Peter Gethin

I started in F1 with McLaren in 1970. In 71 they had the M19, it was a revolutionary car and no one could sort it out, Denny Hulme couldn't and I couldn't. Then, halfway through the season, McLaren decided to tie-in with Roger Penske and use Mark Donohue as a test driver, so before the end of the year they said, "We're going to give your car to Penske."

BRM had asked me if I would be interested in driving for them in 1972. so I went to them and said, "Look, rather than wait for next year, do you want to do something this year?"

The first race I did for BRM was Austria, and the second race was Italy. I remember I was staying in the most expensive hotel in the world - the one on Lake Como - which I could ill afford. I remember thinking to myself "I'm going to have to do pretty well in this race to be able to pay the hotel bill!" It did give me a bit of help in doing well...

The car and engine were well suited to the circuit. Some BRM engines were better than others, and I thought the 12-cylinder, with all the slipstreaming, was going to be very competitive round there. I think the quickest of the BRMs was Jo Siffert. To be fair, he would probably have won the race, because he had an incredibly good engine, but he had a problem in the race with the gearbox.

Times in practice were very close, and I think I was about eighth or 10th. I was happy to be in the first half of the grid, because there was going to be bunching and slipstreaming.

I made a reasonable start, and I was probably in the first 10 or so cars. Then lapping some backmarkers early on I got a fair way behind the leading six or seven. I was cut off from them, but the reason why I think the race was a good one for me is because from about half distance, when I lost contact, until the end of the race, I had to drive every fraction of every lap absolutely flat-out.

I was on my own, but my pit crew were very good, as they were giving me plusses and minuses, even the tenths. From when I started chasing them I was using 500rpm more than the recommended maximum all the time, and it held together! For me I drove, I felt, very well, I didn't make any mistakes and with six or seven laps to go I caught them.

Then I got to 4.5secs seconds behind them; on the fast straight that was close enough to get a tow! The leading bunch was Chris Amon (Matra), Francois Cevert (Tyrrell), Ronnie Peterson (March), Howden Ganley (BRM) and Mike Hailwood (Surtees).

Amon went to pull a peel-off from his visor and pulled the whole visor off, and that put him out. I caught the others with a few laps to go and I thought, "I've worked so hard to get to this state, I'm going to win it now." I wasn't just going to go round and finish wherever it was!

I felt that I needed to be in the first two coming out of the Parabolica, and then either way I reckoned I could get to the line and win it. As it happened I went into the Parabolica in about third or fourth place on the last lap. Cevert was outbraked by Peterson, and Ronnie slid a bit wide. I was right behind him and got inside him perfectly. I was a bit locked up, but I felt it was under control!

I was sideways, but I got the power on early, and it was a race between me and Ronnie. We got to the line and he was very close to me, and we were alongside each other. I remember thinking "I'm in Italy, there are a lot of excitable Italians, they don't have photographic equipment. The Italians are likely to go with whoever they make their mind up with on the spur of the moment."

Therefore to try and convince them that I was the winner I put my hand up on the line, so they would think I'd won!

It was the smallest winning margin ever; there was a foot or two in it, and Ronnie passed me about 30 yards over the line.

I think most people were pleased for me. Louis Stanley was, of course, absolutely over the moon. When you had dinner with Louis Stanley and the BRM people you were in different positions depending on whether you were flavour of the month or not.

Suddenly, I went from one end to the centre. I was in pole position for dinner that night! After dinner I was being driven back to my hotel by the Stanleys in their chauffeur driven limousine. About 50 yards from the restaurant it had a flat tyre. And I was the one changing the wheel on the side of the road in Milan.

I thought, "Is this right, for the winner of the Italian Grand Prix, this super-hero, to be on his hands and knees changing the wheel on this bloody great limousine?"