From the Archives - Race of Champions 1972

I attended my first Formula One race in March 1969; nowadays it is great to say that you saw a F1 race in the sixties, except that everyone thinks you are incredibly old! It was the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. In those days it was the European season opener for Formula One and took place after the South African Grand prix and the Tasman Series.  The F1 cars of the time were the high winged ones that were soon to disappear after the Spanish GP accidents.   Following the race in 1969 which was won by Jackie Stewart in a Matra from my boyhood hero, Graham Hill in his Lotus, I attended many Race of Champions.  I was back again in 1970 and remember getting the autographs of Graham Hill and George Eaton amongst others (now sadly lost with time).  As with all Brands Hatch regulars I also remember some of the great Race of Champions moments such as Peter Gethin beating all of the F1 stars in his F5000 Chevron in 1973 and Jacky Ickx driving around the outside of Niki Lauda to win in the wet in 1974.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a good camera in those days and rarely took photos at the events I attended.   I did, however, take a few paddock shots with a Kodak Instamatic at the 1972 Race of Champions which I share with you here.

The BRM team in the Brands Hatch paddock for the Race of Champions in 1972.   Tony Southgate, the designer of the BRM P160, can be seen at the back of the picture far left.   BRM entered a three car team for this event for Jean-Pierre Beltoise (51), Peter Gethin (52) and Howden Ganley (53).   This was the first event that I had seen the F1 cars race on slick tyres.

The 1972 season saw relatively little success for BRM but the late Jean-Pierre Beltoise did win in the wet at Monte Carlo to take BRM's fifth and last Monaco GP win.  This was the first year BRM were sponsored by Marlboro and I for one loved the shape and colour scheme of these cars.    From memory they sometimes entered as many as five cars at some races and used something like nine different drivers during the year!

The BRM P160 of Peter Gethin at the 1972 Race of Champions.  He was one of my favourite F1 drivers of the time and qualified second on the grid for this event and eventually finished fourth.  

Other teams entered for the 1972 Race of Champions included Yardley McLaren, Brooke Bond Oxo Rob Walker Surtees and Jean Player Team Lotus.   March, including another of my heros Ronnie Peterson, and the Rolf Stommelen Eiffelland were the other F1 teams entered.  This made about 12 F1 cars and the rest of the grid was made up of Formula 5000 cars for the first time.  Unlike the year after, the F5000 cars were very much making up the field in the 1972 race.  For the record, the top F5000 car was the Lola of Alan Rollinson who battled with Brian Redman in the McLaren.

The McLaren team working in the paddock at the 1972 Race of Champions.  The 56 car here is that of Peter Revson.  There was also a car for Denny Hulme.   In the background is the Surtees team and the car of Tim Schenken.  His team mate, Mike Hailwood (who I think is also in this picture but somewhat hidden) qualified third and finished second.  

It was great in those days to get so close to the cars, teams and drivers in the paddock.  I really, wish I had taken more pictures but photography was expensive for me in those days.

The race was won by Emerson Fittipaldi in the John Plater Lotus 72. He also took pole position and fastest lap.   It was the first of three times I was to see Emerson and his Lotus win at Brands Hatch that year as he also won the British GP and the Rothmans 50,000 Formula Libre race.   Whilst, Emerson was never one of my favourite drivers in the seventies, I remember his early career well as I saw him win in Formula Ford and Formula Three and I also saw him drive in Formula Two and on his F1 debut Brands in 1970.  Later when watching him on television in Indy Car, funnily enough, I became much more of a fan.

A few more memories of this meeting:

Whilst the F1 race was fairly routine there was a great British Group 2 saloon car race in which Frank Gardner's Camaro really had to fight for his victory from Dave Matthew's much smaller engined Broadspeed Ford Escort and Martin Thomas in another Chevrolet Camaro.

There was also a Formula Three race that a young Welshman called Tom Pryce won with some ease. Other future F1 drivers in this field included Bob Evans, Tony Trimmer, James Hunt, Roger Williamson, David Purley and Rikki Von Opel.   I was there at the Race of Champions again a few years later to see Tom win his only F1 race in the Tony Southgate designed 1975 Shadow.  Great memories!

I mentioned the F5000 cars earlier in the blog.  If like me you remember these wonderful cars, you may be interested in a book on them called La Formule 5000 Européenne 1969 - 1975 by Christian Navaux.   It contains a report and results on every race plus some great photos including many by my good friend Gareth Rees (who was certainly also at the 1972 Race of Champions meeting as one of his pictures is in the report on the Saturday F5000 race).  It is all written in French.  I would have thought they would get more sales if it was translated into English as most of the race took place in the UK. It is published by www.editions-palmier.com.

My first memories of F5000 are watching on television the first ever F5000 race at Oulton Park on Good Friday 1969 and then going along in person to Brands Hatch on 11th May 1969 to see Peter Gethin win both heats in his McLaren M10A-Chevrolet and loving the sound these big engined cars made.

If you have memories of the 1972 Race of Champions meeting please enter them in the comments box below.

If you are interested in motor racing from the sixties, you might want to visit my 1965 page.  Click on the 1965 button at the top of this page or click here on 1965.   During 2015 I will be adding a new post to this page each week.

Further of my "From the Archives" photos can be accessed by clicking on the From the Archives button at the top of this page or click here in Archives.

The photographer John Etherton asserts his copyright to the photographs on this blogpost.  However, you may publish them elsewhere on the web as long as you provide a link to this web page and credit the photographer and mention the name of this blog.