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Fangio chose to switch teams again, joining Maserati before the start of the season. The decision to switch proved to be a masterstroke, with Ferrari's line-up of Peter Collins, Eugenio Castellotti and the returning Mike Hawthorn failing to win a race. Castellotti and Alfonso de Portago were killed in action, making this a truly disastrous year for Ferrari.
The man Fangio replaced at Maserati, Stirling Moss, moved to Vanwall, a team beginning to fulfill their promise. Between them Fangio and Moss won every Grand Prix of the season, Fangio taking four victories to Moss' three. Fangio's drive at the Nürburgring, where he overtook Collins and Hawthorn on the penultimate lap after a pit stop had put him nearly a minute behind, was a classic.
At the end of the year it was announced Fangio would not return for another season. Maserati also pulled out, citing financial reasons. This was also the final year in which points were awarded for shared drives.
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1970 was the year of transition in Grand Prix racing; the season that pitched the old guard against a feisty new breed of racers intent on pushing Formula One forward into the new decade. Nothing symbolised this battle more than the cars used by the top contenders: Jackie Ickx's Ferrari 312B relied on brute force to compensate for its outdated styling, wheras Jochen Rindt's Lotus 72 showed that radical aerodynamics represented a brave and (potentially) faster way forward.
This was the year of the Stewart-Tyrrell double act. But it wasn't as clear cut at the start of the season. Ferari was still the team to beat, and the brute force of the V12 engined threatened to destroy everything in its wake. It was the addition of Stewart and Tyrrell into the Championship that challenged the balance of power. It made for an epic season that pitted mehcnical muscle against driving skill.
About the same size @ 52 minutes
Same size...click photoIt was 1972 and all eyes were on the defending champion Jackie Stewart and expectations were high that he would repeat the total domination of the previous year.
He made his intentions clear with an emphatic win in the 1st GP – cruising home half a minute ahead of the chasing pack. However, there was another driver intent on stealing his crown: Emerson Fittipaldi, a whirlwind of talent and youthful arrogance in his iconic black and gold Lotus 72.
And it turned out to be a thrilling season of on-the-limit action that climaxed at Monza – Fittipaldi’s spiritual home. Stewart’s broken clutch put him out of the race, ensuring Fittipaldi’s place in the record books: at just 25 years of age, ‘Emmo’ became the youngest-ever World Champion.
The action wasn’t confined to the track. The season was full of behind-the-scenes politics, pit-lane rivalry, tyre-wars and battles for aerodynamic supremacy. The superb pit-lane footage and driver interviews featured in this review get right to the source of the intrigue.
A great story of the '74 Driver's Championship; Fittipaldi establishes an early lead, but with Lauda winning his first race - he was close behind and chasing. The Ferraris however suffered from reliability issues and though they started well, they struggled to even finish. Towards the end of the season the championship was wide open and several drivers were in contention to steal it from leader Fittipaldi. Ultimately though Fittipaldi held on and won it - a milestone for his new team McLaren.
