| 1970 United States Grand Prix | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Race details | |||
| Date | October 4, 1970 | ||
| Official name | XIII United States Grand Prix | ||
| Location | Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course Watkins Glen, New York | ||
| Course | Permanent road course | ||
| Course length | 3.78 km (2.35 miles) | ||
| Distance | 108 laps, 408.2 km (253.8 miles) | ||
| Weather | Cloudy and dry with temperatures reaching up to 10 °C (50 °F); Wind speeds up to 29.5 km/h (18.3 mph)[1] | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 1:03.07 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |  Jacky Ickx | Ferrari | |
| Time | 1:02.74 on lap 105 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Lotus-Ford | ||
| Second | BRM | ||
| Third | Lotus-Ford | ||
Lap leaders | |||
The1970 United States Grand Prix was aFormula One motor race held on October 4, 1970 at theWatkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course inWatkins Glen, New York. It was race 12 of 13 in both the1970 World Championship of Drivers and the1970 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers.[2]
The 108-lap race was won byEmerson Fittipaldi, driving aLotus-Ford, after he started from third position. Fittipaldi achieved his first Formula One victory, and the first for a Brazilian driver, in only his fourth Grand Prix start. Mexican driverPedro Rodríguez finished second in aBRM, having led before a late pit stop for fuel, while Fittipaldi's Swedish team-mateReine Wisell, making his F1 debut, finished third, which would turn out to be his only podium finish.
Belgian driverJacky Ickx finished fourth in hisFerrari, having started frompole position before pitting to repair a broken fuel line. This result meant thatJochen Rindt became the first and, to date, only posthumous Formula One World Champion.
This would be the final Grand Prix for the circuit in this original fast configuration. 1971 would see a new longer layout presenting more of a challenge.
TheFerrari ofJacky Ickx was fastest in the initial practice session on Friday with a time of 1:03.07, but expectations were high for theTyrrell 001 ofJackie Stewart, which had led the first 31 laps in its first outing in the previous race in Canada until axle failure ended its charge. The final session on Saturday was marred by a downpour that left only fifteen minutes of dry track time, and it was not enough for Stewart to knock Ickx off the pole.Emerson Fittipaldi, who spent the first half of the season in EuropeanFormula Two, was just five hundredths behind Stewart in third.
On Sunday, with a crowd exceeding 100,000 for the second straight year,[citation needed] black clouds and a shower 20 minutes prior to the race caused a lot of excitement among the crews on the grid, as many teams changed to rain tires and back again.[citation needed] By the start, however, all butClay Regazzoni andDerek Bell had reverted to slicks. Stewart took the lead off the grid, ahead ofPedro Rodríguez, as Fittipaldi dropped to eighth behind Ickx, Regazzoni,Chris Amon,John Surtees andJackie Oliver.
By lap 17, the Ferraris of Ickx and Regazzoni had passed Rodríguez, but by that time, Stewart's lead was nearly twenty seconds.Graham Hill, in a privately enteredLotus 72, came into the pits on lap 30 with fuel leaking into the cockpit,[citation needed] as a fitting had come loose under the seat. The team took 10 minutes to fix the leak, threw some water on Hill, whose overalls were soaked in fuel, and sent him back out. Several laps later, Hill returned to request they find him some dry overalls, as the gasoline was burning his skin. When he stopped again to change clothes, the team said they had not been able to locate any new ones. Hill, however, sawJohn Surtees, who had retired on the seventh lap, sitting on the wall, and borrowed his overalls and undergarments. The two former World Champions were naked in the pits as Hill was doused with water before donning Surtees' clean clothes and returning to the track,[citation needed] only to retire on lap 72 with a broken clutch.
At half-distance, Stewart was nearly half a lap ahead of Ickx, with Rodríguez in third and Fittipaldi about to be lapped in fourth. Ickx suddenly pitted on lap 57 to repair a broken fuel line, and he rejoined in twelfth place. He fought his way back up to fourth, setting the race's fastest lap three laps from the finish. Ickx had needed to win to have a chance of overtakingJochen Rindt in the Championship; his fourth-place finish meant that Rindt became the first posthumous Formula One World Champion.
On lap 76, with a one-minute cushion, Stewart's Tyrrell began trailing smoke from its left-hand exhaust pipe. The smoke slowly grew worse, and Rodríguez tore into Stewart's lead, taking off five seconds a lap, while theLotus teammates unlapped themselves. On lap 83, with its oil gone, theCosworth engine in the Tyrrell seized, leaving Rodríguez with an 18.8 second lead over Fittipaldi, who led team-mateReine Wisell by another 46 seconds.
At the end of the 100th lap, Rodríguez coasted into the pit lane having run out of fuel.BRM refueled the car, but Rodríguez had lost 38 seconds to Fittipaldi, who took the lead. Rodríguez rejoined ahead of the second Lotus of Wisell.
Fittipaldi recalled later, "I took the lead and, going over the finish line, I saw for the first timeColin [Chapman] jumping and throwing his hat, something I'd seen him do forJim Clark and Graham Hill and Jochen, and I kept saying to myself, 'He's doing that for me. I won the race. I won the US Grand Prix!' It was unbelievable."
His victory was the seventh American win for Lotus, and it clinched the Drivers' Championship for the team's dead leader, Jochen Rindt, and the Constructors' Championship for Lotus and Colin Chapman.[3]
This was the final Grand Prix to be held on the 2.35-mile (3.78 km) layout of the track, in use since 1956.Watkins Glen underwent extensive renovation over the course of 1971, including the lengthening of the track to 3.377 miles (5.435 km) in time forthat year's Grand Prix, with an interim layout adopted for theSix Hours sports car race beforehand.
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| Previous race: 1970 Canadian Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 1970 season | Next race: 1970 Mexican Grand Prix |
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