The 1973 season review

To express it simply, the 1973 Grand Prix season was: the Third Year, and the Last Year, of Jackie Stewart.

He had to fight for his third world championship. Some observers had suggested he was beyond his peak, but every time he climbed into his Elf Tyrrell Ford, whether to race or merely test, he demonstrated his prowess was at its maximum.

He won five GPs - a third of the year's total - two of them so thoroughly they were complete Stewart dominations from start to finish. He also won the single non-championship F1 round he entered. In virtually every other race he was strongly in contention at some stage at least, and even on those occasions when his car was unmatched to the circuit he still put every nerve-end of his brilliant ability into driving.

One could always see this. His style was such that his effort was visible; he was smooth, precise, consistent, but the work he was doing always showed. The car would twitch and skitter and his hands were a red-gloved blur, and by the quick darting glances of his helmet and the careful selection of line and pattern one could sense much of what were presented to the driver as adversities. These he faced without reservation.

From watching him drive, it was impossible to guess that early in the season he had decided, privately, that it would be his last.

In Argentina he played an excellent protective game on behalf of his team-mate Francois Cevert against the defending champion Emerson Fittipaldi, until a puncture dropped him from position. In Brazil, despite his car being hopelessly unsuitable, he drove at ferocious one hundred per cent effort in chase of Fittipaldi.

Stewart ran out an easy winner at Kyalami despite a practice crash © LAT

In South Africa a brake failure in practice sent him off into catch fencing and a wall at high speed, but within minutes he had put aside the shock and qualified Cevert's car, and in the race after slipping through a multi-car accident he won with astonishing ease.

At Silverstone he stayed on the road during a snowstorm that sent leader Ronnie Peterson spinning off and won despite a slow puncture. In Spain he was in second place when another brake failure nearly caused another crash (it was Fittipaldi's turn to win on a flat tyre!).

In Belgium he was a leading voice in a general rebellion of drivers against a demonstrably improper track surface, yet he settled down to race anyway, and won, and then said his victory didn't change matters, the track surface was still improper.

At Monaco, in his favourite grand prix, he was unmatched from the first lap of practice to the last lap of the race; he even had the ability to toy with the fiercely pursuing Fittipaldi at the end, and in every way it was a happy storybook weekend for this man who is so alive to the ambiance of Monte Carlo.

Next was Sweden, and Stewart was locked in a tense chase with the John Player Special and Yardley McLaren teams when again his brakes failed. In France he started from pole and was hotly embroiled with the same opposition when a puncture required he stopped in the pits; when he rejoined he drove his hardest and worked up to fourth by the end, striving for the points that put him ahead of Fittipaldi (who retired in a shunt).

In Britain he jumped from fourth on the grid to first past the surprised Peterson in two corners - then the race was stopped by a mighty accident amongst those behind. At the restart Jackie found the JPS driver more of a problem, nut nonetheless felt he would still be able to get by and win, and started to try - when a gear selection fault gave him second instead of fourth on a down change and sent the Tyrrell weaving wildly off to the inside of the track.

A stop was required to set the deranged nosepiece back in place, and here before his home crowd was one of the very few times Stewart did not give his absolute best in a come-from-behind drive - because to do so would have interfered with a great four-car struggle for the lead, amidst which he found himself when rejoining.

The win that set him above the total wins of all other world championship drivers came in Holland when Peterson blew up his car, but it was marred nearly at the start by the fatal accident to Roger Williamson which cast a joyless pall over the victory celebrations.

Stewart in full flow at the Nurburgring © LAT

A week later in Germany, Stewart scored his fifth GP win of the year, after a demonstration of driving that went unmatched on the circuit that presents F1 drivers their greatest challenge, the Nurburgring.

The rest of his series went somewhat downhill. In Austria his car was again unable to stay with the JPS team, although he persevered with his personal best effort and came second at the end.

It was enough to virtually assure his title on points, and clinching it came three weeks later in Italy. There he finished fourth after an outstanding catch-up drive from 20th place following a stop to change a punctured tyre.

