French Grand Prix

Clermont-Ferrand, 6 Jul 1969

All cars are 3-litre F1 unless noted.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

3-litre Formula 1 World Championship events 1966-1985

These 1966 to 1985 results were initially compiled by Allen Brown, but these were in the very basic form required to track individual car histories. Since then further details, such as laps completed, qualifying times and so on, have been added from Rob Ryder's extensive database.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen at allen@oldracingcars.com if you can help with our research.

Individual sources for this event

Autosport 11 Jul 1969 pp8-15 (report by Patrick McNally). Motor Sport August 1969 pp846-847 (report by DSJ) Motoring News 10 Jul 1969 pp12,14-15 (report by ARM, Andrew Marriott). Sport Auto Aout 1969 pp10-17 (report uncredited). Race Report 3 p87 (by Eddie Guba).

The usual works entries were diminished by the BRM team being in turmoil after the sacking of Tony Rudd the week before. His responsibilities had been split, with Aubrey Woods taking responsibility for engine development, aided by Geoff Johnson, Tony Southgate, who had only just arrived, being in charge of chassis development, Alex Stokes remaining the gearbox specialist and veteran mechanic Cyril Atkins temporarily taking over as team manager. While all that was sorted out, the team skipped the French GP. Jenks at Motor Sport was not in favour of Rudd's sacking, despite this being the fourth successive season of Rudd-led underperformance. Also Brabham was down to one driver as Jack Brabham was in hospital after wrecking his BT26A while testing. Lotus brought two 49Bs and the 4WD car for Miles to get to grips with; Matra had two Matra MS80s and the MS84 for Stewart to try out; McLaren had their two usual cars, Hulme's M7A now being very long in the tooth; Brabham brought a new BT26A as well as Ickx' usual car, Ferrari had the usual pair of 1969 cars for Amon, and importantly had Mauro Forghieri back in charge. The usual four privateers of Walker/Durlacher, Williams, Crabbe and Moser brought the entries up to a record-breaking low of 13, with only 16 cars present at the track.