Stewart takes charge as Peterson rises - F1's 200th GP

In visual terms the progress Formula 1 had made between its 100th and 200th grands prix was arguably the biggest of any era - the cars now had wings and sponsors.

In other ways, the jump from 100 to 200 didn't seem so big: the field was still largely a pack of British constructors with customer engines pitted against Ferrari.

But whereas in 1961 Stirling Moss and Rob Walker's team's German Grand Prix victory had been an upset that didn't derail Ferrari's march towards the title, Jackie Stewart and Tyrrell's 1971 Monaco GP victory was a key step in that combination's ultimately dominant campaign.

A Ferrari fails to make the grid

Mario Andretti started his first major F1 campaign with a win on his debut for Ferrari in the season-opening South African GP. The fact he was combining F1 with his American racing exploits meant he was unlikely to be a season-long title contender, but he still arrived in Monaco second in the championship behind Spanish GP winner Stewart despite having retired from the Montjuich Park race with fuel pump failure.

But Andretti wouldn't even make it onto the Monaco grid, caught out by changeable weather early in the weekend.

"Despite the current strikes in Italy, Ferrari turned up in force with four cars," wrote Patrick McNally in his Autosport report - but the new-spec 312B2s would go to Clay Regazzoni and Jacky Ickx, while Andretti had two examples of the older 312B with engine upgrades. "There seemed to be political reasons behind Mario being stuck with the old car," McNally added.

Andretti then found himself on the wrong side of a controversy over the size of the grid:

Andretti took it all very philosophically, which shows what a nice guy he is

Of these 23 cars only the 18 fastest were to be allowed to start - contrary to the Geneva agreement stipulating that 20 cars should start in every championship round this year. However the AC de Monaco, who conveniently had not signed the agreement, argued that the French government had intervened to restrict the number of runners, and this was enough to make the entrants climb down.

This was to prove a significant point, for two of the three practice sessions were run in wet conditions, and when Mario Andretti's Ferrari stopped after only a few laps in the sole dry session he hadn't the remotest chance of getting in the race. It seems a ridiculous situation that a driver who is lying second in the World Championship doesn't start - it's time the regulations were rewritten to avoid such nonsense.

McNally also expanded on Andretti's problems:

Andretti's engine stopped in the dry session: they changed it overnight and the new engine had no fuel pressure, and when he went out in the training car that had gearbox trouble - a real tale of woe. However, he took it all very philosophically, which shows what a nice guy he is.

Ickx at least put Ferrari on the front row alongside Stewart, although "his final time wasn't anything like as fast as Stewart - over a second slower, which is quite a gap at Monaco" and "much to everybody's surprise, Regazzoni was well down the field" in 11th having "had a serious brake problem, and with the adverse conditions this proved difficult to rectify".

Starting grid for F1's 200th GP - Monaco 1971

On race day Ickx rapidly dropped away from Stewart:

After five laps Stewart was already nearly 3 secs ahead, and it looked as if Ickx was having trouble with the Ferrari, for he was getting a lot of wheelspin out of the corners if he used first gear.

Ferrari had decided to use Firestone's B24 compound, and this was not giving the same adhesion as the B26 on Peterson's March and the two Surtees cars, which probably had a lot to do with it.

Ickx found himself in a race-long battle for third with Jo Siffert, and though the Ferrari secured the place when the March lost oil pressure, Ickx was left "very disappointed not to have done better".

Regazzoni's race started with a scare when his fire extinguisher went off on the grid, and then continued with a collision with Reine Wisell's Lotus that weakened the Ferrari's suspension enough that a brush with the chicane barrier then broke it.

Andretti only scored one more points finish in the four F1 races he contested after Monaco that season. His championship success was another seven years away.

Lotus's gas turbine detour

Lotus had taken a championship double in 1970, but the drivers' crown was won posthumously by Jochen Rindt after his death at Monza. That left the inexperienced Emerson Fittipaldi as Lotus's lead driver for 1971, and Colin Chapman's team was also sidetracked by attempts to make the gas-turbine technology that had shown so much promise for it at the Indianapolis 500 work in an F1 car.

In the Monaco GP issue of Autosport, Simon Taylor track-tested the Pratt & Whitney gas turbine engined 56B F1 version of the design at Silverstone ahead of its appearance in the non-championship International Trophy race with Fittipaldi:

It is typical of Chapman that, when the FIA worked out a formula to allow gas turbine cars to compete on equal terms of conventionally-powered Formula 1 machinery, Lotus were the first F1 team (and remain so far the only one) to explore this avenue.