The Grand Prix of Canada, which he had dominated last year, was cast into shambles this time by a change in weather conditions and the inaccurate deployment of a pace car; Stewart was besides all this not really in the hunt and ended up fifth.

It was his last race. In practice for the United States GP Francois Cevert was killed, and Ken Tyrrell withdrew the team.

It would have been the triple champion's 100th grand prix, but with an announcement a week later he voluntarily ended his career at 99 - and 27 victories. It was a record unequalled since the inception of the formal world championship, and one that cannot even be approached for some years.

In retiring when he did, at the unquestionable top of his form after a season in which he won repeatedly in a fair battle, he took a decision that apart from any practical or personal reasons was right artistically.

Few men in any sport have been able to close their careers on such satisfactory a note. Jackie Stewart's last season cements him firmly amongst the very greatest in motor racing history.

Of course, there was much else of note about the 1973 season. It was a long, gruelling schedule with three more major races than the year before, and there was racing enough for many memorable drivers.

Broadly, it was, as in 1972, a two-man struggle between Stewart and Fittipaldi.

A year ago, Stewart missed a race and was off form in others because of an ulcer. This time it was Fittipaldi's turn to have a physical handicap. In practice at Zandvoort a proprietary wheel collapsed in a corner and sent the JPS hard into a barrier; the injuries to the tendons of his right foot certainly cost Emerson his fair chances of defending his championship in the latter half of the season.

In the first part of the year the Brazilian won three out of six and finished the others in the first three.

At home in South America he won both at Buenos Aires, after Stewart fell back out of the way and gave him a clear shot at Cevert, and again in his own city of Sao Paulo where the John Player Specials were uniquely at home on the rough track surface.

They were less well tuned to the Kyalami circuit, where Fittipaldi nevertheless put up the fastest race lap in an unrelenting long chase of Peter Revson's Yardley McLaren for second place.

Before the European season started properly he contested the pair of non-championship British meetings, retiring early at both Brands Hatch and Silverstone with mechanical trouble.

Fittipaldi won at Barcelona despite suffering a flat rear... © LAT

He had trouble too at Barcelona, a rear tyre going down flat - but he won regardless! (Goodyear's Ed Alexander, somewhat besieged later in the year by well meaning people who found fault with the current state of the tyre art, like to counter with Emerson's victory on "Goodyears Total Mobility Tyre.")

At Zolder he got involved in a keen dice with Stewart, which as other cars dropped out moved him ever higher from a ninth place start into the lead, but his fuel system gave trouble and dropped him to third at the end.

At Monaco he chased Stewart as hard as he could all the way and finished second - and collided with the winner and spun right round on the cooling-off lap.

At Anderstorp he began a run of four retirements: brakes there, a shunt with Jody Scheckter at Paul Ricard, drive shaft at Silverstone again, and a voluntary withdrawal with his foot trouble at Zandvoort. In each case but the last he had been strongly in contention in second place before dropping out.

At the 'Ring he was still in some pain with his foot, but he was troubled more by another case of fuel pressure faltering and had to drive very hard to end up sixth just inches ahead of Jochen Mass and Jackie Oliver.

Obviously Emerson Fittipaldi was not going to lose his title without a fight, and at Osterreichring he set up his first - and only - pole position of the year. With Peterson he simply romped away with the race, and was leading with half a dozen laps to go when of all things a rubber fuel hose pulled loose.

There was still a slim mathematical chance of gaining back the points situation. It depended on his winning all three of the final races whilst Stewart finished very low down in each, and again at Monza the pair of JPS cars found themselves easily in command of the race.

In Austria Peterson had waved Fittipaldi by had waved Fittipaldi by to let him win, but in Italy that didn't happen.

The two drove round the whole distance nose to tail. Ronnie started ahead, and Emerson was only second. Meanwhile Stewart did everything he had to do, and settled the championship.

