1976 Brazilian Grand Prix

 1976 Brazilian Grand Prix

Racing data
1st of 16 races of the 1976 Automobile World Championship
Surname:	V Grande Prêmio do Brasil
Date:	January 25, 1976
Place:	São Paulo
Course:	Interlagos
Length:	318.4 km in 40 laps of 7.96 km
Weather:	sunny and hot
Pole position
Driver:	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford
Time:	2: 32.50 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow Ford
Time:	2: 35.07 min
Podium
First:	Niki Lauda	Ferrari
Second:	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford
Third:	Tom Pryce	Shadow Ford

The 1976 Brazilian Grand Prix took place in São Paulo on January 25th and was the first race of the 1976 World Automobile Championship .

Reports

background

At the end of November 1975 there was a plane crash in which, in addition to Graham Hill , Tony Brise , the regular driver of the team led by Hill, was also killed. This also meant the end of the Embassy Hill team .

One of the biggest surprises in the run-up to the 1976 season was the announcement by two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi that he would not be extending his contract with the established McLaren team and instead would join the previously unsuccessful Copersucar team of his brother Wilson Fittipaldi . The position that this freed up in the top McLaren team then occupied team boss Teddy Mayer with James Hunt , who was looking for a new contract as a regular driver due to the Hesketh team's greatly reduced commitment for financial reasons and thus became a team mate of Jochen Mass .

The Shadow team was also in financial difficulties before the start of the season , as its main sponsor had withdrawn. Frank Williams , on the other hand, found a reliable financier for his team in Walter Wolf after several years of underfunding . Jacky Ickx was then signed as a regular driver. The regular driver of the previous year, Jacques Laffite , meanwhile signed with Team Ligier , which his compatriot Guy Ligier had brought into being.

The Lotus team started the new season with Ronnie Peterson and Mario Andretti . High hopes rested on the new Type 77 car , which now finally replaced the now completely outdated Type 72 .

The Ferrari and Tyrrell teams kept their respective driver pairings from the previous year and decided not to use a new car at the start of the season. At Brabham, on the other hand, they had developed a completely new vehicle with the BT45 and also decided to compete with 12-cylinder engines from Alfa Romeo . Chief developer Gordon Murray hoped that the flat shape of the engine could achieve similar aerodynamic advantages as attributed to the Ferrari 312T , which had been the best car in the field in the previous season. The driver line-up from the previous year was initially retained at Brabham, as well as at March , Shadow and Penske .

Ian Ashley started for the BRM factory team and the only newcomer was the local Ingo Hoffmann as the second driver for the Copersucar team at the start of the season .

training

The gaps between the lap times of the 22 participants in the training were largely short, so the fight for pole position turned out to be exciting. In the end, James Hunt secured the best starting position for the first time by undercutting Niki Lauda's fastest lap time by just two hundredths of a second. Jean-Pierre Jarier and Clay Regazzoni formed the second row ahead of Emerson Fittipaldi, who showed a very good training performance with the actually inferior Copersucar. Alongside him, Jochen Mass qualified for the third row ahead of Vittorio Brambilla , John Watson , Patrick Depailler and Carlos Pace .

The training debut of the Ligier JS5 , with which Jacques Laffite secured eleventh place on the grid, was also very promising , while the two Lotus drivers with places 16 and 18 fell well short of expectations.

run

Regazzoni succeeded best in the start, which was enabled by a set of traffic lights instead of the flag that was mostly used to date. He took the lead in front of Lauda, ​​Hunt, Brambilla, Jarier, Mass, Watson and the badly started Fittipaldi.

In the course of the first laps, Mass, Watson and Fittipaldi lost contact with the leading group, while Pryce took sixth place and thus, together with Jarier, who overtook Brambilla, demonstrated the unbroken competitiveness of last year's Shadow.

On the ninth lap, Lauda took over the top position from Regazzoni. Hunt and Jarier also overtook the Swiss. In the course of this, the vehicles came into light contact, which made it necessary for Regazzoni to stop repairs. When Brambilla retired because of a problem with the oil pressure, Hans-Joachim Stuck came in sixth and thus in the points.

The order remained constant over the next twelve laps, although Jarier tried hard to overtake Hunt. He finally fell back due to technical problems and was eliminated after 33 laps. In the following lap Jarier ran into oil, which Hunt's car had lost, and spun out. The same thing almost happened to his team-mate Pryce, but he was able to stay on the track and only lost second place to Depailler. In the end, Stuck was fourth ahead of Jody Scheckter and Jochen Mass, who had been in 19th place due to a bad start in the third lap.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	1	Niki Lauda	Ferrari 312T	Ferrari 015 3.0 F12	G
	2	Clay Regazzoni
Eleven Team Tyrrell	3	Jody Scheckter	Tyrrell 007	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
	4th	Patrick Depailler
John Player Team Lotus	5	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus 77		G
	6th	Mario Andretti
Martini Racing	7th	Carlos Reutemann	Brabham BT45	Alfa Romeo 115-12 3.0 F12	G
	8th	Carlos Pace
Beta Team March	9	Vittorio Brambilla	March 761	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
Lavazza March	10	Lella Lombardi			G
March engineering	34	Hans-Joachim Stuck			G
Marlboro Team McLaren	11	James Hunt	McLaren M23		G
	12	Jochen Mass
Stanley BRM	14th	Ian Ashley	BRM P201B	BRM P200 3.0 V12	G
Shadow Racing Team	16	Tom Pryce	Shadow DN5B	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
	17th	Jean-Pierre Jarier
Frank Williams Racing Cars	20th	Jacky Ickx	Williams FW05		G
	21st	Renzo Zorzi	Williams FW04
Ligier Gitanes	26th	Jacques Laffite	Ligier JS5	Matra MS73 3.0 V12	G
Citibank Team Penske	28	John Watson	Penske PC3	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	G
Copersucar-Fittipaldi	30th	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar FD04		G
	31	Ingo Hoffmann	Copersucar FD03

