1974 French Grand Prix

The 1974 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Dijon on July 7, 1974.

Race summary

To honor the 80th birthday of the ACF, a parade of vintage cars was organized with a selection of great drivers from the 20s and 30s up to the present day. The race itself was largely uneventful. Tom Pryce put in a superb performance to be 3rd on the grid behind Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda. However, he was slow off the start and was hit by Carlos Reutemann, and James Hunt was taken out in the subsequent accident. Lauda led convincingly from Peterson and Clay Regazzoni with Emerson Fittipaldi up to 4th by lap 15. Lauda dropped back with handling problems on lap 16 and was passed by Peterson who led to the flag from Regazzoni who came home 2nd despite vibration problems. He had been challenged strongly by Fittipaldi, but just as the Lotus driver was preparing to pass, his engine exploded, ending his race. Lauda held on to the final podium slot, less than a second ahead of Jody Scheckter.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus-Ford	80	1:21:55.02	2	9
2	12	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	80	+ 20.36	1	6
3	11	Clay Regazzoni	Ferrari	80	+ 27.84	4	4
4	3	Jody Scheckter	Tyrrell-Ford	80	+ 28.11	7	3
5	2	Jacky Ickx	Lotus-Ford	80	+ 37.54	13	2
6	6	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Ford	80	+ 38.14	11	1
7	33	Mike Hailwood	McLaren-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	6
8	4	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	9
9	20	Arturo Merzario	Iso Marlboro-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	15
10	14	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	BRM	79	+ 1 Lap	17
11	10	Vittorio Brambilla	March-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	16
12	17	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	12
13	26	Graham Hill	Lola-Ford	78	+ 2 Laps	21
14	37	François Migault	BRM	78	+ 2 Laps	22
15	27	Guy Edwards	Lola-Ford	77	+ 3 Laps	20
16	28	John Watson	Brabham-Ford	76	+ 4 Laps	14
Ret	5	Emerson Fittipaldi	McLaren-Ford	27	Engine	5
Ret	7	Carlos Reutemann	Brabham-Ford	24	Handling	8
Ret	19	Jochen Mass	Surtees-Ford	4	Clutch	18
Ret	16	Tom Pryce	Shadow-Ford	1	Collision	3
Ret	15	Henri Pescarolo	BRM	1	Clutch	19
Ret	24	James Hunt	Hesketh-Ford	0	Collision	10
DNQ	22	Vern Schuppan	Ensign-Ford
DNQ	8	Rikky von Opel	Brabham-Ford
DNQ	34	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Ford
DNQ	21	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	Iso Marlboro-Ford
DNQ	9	Hans Joachim Stuck	March-Ford
DNQ	18	José Dolhem	Surtees-Ford
DNQ	23	Leo Kinnunen	Surtees-Ford
DNQ	43	Gérard Larrousse	Brabham-Ford

Notes

• Pole position: Niki Lauda - 0:58.79
• Fastest lap: Jody Scheckter - 1:00.00 on lap 10
• This was the only World Championship GP in which lap times of less than one minute were set, by 12 drivers during qualifying: http://www.f1-facts.com/results/race/1974/91/classification (Archived 2009-08-06)
• Lauda's pole was the fastest lap in the Formula One's history

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Niki Lauda 36 2 Clay Regazzoni 32 3 Emerson Fittipaldi 31 4 Jody Scheckter 26 5 Ronnie Peterson 19

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 45 2 McLaren-Ford 43 (45) 3 Tyrrell-Ford 30 4 Lotus-Ford 22 5 Brabham-Ford 10

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 7 results from the first 8 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.

References

Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1974/480/. Retrieved 2007-06-15. 

Previous race: 1974 Dutch Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1974 season	Next race: 1974 British Grand Prix
Previous race: 1973 French Grand Prix	French Grand Prix	Next race: 1975 French Grand Prix

This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1974 French Grand Prix. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Autopedia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.