...but retired in Austria after being waved through by Peterson © LAT

In the curious Mosport race Fittipaldi did actually lead at one stage, and in a spectacular catch-up race after the pace car's inaccurate separation of the field dropped him a lap behind he caught up Jackie Oliver's UOP Shadow and, or so some people thought at the time, won.

But Revson was also let into the winner's enclosure, and a long, careful re-checking job showed he had won instead.

At Watkins Glen Fittipaldi started third on the grid, but soon into his race his car started handling badly and he dropped back; when Scheckter had a wishbone break right in front of him the JPS driver flat-spotted his tyres and lost another position in a pit stop.

He finished the year's last race sixth and the year itself second with 55 points to Stewart's 71. Fittipaldi had won three races, finished second three times and third and sixth twice apiece, while retiring five times. Stewart had started from pole three times, won five GPs, scored two seconds, a single 10th, and retired only one time out of his 14 starts.

Fittipaldi's "equal Number One" team-mate Ronnie Peterson had roughly opposite fortunes. Ronnie started the year with retirements from four of the first five events, but then in succession scored a third, a second, and won his first ever GP victory in France.

He went on to win three more times (but also to retire three more times) and came a close third in the championship. With his nine pole positions, and the fact he was almost always extremely fast while he was running - Ronnie Peterson lead 11 of the 15 grands prix of 1973 - he established by record what most people had predicted on form: that "SuperSwede" was going to emerge some day as one of the true greats.

The tragic death of Francois Cevert at Watkins Glen robbed motor racing of one who was just on the verge of establishing a top rank position.

A skilled, controlled, intelligent young man, he scored six fine second places this year, three of them as back up to his team leader. In several races - Argentina, Belgium, and Monaco - he showed startling brilliance in the early stages and there were some excellent catch-up drives as well.

His two retirements from 14 starts were due not to breaking the car but to involvements with other drivers and while trying to overtake. He was frequently second or third on the grid, and in fact four times he qualified faster than Stewart. Of course in his sports car drives with Matra he was outstanding.

As late in the season as Austria he was holding second place in the championship behind Stewart, and it was widely anticipated that upon Jackie's retirement (whenever it should come) Francois would come into his own as Tyrrell team leader where his clean style and disciplined ability might well make him a consistent winner.

His loss was a big blow to the sport, but perhaps the saddest part of it was that he never quite had the chance to prove himself on Number One terms.

The two Yardley McLaren drivers Peter Revson, with two GP wins, and Denny Hulme, with one this year, took fifth and sixth in the title chase, emphasising that there were three major teams at the very top of the sport.

With Jody Scheckter, who was always a force in the five races he drove for the team (he lead the first two, but retired from all five) the Kiwis were almost always in serious contention.

The M23 drivers lead four grands prix as well as at Brands Hatch, and in several other races they were right up inside the leading bunch. It was more often due to bad luck and small-scale problems that they did not displace some of the Tyrrell and JPS men in the overall picture.

Hulme gained the first GP pole of his entire career in the new M23's debut in South Africa and looked like winning easily, until punctures from debris left over from the big accident dropped him back to fifth.

His finest hour came in Sweden, where he started sixth and spent the first part of the race merely hanging on in the background; a pit stop almost came about when his throttles were jammed by dust, but just before the point of decision they suddenly freed and Denny put his bearish head down, switched off the rev limiter, and set the fastest race lap catching up to the leaders. He was right up with them all, looking for a way by, when one by one they suddenly dropped back with assorted troubles and he won.

Revson's first victory in his two years of grand prix racing (neglecting his period in the old 1-half-litre formula) came at the British round, where he put pressure on Peterson all the way and passed into the lead when the JPS man, with dodgy handling, slacked off on a briefly damp track surface.

Revson won in Britain and again in Canada © LAT

His second win was less convincing, obscured as it was by the confusion attending the Canadian race, but in the middle of all the controversy, before the official decision, Revvie was stalwartly confident of the results. He knew who had won.

