Italian GP 1970

Italian GP, 1970

When the F1 teams gathered at Monza the talking point was the performance of the new Tyrrell 001 which had taken the Grand Prix world by complete surprise when it was announced and had shown well in the non-championship Oulton Gold Cup a week after the Austrian GP. This convinced Ken Tyrrell to enter the car for Jackie Stewart at Monza. The team had Stewart's usual March with them as well and Stewart used this in practice on Friday. He did run the new car briefly but this suffered a variety of mechanical problems and Jackie settled for the March.

Ferrari had been dominant in Austria and once again Jacky Ickx was joined by Clay Regazzoni and Ignazio Giunti. On Friday Ickx was fastest. Practice saw Emerson Fittipaldi going off at the Parabolica, crashing over an earth bank in his first run in a Lotus 72. He ended up among the trees, fortunately without hitting any of them. On Saturday afternoon in the same place Jochen Rindt's Lotus darted suddenly left as he applied the brakes and crashed heavily into the barriers. The car was severely damaged and Rindt was taken to hospital but was dead on arrival. The accident stunned the F1 circus. Rindt was the third F1 star to die that year (after Bruce McLaren and Piers Courage). Team Lotus withdrew all its cars.

Qualifying was completed but no-one beat Ickx's time although Pedro Rodriguez did get his BRM to within two-tenths of the Ferrari and Regazzoni snatched third from Stewart's March. Giunti in the third Ferrari and Jackie Oliver in the second BRM shared the third row.

At the start Ickx took the lead but on the fourth lap he was overtaken by both Rodriguez and Stewart and as they battled for the lead they were joined by Regazzoni who managed to get ahead of both of them on the tenth lap. The order was changing with each lap as the leaders slipstreamed one another although the battle lost Rodriguez on lap 13 when his engine blew up. The battle for the lead continued with Stewart, Regazzoni and Oliver being joined by Ickx and it was Oliver who was the first to hold the lead for any length of time. Ickx retired with with clutch failure on lap 26 and Oliver soon fell back into the clutches of Stewart, Regazzoni and Denny Hulme. On lap 37 Oliver's engine failed him.

It was not until the closing laps that Regazzoni was finally able to get away from Stewart to win his first victory by six seconds with Jean-Pierre Beltoise's Matra emerging from the battles to finish third ahead of Hulme, Rolf Stommelen in a Brabham and Francois Cevert's Tyrrell March.

It had been a dramatic battle but there was little celebrating as the teams packed up and headed for home.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 4 Clay Regazzoni Ferrari 312B 68 1h39m06.880s  3 
2 18 Jackie Stewart March-Cosworth 701 68 1h39m12.610s  4 
3 40 Jean-Pierre Beltoise Matra Simca-Matra MS120 68 1h39m12.680s  14 
4 30 Denny Hulme McLaren-Cosworth M14A 68 1h39m13.030s  9 
5 46 Rolf Stommelen Brabham-Cosworth BT33 68 1h39m13.290s  17 
6 20 Francois Cevert March-Cosworth 701 68 1h40m10.340s  11 
7 48 Chris Amon March-Cosworth 701 67  18 
8 34 Andrea de Adamich McLaren-Alfa Romeo M14D 61  12 
nc 32 Peter Gethin McLaren-Cosworth M14A 60  16 
r 8 Jackie Oliver BRM P153 36 Engine 6 
r 52 Ronnie Peterson March-Cosworth 701 35 Engine 13 
r 44 Jack Brabham Brabham-Cosworth BT33 31 Engine/ Accident 8 
r 2 Jacky Ickx Ferrari 312B 25 Clutch 1 
r 12 George Eaton BRM P153 21 Overheating 20 
r 54 Tim Schenken De Tomaso-Cosworth 505 17 Engine 19 
r 42 Henri Pescarolo Matra Simca-Matra MS120 14 Engine 15 
r 6 Ignazio Giunti Ferrari 312B 14 Mechanical 5 
r 10 Pedro Rodriguez BRM P153 12 Engine 2 
r 50 Jo Siffert March-Cosworth 701 3 Engine 7 
r 14 John Surtees Surtees-Cosworth TS7 0 Electrics 10 
ns 22 Jochen Rindt Lotus-Cosworth 72C  Fatal Accident 21 
ns 28 Graham Hill Lotus-Cosworth 72C  Withdrew 22 
ns 24 John Miles Lotus-Cosworth 72C  Withdrew 23 
nq 38 Jo Bonnier McLaren-Cosworth M7C   24 
ns 26 Emerson Fittipaldi Lotus-Cosworth 72C  Withdrew 25 
nq 36 Giovanni Galli McLaren-Alfa Romeo M7D   26 
nq 56 Silvio Moser Bellasi-Cosworth    27