1974 French Grand Prix
The Grand Prix of France 1974 took place on July 7 at the Stade Automobile de Dijon -Prenois and was the ninth race of the Formula 1 season 1974.
- 3.1 Start -up
- 3.2 race
- 4.1 Drivers' Championship
- 4.2 Constructors' Championship
Reports
Background
For the sixth time in nine years changed the venue for the Grand Prix of France. The choice fell for the first time on the race track at Dijon -Prenois that did not meet the current Formula 1 standards due to their former length of only about 3.3 kilometers and due to their comparatively small paddock. The teams with a total of 30 registered cars had to come to terms with very limited space. Given the limited length of the route, the organizers decided on the advice of the FOCA, to limit the number of participants for the race on 22 vehicles. This decision made especially for the small privateer teams for displeasure, as they in the face of deprived of their chance in this case, eight guaranteed failing to qualifying pilots saw to participate in the race.
After his departure from Team Surtees Carlos Pace found a new position in the private John Goldie Racing team, where he piloted a second customer Brabham alongside John Watson.
Three French complemented the riders on their home Grand Prix, including the two debutants Jean -Pierre Jabouille, who rented the second car of the team Frank Williams Racing Cars this weekend, as well as José Dolhem, the free shipping by Carlos Pace's termination become Cockpit took over in Surtees factory team. The third Frenchman Gérard Larrousse, who sought his second GP participation after the Belgian Grand Prix with the underfunded privateer team Scuderia Finotto.
The Finnish driver Leo Kinnunen opportunity also came up again at the helm of a private Surtees.
Training
For the first and only time in the history of Formula 1, it was possible to achieve on a race track lap times of less than a minute. Twelve pilots achieved this during training. Consequently, the pole time of 0:58,79 with Niki Lauda is chronologically the shortest lap ever driven in Formula 1. With regard to the lap length, there have been, however, quite shorter routes where Formula 1 races were held and.
Ronnie Peterson took second place in the first row in the Lotus 72E. For a small sensation caused Tom Pryce, who qualified with a strong performance in the Shadow for third place. He shared the second row with Clay Regazzoni in the second Ferrari.
The third row was occupied by the two McLaren drivers Emerson Fittipaldi and Mike Hailwood. This was followed by Jody Scheckter and Carlos Reutemann and Patrick Depailler, who had to rely on the previous 006 after an accident with the current coaches of the type 007.
Race
While Reutemann a fast startup succeeded Pryce responded when dropping the starting flag too late. Reutemann overlooked this and crashed into the rear of the Shadow pilots, which he promoted the car in the lane by James Hunt, who could no longer avoid. Pryce and Hunt were thus involved exactly as two weeks before the Grand Prix of the Netherlands in the first round in a collision, which meant the end of the race for both. Reutemann retired on lap 24 due to consequential damages that resulted from this collision, also from.
Lauda was located at the top, meanwhile, before Peterson, Regazzoni, Hailwood and Scheckter, while Fittipaldi caught up rapidly and in the fifth round took sixth place by Jacky Ickx. Until the 15th round of the Brazilian finally managed to overtake also Hailwood and Scheckter.
In the 17th round the Peterson passed to date leading Lauda and procured within a few rounds a considerable lead. This was facilitated by the fact that the Austrians had to fight with vibrations. Regazzoni was relatively unchallenged in third. Although Fittipaldi took a long time to gradually, but retired on lap 28 due to engine damage from. This came Jacky Ickx and Denis Hulme in the points.
In the last 50 laps, the order of the first six pilots remained unchanged, although the finish both between Regazzoni and Scheckter and between Ickx and Hulme was ultimately very scarce.
Lauda took over by his second place the lead in the Drivers' World Championship. Regazzoni moved in this summary also to Fittipaldi into second place. In the Constructors' World Championship Ferrari overtook the hitherto leading McLaren team.
Message list
Classifications
Line-up
Race
WM stands after the race
The first six of the race were 9, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point (s).