These were the consistently noticeable drivers, but in the long season from January to October many others earned space in the spotlight. There was James Hunt, undoubtedly the pleasant surprise of the year, who showed a skill and maturity - not to mention a turn of speed - that astonished everyone.

The Hesketh March emerged to be a real force, usually the quickest car on "the other" brand of tyres, and in his first F1 season the former "James Shunt" finished sixth in his second race in France, a very close fighting fourth in his third in Britain - where he set fastest lap - a fine third next time in Holland, and after a less happy interval bounced back to chase Peterson all the way through the USA race, set another fastest lap, and finished second by less than a second. He only "shunted" once, in practice at Monza. (He did have a brush with a guardrail in testing at Austria when a tyre lost pressure, and a practice crash at Silverstone when a wishbone broke.)

Niki Lauda emerged as a very quick and determined young man, around the middle of the year starting to show more speed than his two Marlboro-BRM teammates. He had some fine drives, notably at Monaco, Silverstone and Mosport (where he led) but there were a few nasty crashes.

One of them, at the Nurburgring, wrote off another of BRM's many destroyed chassis and caused the Austrian to miss his own country's GP with a broken wrist. But he persevered and in the last few races showed he's lost none of his speed. Indeed, it may well be that had he not made two stops for tyre changes at Mosport he might have won the Canadian GP.

Another to shine several times was Carlos Pace, who at Interlagos and Zandvoort moved his Surtees-Fina from midfield to nearly the front right at the start, and at the German and Austrian 'Rings did the fastest race lap.

Carlos Reutemann was often impressive, with a couple of fourths and a third. Jackie Ickx started the Brazilian GP from the front row, only to make a pit stop with a cut tyre; later when he broke with Ferrari he did himself a power of good by being very fast and running into third place ahead of everything but the two Tyrrells at the Nurburgring in a borrowed McLaren.

Hill was only able to show flashes of his old form in the Embassy Shadow © LAT

Graham Hill was occasionally able to show some of his old form in his Embassy Shadow, especially at the French race.

George Follmer made his F1 debut with honourable pacing's at Kyalami and Barcelona, while Jackie Oliver often drove with fire and actually led Mosport. Unfortunately for all three men the Shadows in their first year were troublesome.

This, in fact, is an aspect of the game which is difficult to see in bare records of races won and lost. At various times things meshed properly for various drivers and attention was drawn by Wilson Fittipaldi, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Clay Regazzoni, Chris Amon, Mike Hailwood, Howden Ganley, Jochen Mass...In fact, almost everyone who participated this year had occasional moments when they shone, if only with comparative brightness.

Of the 43 men who made at least one GP start in 1973, about 30 participated more or less regularly. Each one of them, even the ones who did not score any points at all, had at least one day when everything clicked, when the car, the engine, the tyres, the team, the race circumstances, all worked in such a way that these drivers were able to prove to themselves that they were legitimate F1 drivers.

Motor racing must surely be mankind's most frustrating pastime. More often than not one of the many necessary elements falters, but each of the regular men can look back on this year and find some justification for facing their future with encouragement and confidence.

Statistics can be a bore; an old saying that observes that, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure." But there was a large enough quantity of racing this season to enable some reasonable conclusions to be drawn from a study of numbers.

For one thing, none of the 15 GPs were won by anything other than a "kit car" using a Ford Cosworth engine and running on Goodyear tyres - this in contrast to 1972, when there were five winning manufacturers using three different engines and two tyre brands.

This year Firestone started off well with a pole position for the first race (Regazzoni). On a couple of other occasions they had a car in the lead of a race, and several fastest laps were set by their drivers. But in terms of victories there seemed to be only one "hot set-up," and those teams without it were (in retrospect) doomed to frustration.

In fact of the 12 different marques contesting the series only three were race winners. Team Lotus lost the drivers' championship but they did earn the constructors' title from Tyrrell, 92 points to 82, seven wins to five.