The experiment was worth making, the large sum of money, the development time, the energy and ingenuity of a large number of people was worth expending, to see if such a car could be made any faster than the efforts of the opposition.

So far, in the case of the Lotus-Pratt & Whitney Type 56B turbine Formula 1 car, it hasn't yet proved faster.

Taylor was optimistic for the innovation, pointing out that it had so far only raced in non-championship events at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park - "neither of them remotely ideal circuits for a car whose strong point is straight-line performance and whose weak point is braking" - and underlining how much adaptation the car required:

One of the cardinal points about a turbine is that it demands very different driving techniques from a conventional car, having no clutch or gearbox, no engine braking and also, in the case of the Lotus, four-wheel-drive.

The car Taylor tested was derived from the 1968 Indy 500 Lotus chassis, and its Pratt & Whitney engine developed from the STN6/76 turbo-shaft unit which is used to power helicopters, railway locomotives and boats" and adapted for F1 "after considerable modification".

"I got the impression that all this would make it a difficult car to drive really fast in a cut-and-thrust gaggle in a race" Simon Taylor tries the Lotus 56B

As expected from a colossal turbine unit, it was incredibly thirsty. The bulky fuel tank could accommodate a total of 62 gallons of liquid, containing aviation-grade kerosene, which was still insufficient for a full race. The turbine drank through it in short shrift and required a mid-race top-up. Although a more reasonable requirement for the Indy 500, refuelling in F1 was incredibly uncommon at the time.

Then there were the colossal brakes. With absolutely no engine braking on offer, and no retarding forces thanks to the lack of downshifts, the brakes had to do all of the work in slowing the car down. Without the brakes, the car "will do 85mph on tickover" - meaning that the drivers could cruise around without a foot on either pedal.

Taylor reported that the car was unlike any other he'd driven before, requiring a completely different approach to driving owing to the turbine set-up. Though he was i mpressed by the "cornering on rails" four-wheel drive characteristics, the "road car" brakes took some getting used to.

Gradually, I became braver and started opening the throttle wider. Probably more due to the four-wheel-drive than the power unit, the car feels very solid on the road: you don't get the feeling you can move it around in a corner.

I got the impression that all this would make it a difficult car to drive really fast in a cut-and-thrust gaggle in a race, and it must take real skill - and long acclimatisation to the car - to snatch positions in a corner or under braking. It doesn't feel as instantly manoeuvrable as a normal racing car.

When I did push the right hand pedal all the way own the car seemed to pause and gather itself for about a second, and then it would hurl itself forward. The acceleration feels roughly like a normal Formula 1 car in second gear - but whereas the conventional car keeps running out of revs and you need to come off the throttle and stop accelerating momentarily to change into the next gear, with the turbine it's a continuous process that just goes on and on until you run out of straight road or courage or both.

Ultimately the gas turbine car only appeared at three F1 championship rounds, with Fittipaldi's eighth place in the Italian GP its sole race finish.

The concept was shelved, and it was with the conventional Lotus 72 that Fittipaldi became champion for the first year in 1972.

A short day for 'Mr Monaco'

Graham Hill was firmly established as F1's Monaco specialist by 1971, with his record of five wins at the track, but his involvement in that year's race would be very brief.

The double world champion was in the twilight of his career, following the serious leg injuries he had suffered at the end of the 1968 season, by the time he joined Brabham for 1971 after Jack Brabham's retirement from driving duties.

Hill qualified ninth in Monaco, "unhappy with both the handling and the brakes of the BT34", and then crashed out on lap two:

The Londoner had touched the guard rail on the inside of Tabac, and this had sent the car riccocheting across the track into the wall: two wheels were worn off and the monocoque and suspension of the BT34 were badly damaged. There was momentary panic in the Tabac stand when the occupants were showered with dust and debris, and amidst it all someone mistakenly cried "fire", but Graham stepped out of the wreck quite unhurt to the crowd's obvious relief.

The closest Hill got to scoring in Monaco again was an attrition-aided seventh place in 1974. His failure to qualify there with his own team a year later was the final time he entered a GP.

Stewart takes charge

McNally wrote in the qualifying section of the Autosport report that Ickx was "fully conscious of the fact that this race was likely to be the fulcrum of the championship" as he lined up alongside Stewart on the front row. This race didn't quite prove pivotal to the title fight, but Stewart's domination meant he left with a 14-point lead over Ickx.

Even by lap two, "out in the lead the blue Tyrrell was already looking pretty invincible", but he did have some headaches:

Stewart's lead was getting bigger lap by lap, and he was already looking very much a winner. However, he was having some problems with the brakes, for the brake adjustment had been altered just before the start and he was finding that he had now too much on the front, which caused the front wheels to lock unless he was very careful.

