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1974 SEASON REVISED UNDER THE NEW POINTS
SYSTEM
By Carlos De Paula
This was a very interesting season, for a number of facts. With Jackie Stewart’s retirement, the place of best F-1 driver was again vacant. The season would feature 3 former titlists, Fittipaldi, Hulme and Hill, but the latter two stood no chance. Much was expected of Peterson and to some extent, Scheckter, and there stood a question mark over the revamped Ferrari team, who took a gamble on a young Niki Lauda and former wonder Regazzoni. Fittipaldi had gone over to McLaren, and Jacky Ickx took his place in Lotus. Would Jacky finally win a championship, and would he challenge Peterson at Lotus? Carlos Reutemann also held quite a lot of promise, and there was always James Hunt.
At the end of the day, the two factors in the championship were McLaren and Ferrari. Lauda turned out to be a very fast driver, but finished few races. As in many other championships, it became a 2-way race between Emerson Fittipaldi and Clay Reggazoni, with Jody Scheckter lingering in third place. The latter had an awful start of the year, but had a very strong midseason.
Like a few other championships, under the old system this one was to be decided on the last race. In fact, Regazzoni and Fittipaldi were tied, at 52 points, coming into the USA. Fittipaldi had 3 wins to Clay’s single victory in Germany. Scheckter had 45 points: if he scored a win, and neither Emerson nor Clay scored, he would have scored 54 points and come out champion.
Regazzoni was very steady during the year, and one of the reasons that made me suspect that the classification would have been different was the fact that he scored 4 second places, 2 thirds and 3 fourth places. Emmo won more often, but maybe on the new scoring system Clay’s consistency would favor him.
It was close. Emerson still came out ahead, but by a single point, 74 to 73. Again, the deciding factor was a score that would not have been applied under the old system: Emerson’s seventh place (2 points) in South Africa gave him the final advantage in the championship!
Another curious turn of events was that Scheckter would not have been able to win the championship coming into the final race, after all. He had 62 points going into the final race, to Clay’s 73, so at best he would score 72. The best he could do was runner up, if Emmo scored insufficient points in the USA.
Positions 4th through 7th were the same under both scoring systems. Hunt would have dropped from 8th to 10th, and Depailler would be promoted one place. Interestingly, Graham Hill would have scored on five occasions, rather than his single 6th place in Sweden. This would have given him 8 points in the final tally, but would not substantially change his final placement.
Some guys that would have scored were Brian Redman, Guy Edwards, David Hobbs, Mario Andretti, Jochen Mass, Howden Ganley and Tom Belso. For Belso, Hobbs and Edwards this would mean insertion in the list of points scorers. A total of 27 drivers would have scored, a large number by any measure.
Final championship positions, under the new and old systems
|
Under Old System |
Under New System |
|
1. Fittipaldi - 55 |
1. Fittipaldi - 74 |
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2. Regazzoni - 52 |
2. Regazzoni - 73 |
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3. Scheckter - 45 |
3. Scheckter - 62 |
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4. Lauda - 38 |
4. Lauda - 48 |
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5. Peterson - 35 |
5. Peterson - 45 |
|
6. Reutemann - 32 |
6. Reutemann - 43 |
|
7. Hulme - 20 |
7. Hulme - 35 |
|
8. Hunt - 15 |
8. Depailler - 29 |
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9. Depailler - 14 |
9. Hailwood - 24 |
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10. Hailwood/Ickx - 12 |
10. Hunt - 23 |
|
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11. Ickx - 20 |
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12. Pace - 11 |
12. Pace - 18 |
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13. Beltoise - 10 |
13. Beltoise/Watson - 16 |
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14. Jarier/Watson - 6 |
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15. Jarier - 12 |
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16. Stuck - 5 |
16. Stuck - 11 |
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17.
Merzario - 4 |
17.
Merzario/Hill - 8 |
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18. Brambilla/Hill/Pryce - 1 |
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19. Pryce - 4 |
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20. Brambilla/Edwards - 3 |
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22. Redman/Hobbs/Andretti/Mass - 2 |
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26. Ganley/Belso - 1 |