McLaren gained three victories and 58 points. Brabham were hovering on the point of success for most of the season and finished fourth with 22. March with 14 just beat the 12 scored by both BRM and Ferrari - curiously enough, the best two of the three contenders who chose to build their own engines and transmissions.

Next along trailed Shadow with nine as a result of this American firm's first season, then Surtees with seven, Iso with two and Tecno at only one. Ensign, the other newcomer, in six races did not score any points at all.

So the best car on results seems to be the JPS, but a somewhat different picture emerges from a calculation of race retirements which indicates something of how individual teams used their resources.

One definitely wanted to be a Tyrrell driver this year if one was interested in finishing races. Throughout the GP season there were a total of 350 starts made, and 155 retirements - a finishing ratio of 56 per cent. Tyrrell cars started 30 times (in 14 races) and retired but three times, a 90 per cent finishing record.

Two other teams came somewhat close to this, McLaren and Ferrari bringing 74 per cent of their starters to the finish line. Iso and Team Lotus beat the average with 61 and 60 per cent respectively - so from this point of view a JPS was only the fifth most desirable car.

BRM with the most total starts (44) finished 52 per cent of their cars, while the Ensign was running at the end of exactly half of its six races. The Shadow drivers of both teams aggregated a figure of 47 per cent, just ahead of all Brabhams at 46. All Surtees drivers made it to the chequered flag 40 per cent of the time, while those who drove Marches totted up a 39 per cent finishing ratio.

Chris Amon in the Tecno only saw the chequered flag once, in Belgium © LAT

The Tecno was running at the end of just one of its four events. Ranked in this way, there is only occasional correlation with the order on points earned - which suggests perhaps that with better reliability such manufacturers as Brabham and March could have threatened the top trio.

(Certain teams may protest that their own records are better, that the percentage of their marque was dragged down by other entrants; similarly many retirements were not due to mechanical failure of the car. But manufacturers count points earned by anyone driving their chassis, so they must also accept losses suffered by anyone.)

During the year it was interesting to watch how, as the circus moved from track to track, individual cars proved more or less competitive on the various surfaces and circuit layouts. At Interlagos, for instance, the JPS was by far the best car, handling the badly rippled surface with marvellous equanimity and allowing the drivers to throw the car into any attitude they pleased and still maintain perfect balance.

Yet at the next place, Kyalami, the long main straight found them as much as 14mph down in maximum speed and no matter how much quicker they might have been through the twisty sections they could not prevent other cars going ahead on the straight and staying there.

Indeed, this was a subtle change in F1 technique that emerged over the course of the season: it became increasingly important to get along the straights quickly. Because as time goes on the "kit cars" become more and more similar, their crews learning better and better how to prepare the basic standard bits to give their best, the individual marques become more and more capable of the same lap times.

It used to be that one's lap time around the circuit as a whole was the critical thing, and with the introduction of aerofoils and other downforce-producing devices all the emphasis was on going round corners quickly. But recently, as at Argentina, South Africa, Sweden and France, those cars with a bit more efficiency in a straight line have had a clear advantage.

The new McLaren proved to be very fast on the straights, and that was important at Kyalami and again at Paul Ricard. At Watkins Glen, James Hunt said he was able to stay with Peterson's JPS because of a significant speed advantage of the March on a straight.

Straightline speed was Hunt's major advantage at Watkins Glen © LAT

Thus, it became increasingly important for drivers to strike a balance between downforce (high wing angles) and low drag (which made the car feel less good in the corners), and for designers to draw up clean cars.

Another subtle change was the decreasing advantage one car had over another in braking performance. As the brake designers from Girling, Lockheed and Ferodo improved their systems, and of course as the tyre designers made advances, drivers were able to go ever more deeply into the approaches to corners before lifting off.

That meant that with every improvement, which spread throughout the entire entry field, there was simply less and less room in which to carry out overtaking manoeuvres. More and more frequently, it seemed, one heard drivers complaining, "There's no place to overtake at this circuit."

