Auto Racing Commentary

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 woul...

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 ...

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 wid...