1977 Argentine Grand Prix

 1977 Argentine Grand Prix

Racing data
1st of 17 races of the 1977 automobile world championship
Surname:	XIII Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina
Date:	January 9, 1977
Place:	Buenos Aires
Course:	Autódromo Municipal Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Length:	316.304 km in 53 laps of 5.968 km
Weather:	sunny and hot
Spectator:	~ 60,000
Pole position
Driver:	James Hunt	McLaren
Time:	1: 48.68 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	James Hunt	McLaren
Time:	1: 51.06 min
Podium
First:	Jody Scheckter	wolf
Second:	Carlos Pace	Brabham
Third:	Carlos Reutemann	Ferrari

The 1977 Argentine Grand Prix took place on January 9th at the Autódromo Municipal Ciudad de Buenos Aires and was the first race of the 1977 Automobile World Championship .

Reports

background

Between the 1976 season finale in October and the then traditionally early start of the following season in January, there were some changes to the driver line-up. Of the well-known teams, only McLaren and Lotus retained the respective combinations from the previous year, consisting of the reigning world champion James Hunt and Jochen Mass in the case of Mclaren or Mario Andretti and Gunnar Nilsson at Lotus.

Carlos Reutemann , who had already contested the 1976 Italian Grand Prix for Scuderia Ferrari , has now received a permanent works driver contract instead of Clay Regazzoni alongside Vice World Champion Niki Lauda . Regazzoni then signed a contract with Ensign Racing .

Due to the fact that the Penske team decided against participating in the Formula 1 World Championship again, John Watson was looking for a new contract. He was then hired by Brabham as the second works driver alongside Carlos Pace . His predecessor at this point, Larry Perkins , then went to BRM. The team was planning a comeback after a year-long hiatus, but did not make it to the first race of the season. Tom Pryce's new teammate at Shadow was Renzo Zorzi .

Walter Wolf Racing competed for the first time as a completely independent team without any connection to the now defunct Frank Williams Racing Cars team. Thus, for the first time in the team's history, an own vehicle was used. It was the type Wolf WR1 , which was designed under the direction of Harvey Postlethwaite . Jody Scheckter was signed as the only works driver. His place at Tyrrell at the side of Patrick Depailler was taken by Ronnie Peterson , who in turn was replaced at March by Alex Ribeiro . By switching from Vittorio Brambilla to Surtees March even lost both factory riders. The void was closed by Ian Scheckter . Even John Surtees sat on a completely new driver line-up for his team by Hans Binder sat next Brambilla as a works driver under contract.

The Copersucar team returned to a two-car engagement consisting of Emerson Fittipaldi and Ingo Hoffmann . Jacques Laffite completed the field of participants in the Ligier .

training

Despite the existence of the successor of the M26 type since the previous year, McLaren continued to use the mature M23 . Although the basic design of this vehicle went back to the 1973 season , the car continued to prove competitive, which James Hunt proved by taking pole position. This was helped by the fact that most of the competition also started with vehicles that had already been in use for at least one season, such as John Watson, who qualified for second place on the grid with the Brabham BT45 . Patrick Depailler in a Tyrrell P34 and Niki Lauda in a Ferrari 312T2 also finished third and fourth in last year's vehicles.

Only in eighth place on the grid was there a new design , the Lotus 78 piloted by Mario Andretti . An incident occurred when the fire extinguisher on this car exploded during the morning race day warm-up, severely damaging the car. For the race, Andretti then took over the vehicle of his team-mate Gunnar Nilsson, who had qualified for tenth place on the grid, and who then had to forego the start.

Jody Scheckter qualified for eleventh place in the Wolf team's new car.

run

Watson had the best start, allowing him to take the lead from Hunt, Lauda, ​​Andretti, Mass, Reutemann, Pryce and Scheckter. Hunt took the lead on the eleventh lap, while Andretti moved past Lauda into third place. By lap 16, Lauda fell back to sixth behind Mass and Pace. During the first laps the Brazilian had moved up from ninth on the grid to fifth.

On the 21st lap, Mass passed Andretti into third place, but was retired shortly afterwards after a spin. Three laps later, his team-mate Hunt, who was in the lead, also retired due to a damage to the suspension. He left the two factory Brabham in the top position. Due to suspension problems, Watson let his team-mate Pace take the lead on lap 35. On lap 38, third placed Andretti was overtaken by Scheckter. Watson's retirement on lap 42 and increasing problems with the exhaust of Pace's car brought Scheckter to the top position on lap 48. Andretti also overtook the slowing pace, but retired on the third from last lap. So Pace finally reached second place ahead of Reutemann. Only five pilots reached the destination.

For the first time in Formula 1 history, Walter Wolf Racing, a new team with a new vehicle, was immediately victorious. A similar success was only achieved 32 years later by the Brawn GP team at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix . In both cases, however, it should be noted that the teams were previously represented in Formula 1 in a different constellation. In the case of Wolf, the collaboration with Williams preceded the 1976 season. The Brawn team emerged from the Honda factory team in March 2009 .

