, although not a dominating one.

Then good ole Jody sprung yet another surprise in 1980. All the fire was gone, his performance was pathetic, although, admittedly, that year's Ferrari was no piece of cake. By the end of the season he failed to qualify for a race, ending up with the worst year-after performance by a current world champion. Not surprisingly, Jody retired, although he claimed he still had plenty of offers.

He retired before reaching 30 years of age, never racing again.

March private entries

March was present in F-1 in three distinct times, the first of which lasted from 1970-1977. During that initial period, March was the major provider of chassis to privateers. In fact, in its very first season, March provided chassis to several teams, in addition to running a 2-car works team. The most important privateer team that year was Tyrrell, which fielded cars for current champion Jackie Stewart, Servoz-Gavin and Cevert. And Tyrrell was indeed the last privateer team to have won a Grand Prix, the Spanish GP of 1970. In addition to Tyrrell, Andy Granatelli (STP) fielded a March 701 for Mario Andretti, who raced in a few events, finishing a best 3rd place. Colin Crabbe/Antique Automobiles also fielded a 701 for Ronnie Peterson, and Hubert Hahne also bought a 701. The latter became very flustered when he could not get the car up to competitive speed to qualify for the German GP, claiming March provided him a defective car. When Ronnie Peterson drove his car and immediately got it up to a relatively competitive pace, a despondent Hahne quit racing.

For 1971, the main March privateer was Frank Williams, who fielded a 711 for Henri Pescarolo. Henri scored a few points, but most importantly, posted the fastest lap at the Italian Grand Prix, which for many years stood as the fastest racing lap in a Grand Prix. Jean Max also drove a Williams March 711 in France. Francois Mazet drove a Jo Siffert entered March 701 in France, Skip Barber drove a Gene Mason entered March 711 in Holland and the North American races, and Mike Beutler was entered in a March 711 sponsored by his stockbroker friends Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie, in a few races. Shell Arnold entered a March 701 for Jean Pierre Jarier in Italy.
Frank Williams again fielded Marches in 1972, a 721 for Pescarolo and a 711 for Pace. The debuting Brazilian was the only one to score points in the team. Beuttler again drove a 721 in several races, while the Eifelland team entered a modified March 721 for Rolf Stommelen. The unusual bodywork car is sometimes referred as an Eifelland. Skip Barber again fielded his 711 in the USA and Canadian Grand Prix.

Mike Beuttler was again sponsored by his stockbroker friends (plus Durlacher), quitting F-1 at the end of the year. The most competitive March 731 privateer was unquestionably James Hunt, entered by Hesketh, in a car engineered by Harvey Posthlethwaite. While the works team scored no points, Hunt got a couple of podiums, coming very close to victory in the USA, scoring a fastest lap as well. Team Pierre Robert entered a 731 for Reine Wissel in Sweden, while LEC Refrigeration entered a 731 for David Purley in a few races.

Hesketh entered the March in the first two races of the year, eventually fielding the proprietary Hesketh in 1974. Mike Wilds failed to qualify a Dempster International 731 in England. Although the entry lists were overly subscribed for many 1974 races, there were fewer March privateer appearances than in previous years.



In 1975 it was much the same. In fact, the only privateer March to be fielded that year was a 751 entered by Penske for Mark Donohue. Penske was having problems with his own chassis, and the competitive March (at least in Brambilla’s hands) appeared a good benchmark to learn more about F-1. Donohue raced it only in England and Germany, scoring points in Silverstone, then was killed in Austria.

For 1976 March had two works teams with a total of four drivers for many races. Peterson was back in the team, but both he and Stuck were nominally entered by Theodore Racing in Long Beach. Basically, there were no private March entries in 1976, although Karl Oppitzhauser attempted to field one in the Austrian GP, but his entry was refused.

This was more than made up for in 1977, when a flood of 761’s appeared outside the works team. Arturo Merzario raced an example under the Team Merzario banner, managing to qualify it 14th out of 32 in Belgium, which was the highlight of the year. Brett Lunger was entered by Chesterfield Racing in a few races, eventually changing to a McLaren M23. After losing his team to Walter Wolf, Frank Williams entered a 761 for Patrick Neve from the Spanish GP on, managing a 7th in Italy, the closest a March came to scoring that year. RAM Racing entered 761s for Boy Hayje, Mikko Kozarowitsky Andy Sutcliffe and Michael Bleekemolen, without setting the world on fire. Brian Henton entered a 761 under British Formula 1 racing for himself and Bernard de Dryver.

At the end of the year, March discontinued its Formula 1 operations until 1982.

The age of change

Nowadays we talk a lot about the pace of change in all walks of life. It seems to me, though, that the era when there was the greatest amount of change in automobile racing was the 70s. I am basically talking about the tremendous volume of changes that had a lasting effect on racing.

Commercially, there was consolidation of sponsorship in Formula 1 and all other disciplines of racing. In 1970, a good number of GP teams had some form of commercial sponsorship, however, all teams were sponsored by 1979. Commercial sponsorship not only provided money to teams, but also made racing commercially interesting and sellable on TV, and TV made things more interesting to sponsors. Broadcasting also expanded greatly during the decade, especially in the third world. Thus, by the end of the decade, Bernie Ecclestone in F1 and NASCAR in F1 had began to expand live TV coverage of racing events. The early days of cable TV also provided more outlets and programming needs.

Turbocharging, although widely used in Indy car racing in the USA, began to be used in European racing on the early part of the decade. By 1979, a Renault powered F1 car had won its first event, by which time turbo engined cars were the rule in prototype and sports car racing.

It was also during the decade that circuit safety was taken seriously, through the efforts of many GP drivers such as Joakin Bonnier, Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi. This lead to the death of the Nurburgring's Nordschleife as a GP venue. Additionally, the long Nurburgring was not suitable for TV coverage. This affected circuit design, and greatly reduced the number of motorsport deaths in the decades to come

In the USA, the old style USAC racing gave way to CART, which was founded in 1979. The new style Indycar racing, which lasts to this day, lessened the importance of oval tracks in American single seater racing.

Talking about old style, during the 70s, the Targa Florio was finally removed from the World Championship of Makes, although the race continue to be staged for a few more years. True road racing became a thing of the past, although rallyes thrived.

A lot of traditional races such as Vila Real in Portugal, and Chimay in Belgium, became things of the past, and in fact, a lot of old style circuits, such as Crystal Palace in London and Tulln Langelebarn in Austria were  closed for racing, while a number of modern circuits sprouted all over Europe and Worldwide, patterned after Paul Ricard, in France. The Tasman series, which achieved such prominence in the 60's, morphed into a regional series, which did not attract much in terms of international talent.

Formula 1 reached Asia for the first time in 1976, and Brazil became a force in racing, with a world champion (Emerson Fittipaldi) and a world Championship round. Non-championship Formula 1 races, fairly common early on the decade, also diminished into almost oblivion by the end of the decade.

Technologically speaking, the first steps in computer aided design were taken, these also being were the first day's of telemetry. The importance of aerodynamics in race car design also increased during the decade, and so did the use of wind tunnels. Whereas early on the decade cars were mostly designed by a single man, late in the decade design by committee was used in some corners.

In 1970, GP drivers' earnings were not very substantial, which lead them to accept as many engagements as possible. By 1979, many drivers were paid hefty retainers in Formula 1, and could actually afford to race exclusively in the category.