That did little to slow Stewart's escape and, bar a brief period when Ronnie Peterson started matching him in second, there was only a mild scare on the way to victory by a dominant margin:

The final stages of the race were not particularly exciting. Stewart continued to extend his lead until he had over 30 secs in hand, and then eased up. The Scotsman had already broken Rindt's lap record many times, finally leaving it at 1 m 22.2 s on his 57th lap. Thereafter he eased slightly, no doubt encouraged by a little incident on lap 60, when he came up to lap Fittipaldi and misjudged Tabac slightly, touching the barrier with the left-hand front wheel.

There hadn't even been any need for Tyrrell's pitstop strategy:

Before the race Stewart was very concerned that it might rain part-way through and Ken Tyrrell set the mechanics to practising wheel changes against a stopwatch.

But as Stuart Turner commented after the race, Ken Tyrrell even managed to arrange for the lowering storm to hold off for the duration of the race!

The first proper Tyrrell

After Lotus unveiled its game-changing 72 car midway through 1970, it took a little while for the significance of the car to filter through to the other teams.

Sure, there were hallmarks from it in the other cars on the field - designers electing to pursue more angular designs - but Tyrrell's first shot at developing an F1 car definitely drew more on the design of the Matra MS80 that Stewart took to the title in 1969.

Developed by engineer Derek Gardner in the secrecy of Ken Tyrrell's Ockham woodyard - although the first plywood mock-ups were put together in Gardner's kitchen - the Tyrrell 001 was used first in the tail end of 1970, after the team had become dispirited by the customer March chassis it was using.

The March had been a necessity because Matra only agreed to continue its supply if Tyrrell used its large, lumbering V12 engines. Having been the first non-Lotus customer of the Cosworth DFV, an engine more versatile than a Swiss army knife - and just as sharp - Tyrrell was unmoved. So began his team's road as a constructor of F1 cars.

Borrowing the bulbous midriff from the Matra, the 001 left its drivers essentially surrounded by the fuel tanks - an unthinkable feature today - while the top-mounted front wing had adjustable flaps to dial in a little more front end downforce.

Tyrrell 003 - the third chassis built by the team, which Stewart drove to victory in Monaco - had a radiator that remained in the front of the car, while the competing Lotus 72 had relocated them to the sides - an innovation that remains to this day.

Nonetheless, it was a step up from the 001 chassis - the monocoque, in particular, had been redeveloped with a new, squarer front end. Largely, the 003 used a larger 'scoop' design at the front of the car, but the configuration of the Monaco circuit needed a lighter touch - and the team brought back the adjustable wing to sharpen up the front-end handling.

In Monaco, the 72 was still comparatively underdeveloped - and the more rigid and nimble Tyrrell of Stewart was able to take full control around the streets of Monte Carlo.

There was a blip in the next race as Ickx won at a wet Zandvoort while Stewart could only finish 11th. But Ickx didn't score again in 1971 after that, mostly due to mechanical failures, while a hat-trick of wins across the French, British and German GPs meant Stewart's second world championship - and Tyrrell's first as a constructor - were a formality.

Peterson's first podium

While all credit must go to Stewart for a brilliant demonstration of his skill, the man of the race was the young Swedish driver Ronnie Peterson, his speed and thrusting tactics in the March 711 being reminiscent of the late World Champion Jochen Rindt.

March were understandably delighted with Peterson's performance, for even though they have won a GP in the past it was with the very best driver. Sunday's performance of their new car must have done much to raise spirits at Bicester.

This was Peterson's second full season in F1 with March, and he had qualified eighth in Monaco. He swiftly made it up to fifth on the opening lap, then after a quarter of the race he had joined Ickx and Siffert's battle for second:

All attention was now focused on Peterson, who was driving the finest race of his career and hauling in Siffert and Ickx lap by lap. The Siffert/Ickx battle was fierce as ever, but the Swiss is not an easy man to pass as the best of times, let alone when he is running second in a Grand Prix.

Nevertheless Peterson caught up with his pair on lap 29, passing them both under braking and making it look all too easy: he took Siffert by chopping inside at the Gasometer Hairpin, which must have given the Swiss a shock, to the visible appreciation of the spectators, who were following the Swede's progress keenly.

The hope that Peterson might manage to hunt down and attack Stewart for the race lead didn't last long, but he finished an unchallenged second.

Though his first F1 win would take another two years and a move to Lotus to achieve, the Monaco podium was the first of five that season - a tally that meant Peterson ended the year second to Stewart in the championship.

Results - F1's 200th GP, Monaco 1971