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Marlboro Team McLaren	1	James Hunt	McLaren M23	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
	2	Jochen Mass
Eleven Team Tyrrell	3	Ronnie Peterson	Tyrrell P34		G
	4th	Patrick Depailler
John Player Team Lotus	5	Mario Andretti	Lotus 78		G
	6th	Gunnar Nilsson
Martini Racing	7th	John Watson	Brabham BT45	Alfa Romeo 115-12 3.0 F12	G
	8th	Carlos Pace
Hollywood March Racing	9	Alex Ribeiro	March 761B	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
Team Rothmans International	10	Ian Scheckter
Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	11	Niki Lauda	Ferrari 312T2	Ferrari 015 3.0 F12	G
	12	Carlos Reutemann
Shadow Racing Team	16	Tom Pryce	Shadow DN8	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
	17th	Renzo Zorzi	Shadow DN5B
Durex Team Surtees	18th	Hans Binder	Surtees TS19		G
Beta Team Surtees	19th	Vittorio Brambilla
Walter Wolf Racing	20th	Jody Scheckter	Wolf WR1		G
Team Tissot Ensign with Castrol	22nd	Clay Regazzoni	Ensign N177		G
Ligier Gitanes	26th	Jacques Laffite	Ligier JS7	Matra MS76 3.0 V12	G
Copersucar-Fittipaldi	28	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar FD04	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
	29	Ingo Hoffmann

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	1: 48.68	197.689 km / h	01
02	John Watson	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	1: 48.96	197.181 km / h	02
03	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	1: 49.13	196.873 km / h	03
04th	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	1: 49.73	195.797 km / h	04th
05	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	1: 49.81	195.654 km / h	05
06th	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	1: 49.97	195.370 km / h	06th
07th	Carlos Reutemann	Ferrari	1: 50.02	195.281 km / h	07th
08th	Mario Andretti	Lotus Ford	1: 50.13	195.086 km / h	08th
09	Tom Pryce	Shadow Ford	1: 50.65	194.169 km / h	09
10	Gunnar Nilsson	Lotus Ford	1: 50.66	194.151 km / h	DNS
11	Jody Scheckter	Wolf-Ford	1: 50.76	193.976 km / h	10
12	Clay Regazzoni	Ensign-Ford	1: 50.97	193.609 km / h	11
13	Vittorio Brambilla	Surtees-Ford	1: 51.03	193.504 km / h	12
14th	Ronnie Peterson	Tyrrell-Ford	1: 51.34	192.966 km / h	13
15th	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	1: 51.52	192.654 km / h	14th
16	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar-Ford	1: 51.53	192.637 km / h	15th
17th	Ian Scheckter	March-Ford	1: 52.40	191.146 km / h	16
18th	Hans Binder	Surtees-Ford	1: 53.11	189.946 km / h	17th
19th	Ingo Hoffmann	Copersucar-Ford	1: 53.28	189.661 km / h	18th
20th	Alex Ribeiro	March-Ford	1: 53.54	189.227 km / h	19th
21st	Renzo Zorzi	Shadow Ford	1: 54.19	188.150 km / h	20th

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Jody Scheckter	Wolf-Ford	53	0	1: 40: 11.19	10	1: 52.10
02	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	53	0	+ 43.24	06th	1: 51.18
03	Carlos Reutemann	Ferrari	53	1	+ 46.02	07th	1: 51.18
04th	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar-Ford	53	0	+ 55.48	15th	1: 53.22
05	Mario Andretti	Lotus Ford	51	0	DNF	08th	1: 51.49	Wheel bearing damage
06th	Clay Regazzoni	Ensign-Ford	51	1	+ 2 rounds	11	1: 52.71
07th	Vittorio Brambilla	Surtees-Ford	48	0	DNF	12	1: 53.20	Lack of fuel
-	Ian Scheckter	March-Ford	45	0	DNF	16	1: 54.52	Electrical defect
-	Tom Pryce	Shadow Ford	45	1	NC	09	1: 51.69	Unrated
-	John Watson	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	41	0	DNF	02	1: 51.57	Suspension damage
-	Alex Ribeiro	March-Ford	39	0	DNF	19th	1: 56.29	broken shift linkage
-	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	37	3	NC	14th	1: 52.73	Unrated
-	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	32	0	DNF	03	1: 51.53	overheated engine
-	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	31	0	DNF	01	1: 51.06	Suspension damage
-	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	28	0	DNF	05	1: 51.45	Lathe operator
-	Ronnie Peterson	Tyrrell-Ford	28	0	DNF	13	1: 52.56	Lathe operator
-	Ingo Hoffmann	Copersucar-Ford	22nd	0	DNF	18th	1: 57.27	Engine failure
-	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	20th	0	DNF	04th	1: 52.02	Engine failure
-	Hans Binder	Surtees-Ford	18th	0	DNF	17th	1: 55.96	accident
-	Renzo Zorzi	Shadow Ford	02	0	DNF	20th	2: 00.73	Gearbox damage

World Cup stands after the race

The first six of the race got 9, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point (s) respectively.

Driver ranking

Item driver constructor Points 01  Jody Scheckter wolf 9 02  Carlos Pace Brabham 6th 03  Carlos Reutemann Ferrari 4th

Item driver constructor Points 04th  Emerson Fittipaldi Copersucar 3 05  Mario Andretti lotus 2 06th  Clay Regazzoni Ensign 1

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  wolf 9 02  Brabham 6th 03  Ferrari 4th

Item constructor Points 04th  Copersucar 3 05  lotus 2 06th  Ensign 1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Training"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Motorsportarchiv.de; accessed on May 17, 2012)  
2. ^ "Report" (accessed on May 17, 2012)
3. ↑ "World Cup stands"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Motorsportarchiv.de; accessed on May 17, 2012)  

Web links

• Race result on the official Formula 1 website