German Grand Prix

Nürburgring, 4 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 8 Aug 1974 pp12-19 (by Pete Lyons). Motoring News 8 Aug 1974 pp10-13,24 (by 'AH' Alan Henry). Motor Sport September 1974 pp939-941 (by 'DSJ' Denis Jenkinson). Autocar 10 Aug 1974 pp30-32 (by Ray Hutton). Sport Auto Septembre 1974 pp22-29 (by José Rosinski). Autocourse 1974/75 (edited by Mike Kettlewell) reproduced Pete Lyons' reports from Autosport, so included very little information that had not already been published. José Rosinski did not provide any chassis identities in his report.

The entry list started with the 22 F1 Association entries, first the two-car teams from Lotus, Tyrrell, McLaren, Brabham, March, Ferrari, BRM, Shadow, Surtees and Williams, with the usual third cars this time from McLaren and BRM. The non-members were Ensign, Trojan, Hesketh, Maki, Amon, Token and the two Lolas, plus privateers Hexagon and Finotto Racing, the latter not appearing, leaving 31 entries. The Token was Team Token again, after Bob Harper had withdrawn his interest, and was now financed by Richard Oaten for Ian Ashley. In the world of Jenks notation, both March 741s were now on their third iteration, the Surtees were still confusing Alan Henry by using the same notation Jenks used for a different purpose.

The 12 spare cars were a Lotus 76 that Peterson was forced to race after crashing his Lotus 72E, Tyrrell 007, Marlboro McLaren M23, Brabham BT44, Ferrari 312B3, BRM P160E, Shadow DN3, Surtees TS16-3, Hesketh 308, Lola T370, Hexagon Brabham BT42 and Yardley McLaren M23. A total of 43 cars were on site, but the little-team peak had now passed, and it would be nearly three years before this number of cars was reached again.

Some of the smaller teams were making the F1 Association's point case for them. The Maki went slowly, then broke and crashed, Ganley being lucky to get out of the wreckage without more serious injuries. The reappearance of the Amon team was an utter disaster. Despite three days testing at Silverstone, the car overheated after a single lap, and when Perkins took over the drive the following day, he was slowest of all and then crashed. The Trojan was well off the pace, not helped by a broken metering unit, and Ashley failed to qualify but started unofficially after Lauda and Hulme failed to leave the startline. Hulme hopped into the spare McLaren M23 and set off to join the race in that car, only to be black flagged. Ashley appeared in the results but Hulme did not; well, not twice anyway. Meanwhile the Surtees team continued to fall apart, with Mass following Carlos Pace in walking out on the team, and Bang & Olufsen then announcing they were leaving too. The bust up with B&O was triggered by John Surtees' unnecessarily harsh treatment of Bernard de Dryver, the son of the Belgian B&O importer who had arranged the sponsorship deal and wanted young Bernard to get a F2 drive.