1975 French Grand Prix

  1975 French Grand Prix

Race details
Race 9 of 14 in the 1975 Formula One season
Date	July 6, 1975
Location	Paul Ricard Circuit
Course	Permanent racing facility 5.809 km (3.61 mi)
Distance	54 laps, 313.686 km (194.94 mi)
Weather	Dry and sunny
Pole position
Driver	Niki Lauda	Ferrari
Time	1:47.82
Fastest lap
Driver	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford
Time	1:50.60 on lap 38
Podium
First	Niki Lauda	Ferrari
Second	James Hunt	Hesketh-Ford
Third	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford

The 1975 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Paul Ricard on July 6, 1975. It was the 53rd French Grand Prix and the third time the race was held at Paul Ricard. The race was held over 54 laps of the five kilometre circuit for a race distance of 313 kilometres.

The race was won by world championship points leader, Austrian driver Niki Lauda driving a Ferrari 312T. Lauda won the race in dramatic fashion in a late race dogfight with British driver James Hunt in his Hesketh 308 while West German driver Jochen Mass closed rapidly on the fighting pair in his McLaren M23. It was Lauda's fourth win for the season, giving him a 22 point lead in the points over Brabham driver Carlos Reutemann.

Race summary

Niki Lauda was suffering from flu and was definitely not on top form. Jean-Pierre Jarier brought a smile to French faces by setting Friday's quickest time. Jody Scheckter driving the new lightweight Tyrrell 007 set a record through the speed trap of 190 mph.

On the start line, Tom Pryce was left without a clutch and retired shortly afterwards. Lauda led from Scheckter, James Hunt and Jochen Mass. Clay Regazzoni had promoted himself to a fantastic second place before his engine exploded, Scheckter taking over the position before Hunt passed him on lap eight. Lauda and Hunt maintained first and second whilst Scheckter, struggling with near-catastrophic handling had to concede to Mass and Emerson Fittipaldi.

Jarier made a superb pass on him and made a brave bid to catch Fittipaldi, but rev-limiter problems caused him to fall back with erratic power. Mario Andretti and Patrick Depailler were performing brilliantly, advancing from eleventh to fifth and 19th to sixth respectively.

Alan Jones was dueling with Ronnie Peterson and Carlos Reutemann when he spun into the catch fencing. Reutemann suffered from tyre problems and lost a lap, whilst John Watson suffered excess power and took to the escape road. Vittorio Brambilla retired with a damper problem, Wilson Fittipaldi blew his engine, Jacky Ickx, Mark Donohue and Carlos Pace broke driveshafts. Jochen Mass was in rapid pursuit of James Hunt and Niki Lauda – by the last lap he was only 2.4 seconds behind them. However, a superb lapping manoeuvre gave Hunt the space he needed. On the last corner, Lauda slid offline, but caught the car superbly to take the win by less than two seconds.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	12	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	54	1:40:18.84	1	9
2	24	James Hunt	Hesketh-Ford	54	+ 1.59	3	6
3	2	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	54	+ 2.31	7	4
4	1	Emerson Fittipaldi	McLaren-Ford	54	+ 39.77	10	3
5	27	Mario Andretti	Parnelli-Ford	54	+ 1:02.08	15	2
6	4	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	54	+ 1:07.40	13	1
7	23	Tony Brise	Hill-Ford	54	+ 1:09.61	12
8	17	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow-Ford	54	+ 1:19.78	4
9	3	Jody Scheckter	Tyrrell-Ford	54	+ 1:31.68	2
10	5	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus-Ford	54	+ 1:36.02	17
11	21	Jacques Laffite	Williams-Ford	54	+ 1:36.77	16
12	15	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	Tyrrell-Ford	54	+ 1:37.13	21
13	18	John Watson	Surtees-Ford	53	+ 1 Lap	14
14	7	Carlos Reutemann	Brabham-Ford	53	+ 1 Lap	11
15	31	Gijs Van Lennep	Ensign-Ford	53	+ 1 Lap	22
16	22	Alan Jones	Hill-Ford	53	+ 1 Lap	20
17	14	Bob Evans	BRM	52	+ 2 Laps	25
18	10	Lella Lombardi	March-Ford	50	+ 4 Laps	26
Ret	8	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Ford	26	Transmission	5
Ret	6	Jacky Ickx	Lotus-Ford	17	Brakes	19
Ret	30	Wilson Fittipaldi	Fittipaldi-Ford	14	Engine	23
Ret	9	Vittorio Brambilla	March-Ford	6	Chassis	8
Ret	11	Clay Regazzoni	Ferrari	6	Engine	9
Ret	28	Mark Donohue	Penske-Ford	6	Transmission	18
Ret	16	Tom Pryce	Shadow-Ford	2	Transmission	6
DNS	20	François Migault	Williams-Ford	0	Non Starter	24

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Niki Lauda 47 2 Carlos Reutemann 25 3 Emerson Fittipaldi 24 4 James Hunt 22 5 Carlos Pace 18

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 50 2 Brabham-Ford 36 (38) 3 McLaren-Ford 30.5 4 Hesketh-Ford 22 5 Tyrrell-Ford 20

• 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.

References

Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1975/466/. Retrieved 2007-06-15. 

Previous race: 1975 Dutch Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1975 season	Next race: 1975 British Grand Prix
Previous race: 1974 French Grand Prix	French Grand Prix	Next race: 1976 French Grand Prix

This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1975 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.