1978 Swedish Grand Prix

The 1978 Swedish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on June 17, 1978 at the Scandinavian Raceway; it was the eighth race of the 1978 Formula One season. It is the only race entered and won by the Brabham "fan car".

Race Summary

The 1978 Swedish GP will be remembered for just one thing: the race itself being rather uneventful, it was the winning car that created its own footnote in history by dominating the meeting, thus to great lengths contributing to its uneventfulness in the first place.

Responsible for this overwhelming coup was some clever thinking by Brabham's Gordon Murray, who was trying to eclipse Colin Chapman's ground effect invention on the Lotus 79, the skirted car that had swept the front row since its debut at Zolder. Center of the new Brabham BT46B concept was a large fan which drew air through the engine water radiator which was mounted horizontally over the engine. The fan also took ground effect to a higher level (at least engineering-wise) by sucking air from under the car, creating a partial vacuum and creating an enormous amount of downforce. The car appeared to contravene a rule which stated that moving aerodynamic devices were not allowed, but Brabham argued that the rules had been worded to ban devices whose primary function was aerodynamic. As the fan also cooled the engine, Brabham claimed that this, not aerodynamics, was its primary function.

Its legality was soon protested, but it was allowed to race, John Watson and Niki Lauda qualifying 2nd and 3rd behind the Lotus 79 of Mario Andretti (the two drivers did this as to not draw attention to the remarkable advantage that the fan would provide).

At the start Andretti retained the first place, while Lauda got ahead of Watson; on the second lap he was passed by a fast Riccardo Patrese in the Arrows, and on the third he was passed by the other Lotus of Ronnie Peterson too; the Swede also passed Patrese, but had later to back off due to a tyre puncture. The order then remained the same until lap 20, when Watson was forced to retire by a throttle problem.

At the front, Lauda and Andretti were battling for first place, until the American made an error and was forced to let the Austrian through, and eventually dropped out due to a broken valve on his engine. Once a back-marker dropped oil onto the track, the Brabham was in a race of its own, seemingly unaffected by the slippery surface. In Lauda's biography, To Hell And Back, he wrote that whilst other cars had to reduce speed to drive carefully over the oil, the Brabhams could simply accelerate (as the fan was activated by the gearbox to get around regulations, this meant that higher speed produced much higher grip) through the affected parts of the track. Lauda went on to win by 34.6 seconds, followed by Patrese and Peterson in a close finish; the remaining points went to Patrick Tambay, Clay Regazzoni and Emerson Fittipaldi.

After the race, the stewards deemed the car legal. Later, the FIA investigated the car, and corroborated Brabham's claim that the fan's primary effect was to cool the car, meeting the letter, if not the spirit, of the rules. The car was judged to have been legal as raced and the Brabham victory stood, but the Brabham 'fan car' never raced again. It is popularly thought that it was banned, but it was actually voluntarily withdrawn by Brabham. This was arguably done by team owner Bernie Ecclestone to avoid a conflict with the other privately owned teams whose support he needed. 1978 was the year that Ecclestone became chief executive of FOCA and led it through the FISA-FOCA war that would lead to the downfall of FISA and give FOCA the right to negotiate television contracts for the Grands Prix, effectively giving Ecclestone commercial control of Formula 1 which continues to this day.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Niki Lauda	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	70	1:41:00.606	3	9
2	35	Riccardo Patrese	Arrows-Ford	70	+34.019	5	6
3	6	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus-Ford	70	+34.105	4	4
4	8	Patrick Tambay	McLaren-Ford	69	+1 Lap	15	3
5	17	Clay Regazzoni	Shadow-Ford	69	+1 Lap	16	2
6	14	Emerson Fittipaldi	Fittipaldi-Ford	69	+1 Lap	13	1
7	26	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	69	+1 Lap	11
8	7	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	69	+1 Lap	14
9	12	Gilles Villeneuve	Ferrari	69	+1 Lap	7
10	11	Carlos Reutemann	Ferrari	69	+1 Lap	8
11	16	Hans Joachim Stuck	Shadow-Ford	68	+2 Laps	20
12	25	Hector Rebaque	Lotus-Ford	68	+2 Laps	21
13	9	Jochen Mass	ATS-Ford	68	+2 Laps	19
14	36	Rolf Stommelen	Arrows-Ford	67	+3 Laps	24
15	10	Keke Rosberg	ATS-Ford	63	+7 Laps	23
NC	37	Arturo Merzario	Merzario-Ford	62	+8 Laps	22
Ret	5	Mario Andretti	Lotus-Ford	46	Engine	1
Ret	27	Alan Jones	Williams-Ford	46	Wheel	9
Ret	4	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	42	Suspension	12
Ret	15	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	Renault	28	Engine	10
Ret	2	John Watson	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	19	Spun Off	2
Ret	20	Jody Scheckter	Wolf-Ford	16	Overheating	6
Ret	3	Didier Pironi	Tyrrell-Ford	8	Accident	17
Ret	19	Vittorio Brambilla	Surtees-Ford	7	Accident	18
DNQ	18	Rupert Keegan	Surtees-Ford
DNQ	30	Brett Lunger	McLaren-Ford
DNQ	22	Jacky Ickx	Ensign-Ford

Notes

• First Podium For: Riccardo Patrese.
• Lap Leaders: Mario Andretti 38 laps (1-38); Niki Lauda 32 laps (39-70).

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Mario Andretti 36 2 Ronnie Peterson 30 3 Niki Lauda 25 4 Patrick Depailler 23 5 Carlos Reutemann 22

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Lotus-Ford 49 2 Brabham-Alfa Romeo 31 3 Tyrrell-Ford 25 4 Ferrari 22 5 Ligier-Matra 10

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

• Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1978/416/. Retrieved 2007-12-04. 

Previous race: 1978 Spanish Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1978 season	Next race: 1978 French Grand Prix
Previous race: 1977 Swedish Grand Prix	Swedish Grand Prix	Next race: none

This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1978 Swedish 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.