Austrian Grand Prix

Österreichring, 18 Aug 1974

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 22 Aug 1974 pp10-19 (by Pete Lyons). Motoring News 22 Aug 1974 pp10-13 (by 'AH' Alan Henry). Motor Sport October 1974 pp1078-1080 (by 'DSJ' Denis Jenkinson). Autocar 24 Aug 1974 pp30-32 (by Ray Hutton). Sport Auto Octobre 1974 pp44-51 (uncredited). Autocourse 1974/75 (edited by Mike Kettlewell) reproduced Pete Lyons' reports from Autosport, so included very little information that had not already been published. The Sport Auto report was uncredited, and had gone back to reporting chassis numbers in "Jenks notation", suggesting Pete Lyons was moonlighting.

The entry list started with 21 F1 Association entries, first the two-car teams from Lotus, Tyrrell, McLaren, Brabham, March, Ferrari, Shadow, Surtees and Williams, but only one car this time from BRM and third cars from Yardley-McLaren for David Hobbs and Surtees for Dieter Quester. BRM had decided to focus on one driver to "try to earn ourselves some respect" as team manager Tim Parnell put it. The non-members were Ensign, Trojan, two Heskeths, Token, the two Embassy-Hill Lolas, privateer Hexagon Racing, Leo Kinnunen's Surtees and a Finotto-owned, Bretscher-backed Brabham BT42 for Koinigg, run for him by Jurg Dubler. The Token was run by Richard Oaten's F5000 team for Ashley with Shellsport and Chequered Flag sponsorship. That made 31 entries. 25 starters were allowed, leaving six non-qualifiers: Scheckter in the second Hesketh, Kinnunen much closer than usual, Bell in the works Surtees, Wilds in the Ensign, Jabouille in the No 2 Surtees, and Koinigg. The only Surtees to start was Quester, a driver Surtees had slagged off so thoroughly three years earlier, and the second fastest Surtees was Kinunnen. Ashley did well to qualify the Token, Schenken put in a solid performance in the Trojan, and Stommelen was most impressive in the Lola. Motoring News got some of the qualifying times the wrong way round, but this was corrected in Motor Sport. The nine spare cars this time were two Lotus 76s, Tyrrell 007, Marlboro-McLaren M23, Brabham BT44, Ferrari 312B3, BRM P201, Shadow DN3, and Lola T370. The Lotus 76s had been fitted with Lotus 72 rear suspension, which went some way to solving the 76's bump steer problem. Teddy Yip and Mo Nunn had split, putting Schuppan out of the Ensign drive, largely because Yip wanted to miss races to go testing but Nunn realised his F1 Association membership depended on being a regular attendee. This race proved to be the last outing for the Token team, as Ashley's backers Richard Oaten and Graham Warner decided to buy the Hexagon Brabham BT42 and abandoned the Tony Vlassopulos project. In other news, Firestone had announced its withdrawal from top-level motor racing, leaving Goodyear holding the future of many categories of motor racing.