1972 United States Grand Prix

Summary

Jackie Stewart, having just lost his World Champion's crown to Emerson Fittipaldi, asserted his intentions to get it back, as he dominated the entire weekend with pole, win and fastest lap and completed a sweep of the North American races. It was the twenty-second victory of the Scot's career, and his fourth in 1972. Teammate François Cevert completed the one-two finish for Tyrrell, five seconds ahead of Denny Hulme's McLaren.

The then-staggering amount of $275,000 in prize money attracted 31 entries for the last race of the year. Rain and cold winds harried the drivers in qualifying, and Friday's times determined the grid. Stewart took the pole with a time of 1:40.481, ahead of the McLarens of American Peter Revson and Hulme. A third McLaren, driven by South African Jody Scheckter in his F1 debut, was eighth.

Sunday began bright and sunny, but by the time the cars assembled on the grid, the skies were threatening rain. Stewart jumped quickly off the grid and immediately began to pull away from the rest of the field. Mario Andretti charged from his tenth place grid position up the inside of the first corner in his Ferrari, and banged wheels with Carlos Reutemann's Brabham and Revson's McLaren. Andretti continued, to the delight of the crowd, now in seventh behind the Ferraris of Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni. Reutemann followed in eighth with a broken nose, while Revson pitted at the end of the lap to have his front wing straightened.

With Fittipaldi out and Reutemann forced to stop for a new nose cone, the second Tyrrell of François Cevert was now in third and closing on Hulme. Scheckter was comfortably ahead of Ickx, but the Belgian was quickly being caught by Ronnie Peterson. On Saturday, in the rain, Peterson had crashed his March heavily, and the mechanics initially said that it was unrepairable. They decided to attempt to rebuild it in time for the race, and after starting in 26th position, Peterson was now the most impressive driver on the track, apart from race-leader Stewart.

At about half-distance, Cevert got by Hulme for second place, and Peterson passed Ickx for fifth. On lap 40, a brief shower suddenly soaked Turn one. Scheckter, running marvellously in fourth place, was caught out by the slippery surface in the downhill, 90-degree right-hander and spun his McLaren up onto the bank. Ickx, in the meantime, repassed Peterson to take the position vacated by Scheckter. Andretti had been struggling with the performance of his tires, but now found them better on the wet track and increased his pace.

Revson had passed both Andretti and Mike Hailwood on consecutive laps for sixth place, but with five laps remaining, an ignition wire parted and his brilliant drive ended. When Hailwood was unable to avoid the spinning Marches of Mike Beuttler and Niki Lauda just three laps from the flag, Andretti inherited sixth place and the final point.

After the finish, the two leading Tyrrells, plus Patrick Depailler's seventh place sister car, entered the pit lane together in a show of strength, having earned team owner Ken Tyrrell a then-record reward of $97,500.

Classification

Qualifying

• – Surtees vacated his seat for Tim Schenken prior to the race.

Race

Notes

• This was the Formula One World Championship debut for South African driver and future World Champion Jody Scheckter.

Final Championship standings

;Drivers' Championship standings

;Constructors' Championship standings

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 5 results from the first 6 rounds and the best 5 results from the last 6 rounds counted towards the Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.
• Bold text indicates the 1972 World Champions.

References

References

1. "Formula One 1972 United States Grand Prix Classification | Motorsport Stats".
2. "1972 United States Grand Prix". formula1.com.
3. "United States 1972 - Championship • STATS F1".