Monaco GP 1970

Monaco GP, 1970

A week after the Spanish GP Chris Amon gave March a win in the non-championship International Trophy at Silverstone, where Team Lotus wheeled out new 72s for Jochen Rindt and John Miles. There were two weeks before Monaco and in that time Lotus decided to stick with the old 49s. The field was much as before with the addition of a March for Antique Automobiles, being driven by F1 new boy Ronnie Peterson. Ferrari continued with only one car for Jacky Ickx.

Qualifying resulted in pole position going to Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell March), with Amon alongside him on the front row. Behind then came Denny Hulme (McLaren) and Jack Brabham (Brabham) with Ickx and Matra's Jean-Pierre Beltoise sharing the third row. Then came the second Matra driver Henri Pescarolo and Rindt, while Piers Courage shared the fifth row with Bruce McLaren's McLaren.

The weather was good on race day and Stewart took the lead at the start with Amon, Brabham, Ickx and Beltoise chasing him. In the course of the second lap Beltoise found a way past Ickx, but otherwise the top six remained unchanged until Ickx stopped on lap 12 with a driveshaft failure. Beltoise survived until lap 22 when he had a transmission failure. On the same lap Brabham scrambled past Amon to take second place. Five laps later Stewart's March began misfiring and he dropped away, leaving Brabham in the lead from Amon and Hulme. Things began to go wrong for the McLaren driver soon afterwards with his gears jumping out and so he slipped back behind Rindt and Jo Siffert (Walker Lotus). On lap 61 Amon stopped with a rear suspension failure and so Rindt inherited second place, nine seconds behind the leader Brabham. The Austrian increased his pace and the gap reduced when Brabham was baulked by Siffert. The two cars were nose to tail by the start of the last lap. At the last corner Brabham braked too late and slid into the straw bales, handing victory to Rindt. Brabham rejoined to take second while Pescarolo came home third.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 3 Jochen Rindt Lotus-Cosworth 49C 80 1h54m36.600s  8 
2 5 Jack Brabham Brabham-Cosworth BT33 80 1h54m59.700s  4 
3 9 Henri Pescarolo Matra Simca-Matra MS120 80 1h55m28.000s  7 
4 11 Denny Hulme McLaren-Cosworth M14A 80 1h56m04.900s  3 
5 1 Graham Hill Lotus-Cosworth 49C 79  16 
6 17 Pedro Rodriguez BRM P153 78  15 
7 23 Ronnie Peterson March-Cosworth 701 78  12 
8r 19 Jo Siffert March-Cosworth 701 76 Fuel Injection 11 
r 28 Chris Amon March-Cosworth 701 60 Suspension 2 
nc 24 Piers Courage De Tomaso-Cosworth 505 58  9 
r 21 Jackie Stewart March-Cosworth 701 57 Engine 1 
r 16 Jackie Oliver BRM P153 42 Engine 14 
r 8 Jean-Pierre Beltoise Matra Simca-Matra MS120 21 Transmission 6 
r 12 Bruce McLaren McLaren-Cosworth M14A 19 Suspension/ Accident 10 
r 14 John Surtees McLaren-Cosworth M7C 14 Engine 13 
r 26 Jacky Ickx Ferrari 312B 11 Mechanical 5 
nq 6 Rolf Stommelen Brabham-Cosworth BT33   17 
nq 10 Andrea de Adamich McLaren-Alfa Romeo M7D   18 
nq 20 Johnny Servoz-Gavin March-Cosworth 701   19 
nq 15 George Eaton BRM P153   20 
nq 2 John Miles Lotus-Cosworth 72   21