French GP 1970

French GP, 1970

There had been talk of holding the French Grand Prix at Albi but the locals were unable to raise the money and so the race went back to the Charade circuit, outside Clermont-Ferrand, for the second year running. Entries were restricted to 20 and with 23 cars arriving there were going to be disappointments. The entry was virtually as it had been three weeks earlier at Zandvoort where Piers Courage had been killed. Frank Williams did not make the trip to France and John Surtees was missing as well, preparing to debut his all-new F1 car. Denny Hulme was back in action, having recovered from the burns to his hands at Indianapolis while Ferrari ran Ignazio Giunti again in the second car.

Jochen Rindt had never liked the track - its undulations made him physically sick - and he liked even less after he was hit in the face by a stone in practice. Despite this he qualified the Lotus 72 in sixth position on the grid. Pole went to Jacky Ickx's Ferrari with Jean-Pierre Beltoise (the crowd favorite) second in his Matra. The second row featured the factory March of Chris Amon and Jackie Stewart's similar car being run by Ken Tyrrell. Then came Jack Brabham and Rindt and behind them Hulme's McLaren and Henri Pescarolo in the second Matra.

At the start Ickx went into the lead although he knew that his engine may fail after problems in the warming up session before the race. For the first 14 laps he led the race with Beltoise behind him. There was then quite a gap back to Stewart although he soon disappeared to the pits with ignition problems and third place was handed to Amon. He soon slipped behind Rindt and the order settled down. On lap 15 Ickx's race was run., his engine failing and so Beltoise took the lead and stayed there until lap 26 when he suffered a slow puncture . Rindt caught and overtook him and eventually Beltoise headed for the pits. Amon followed Rindt home with Brabham just third a few tenths ahead of Hulme.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Jochen Rindt Lotus-Cosworth 72C 38 1h55m57.000s  
14 Chris Amon March-Cosworth 701 38 1h56m04.610s  
23 Jack Brabham Brabham-Cosworth BT33 38 1h56m41.830s  
19 Denny Hulme McLaren-Cosworth M14D 38 1h56m42.660s  
20 Henri Pescarolo Matra Simca-Matra MS120 38 1h57m16.420s  
17 Dan Gurney McLaren-Cosworth M14A 38 1h57m16.650s  17 
22 Rolf Stommelen Brabham-Cosworth BT33 38 1h58m17.160s  14 
John Miles Lotus-Cosworth 72B 38 1h58m44.170s  18 
Jackie Stewart March-Cosworth 701 38 1h59m06.610s  
10 Graham Hill Lotus-Cosworth 49C 37  20 
11 Francois Cevert March-Cosworth 701 37  13 
12 George Eaton BRM P153 36  19 
13r 21 Jean-Pierre Beltoise Matra Simca-Matra MS120 35 Fuel Pressure 
14 11 Ignazio Giunti Ferrari 312B 35  11 
nc 16 Andrea de Adamich McLaren-Alfa Romeo M7D 29  15 
12 Jo Siffert March-Cosworth 701 23 Accident 16 
18 Ronnie Peterson March-Cosworth 701 17 Transmission 
10 Jacky Ickx Ferrari 312B 16 Engine 
Pedro Rodriguez BRM P153 Gearbox 10 
Jackie Oliver BRM P153 Mechanical 12 
nq 24 Silvio Moser Bellasi-Cosworth    21 
nq Alex Soler-Roig Lotus-Cosworth 49C   22 
nq 35 Peter Lovely Lotus-Cosworth 49B   23