This growing situation re-enforced the necessity to have an aerodynamically clean car on the straights - the arrangement of his standard masses became increasingly the designer's only way of beating his rivals.

As the major aspects of racing car performance became more and more similar, the emphasis was placed increasingly on the fine tuning of the smaller details: the characteristics of springs, of dampers, of wheel movement, the arrangement of weights and distribution loads, and so on, into a grey world of only partially understood principles.

There was very little that was new technically in 1973. The greatest experimentation was in the area of wheelbase and track alteration (JPS, Tyrrell, Iso, Shadow) and only Ferrari took a second breath and greatly modified a car at mid-season.

There simply wasn't time during this very closely packed GP schedule to have second thoughts. (Providing the head-scratching over a troublesome machine created any!) A car was either right at the beginning or it stayed inferior all the way through.

As a semi-serious diversion at Monza a large group of racing people, including managers, mechanics, trade representatives, conducted a 2.5-mile foot race. It was something of a Frank Williams benefit, for the Iso-Marlboro manager runs every day of his life, but a number of the drivers did well (Hunt was second) and it pointed up that several of them had been doing physical training anyway during the summer.

Hunt leads the way in the Monza 2.5-mile run © LAT

Time was that a driver would tell you, "Oh, just driving keeps me fit during the season," but this season it didn't seem to be enough.

In a way it was fortunate there wasn't much in the way of technical interest this year, because there was so much going on in the political arena.

Until next year at any rate 1973 will be remembered as The Year of Controversy. There was for instance an enormous struggle for control of the financial side of the "sport" between, basically, the entrants and the organisers.

The Constructors Association wanted to the in the position of selling themselves as a package, like a travelling circus (which of course they are anyway) in order to force each race promoter to treat them on equal - equally high - terms.

There was formed Grand Prix International to represent the other side's concept of fair - ie, low - terms, and a giant confrontation was brewing up (Graham Hill and the Shadow organisation were caught up at one point) when one of the organising clubs, the Spanish, with their race fast approaching, capitulated independently. GPI's influence folded and the entrants apparently got everything they wanted from every other organiser on individual arrangements, even the organisers of the British round who adamantly held out until very late in the day.

Later on there was an infamous scene in practice for the Belgian GP when existing CSI procedures were abandoned and because of the resurfaced Zolder track breaking up the entire grand prix scene came to a grinding halt for hours as each side sat around waiting for the other to give in.

Here again it was the organisers who finally relented and signed a paper.

The tragic and totally senseless death by fire of Roger Williamson at Zandvoort created a storm of controversy that swept all of Europe. The highly public failure of the Dutch marshals to act created uneasiness in every branch of the sport, but more seriously it created questions in governmental agencies in many countries.

Williamson's death cast a horrid pall over the season © LAT

Those of us who do motor racing as a way of life should not forget that to the world at large our sport appears to be an aberration.

As long as motor racing remains reasonably unobtrusive it will be allowed to continue, but the Dutch inferno reached into every television receiver on the planet.

It would take very little in the way of a follow-up to prompt the "do gooders," of whom there are an increasing number in this ever more homogenised world, to step in and protect us from ourselves.

It is increasingly the temper of the times to eliminate individual freedoms in favour of group welfares; the essentially individualistic nature of motor racing is in diametric opposition to this. That's why we like it - but there more of "them" than "us."

The worldwide shortage of petroleum fuels is another problem facing the future of motor racing. Already several countries have restricted purchases of petrol or banned private motoring at certain times. Even government officials are trying to cut their personal sues of fuel, so you know they are taking it seriously!

What will it mean to racing when, next spring, some ministry or other realises that just outside the capital city perhaps 10,000 private motorists are going to gather to watch the spectacle of two dozen 450-horsepower racing cars burn up - "waste" - upwards of 250 litres apiece of the very fluid that by its shortage is causing the world wide crisis and local robberies at gunpoint (California, Germany)?

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Last Year of Stewart could have been in fact the Last Year of Motor Sports.