1975 German Grand Prix

The 1975 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Nürburgring on August 3, 1975. It was the 37th German Grand Prix and the 34th to be held at the Nürburgring. The race was held over 14 laps of the 22 kilometre circuit for a race distance of 319 kilometres.

The race was won by Argentinian driver Carlos Reutemann driving a Brabham BT44B his first win of the season. Reutemann won by 1 minute and 37 seconds over the Williams FW04 of French driver Jacques Laffite. It was a stunning result for Laffite, his first point scoring finish in Formula One. It was also the peak result for Frank Williams Racing Cars, the first Formula One team run by British team principal, Frank Williams. While it was the team's second podium result, it was the first and only podium they would achieve in one of their own cars, having previously achieved a second at the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix with a customer Brabham. 46 seconds further back in third position was world championship points leader, Niki Lauda driving a Ferrari 312T.

With Emerson Fittipaldi's McLaren M23 retiring with suspension damage, Lauda was able to expand his points lead to 17 points with Reutemann moving back into second place.

Report
The pole position time set by Niki Lauda (6:58.6) was the fastest officially timed lap ever on that track configuration, though it was not eligible as lap record as it did not occur during the race. In qualifying, Ian Ashley had an accident at Pflanzgarten and suffered serious ankle injuries. Additional Armco and other safety measures were added to the track at the drivers' demands.

At the start, Lauda took the lead from pole with Carlos Pace, Patrick Depailler, Emerson Fittipaldi, Clay Regazzoni and Carlos Reutemann who made a lighting start from 10th. And at the end of the first lap, the order was Lauda, Depailler, Pace, Reutemann and Regazzoni. Fittipaldi had a puncture and retired on lap 2.

Jody Scheckter had a terrible start, dropped to 20th and began a charge that brought him back up to sixth by lap 7. He crashed at Wippermann on that lap.

While chasing Lauda for the lead for more than half the race, Patrick Depailler's suspension broke and lost 1 lap. When he rejoined, he concincidentally reappeared in front of Lauda. Depailler's pit stop left Ferraris 1–2 but Regazzoni's engine soon failed and Carlos Reutemann took 2nd. After leading much of the race, Lauda had a tyre failure on lap 10 and lost a lot of time on his pursuers. Because of the rather slow pit work (compared to modern pit stops), this allowed Reutemann (who took the lead and passed Lauda coming out of the Eiskurve and into Pflanzgarten), James Hunt, Tom Pryce, and Jacques Laffite to pass Lauda while his Ferrari was disabled. Lauda came out in 5th place with a damaged front spoiler (which affected his handling), and he was able to climb to 3rd after Hunt's Hesketh suffered a hub failure and Pryce had fuel leaking into his cockpit which meant he could not drive at the full pace. Many drivers had tyre problems in the race because of very hot weather conditions.

Clay Regazzoni set the fastest lap of the race at 7:06.4 on lap 7. This remains the lap record on that track configuration which existed until 1982.

Lap leaders

 * Lap leaders: Niki Lauda (1–9), Carlos Reutemann (10–14)

Standings after the race

 * Drivers' Championship standings


 * Constructors' Championship standings


 * Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 6 results from the first 7 races and the best 6 results from the last 7 races counted towards the Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.