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	2: 32.50	187.908 km / h	01
02	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	2: 32.52	187.884 km / h	02
03	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow Ford	2: 32.66	187.711 km / h	03
04th	Clay Regazzoni	Ferrari	2: 33.17	187.086 km / h	04th
05	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar-Ford	2: 33.33	186.891 km / h	05
06th	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	2: 33.59	186.575 km / h	06th
07th	Vittorio Brambilla	March-Ford	2: 33.63	186.526 km / h	07th
08th	John Watson	Penske-Ford	2: 33.87	186.235 km / h	08th
09	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	2: 34.49	185.488 km / h	09
10	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	2: 34.54	185.428 km / h	10
11	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	2: 34.67	185.272 km / h	11
12	Tom Pryce	Shadow Ford	2: 34.84	185.068 km / h	12
13	Jody Scheckter	Tyrrell-Ford	2: 35.02	184.854 km / h	13
14th	Hans-Joachim Stuck	March-Ford	2: 35.38	184.425 km / h	14th
15th	Carlos Reutemann	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	2: 35.97	183.728 km / h	15th
16	Mario Andretti	Lotus Ford	2: 36.01	183.681 km / h	16
17th	Renzo Zorzi	Williams-Ford	2: 37.07	182.441 km / h	17th
18th	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus Ford	2: 37.19	182,302 km / h	18th
19th	Jacky Ickx	Williams-Ford	2: 37.62	181.804 km / h	19th
20th	Ingo Hoffmann	Copersucar-Ford	2: 40.25	178.821 km / h	20th
21st	Ian Ashley	BRM	2: 40.94	178.054 km / h	21st
22nd	Lella Lombardi	March-Ford	2: 40.95	178.043 km / h	22nd

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	40	0	1: 45: 16.78	02
02	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	40	0	+ 21.47	09
03	Tom Pryce	Shadow Ford	40	0	+ 23.84	12
04th	Hans-Joachim Stuck	March-Ford	40	0	+1: 28.17	14th
05	Jody Scheckter	Tyrrell-Ford	40	0	+1: 56.46	13
06th	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	40	1	+1: 58.27	06th
07th	Clay Regazzoni	Ferrari	40	1	+ 2: 15.24	04th
08th	Jacky Ickx	Williams-Ford	39	0	+ 1 lap	19th
09	Renzo Zorzi	Williams-Ford	39	0	+ 1 lap	17th
10	Carlos Pace	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	39	0	+ 1 lap	10
11	Ingo Hoffmann	Copersucar-Ford	39	0	+ 1 lap	20th
12	Carlos Reutemann	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	37	0	DNF	15th		Lack of fuel
13	Emerson Fittipaldi	Copersucar-Ford	37	0	+ 3 rounds	05
14th	Lella Lombardi	March-Ford	36	1	+ 4 rounds	22nd
-	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow Ford	33	0	DNF	03	2: 35.07	accident
-	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	32	0	DNF	01		accident
-	Vittorio Brambilla	March-Ford	15th	1	DNF	07th		Oil pressure loss
-	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	14th	0	DNF	11		broken shift linkage
-	Ronnie Peterson	Lotus Ford	10	0	DNF	18th		accident
-	Mario Andretti	Lotus Ford	06th	0	DNF	16		collision
-	John Watson	Penske-Ford	02	0	DNF	08th		broken fuel line
-	Ian Ashley	BRM	02	0	DNF	21st		defective oil pump

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  Niki Lauda Ferrari 9 02  Patrick Depailler Tyrrell 6th 03  Tom Pryce Shadow 4th

Item driver constructor Points 04th  Hans-Joachim Stuck March 3 05  Jody Scheckter Tyrrell 2 06th  Jochen Mass McLaren 1

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  Ferrari 9 02  Tyrrell 6th 03  Shadow 4th

Item constructor Points 04th  March 3 05  McLaren 1

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Training" ( Memento from March 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (Motorsportarchiv.de; accessed on February 18, 2012)
2. ^ "Report" (accessed on February 18, 2012)
3. ^ "World Cup stands" ( Memento from May 11, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (Motorsportarchiv.de; accessed on February 18, 2012)

Web links

• Race result on the official Formula 1 website