United States Grand Prix

Watkins Glen, 6 Oct 1974

All cars are 3-litre F1 unless noted.

Sources

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' original 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 10 Oct 1974 pp12-21 (by Pete Lyons). Motoring News 10 Oct 1974 pp12-15,28 (by 'AH' Alan Henry). Motor Sport November 1974 pp1179-1182 (by 'AH' Alan Henry). Autocar 12 Oct 1974 pp30-32 (by Ray Hutton). Sport Auto Novembre 1974 pp22-27 (by Pete Lyons). Autocourse 1974/75 (edited by Mike Kettlewell) reproduced Pete Lyons' reports from Autosport, so included very little information that had not already been published. As Lyons was also writing for Sport Auto, we are heavily reliant on Lyons and Henry for the North American GPs.

The entry list only had one change from Canada, now with 22 F1 Association entries, first the two-car teams from Lotus, Tyrrell, McLaren, Brabham, March, Ferrari, BRM, Shadow, Surtees and Williams, plus the extra Yardley-McLaren and a third Lotus. As the Trojan team had folded and was up for sale, Schenken had joined Lotus to drive a Lotus 76. The non-member teams comprised single-car constructor teams Ensign and Hesketh, the two Embassy-Hill Lolas, the Hexagon Brabham BT44, the ex-Hexagon BT42 for Ashley, the works hire BT42 for Wietzes, and the two newcomers Parnelli and Penske. Keith Greene had joined Hexagon as team manager. Of the five spare cars that had been in Canada, the Lotus 76 was raced by Schenken so that left a Tyrrell 007, a Marlboro McLaren M23, a Ferrari 312B3 and a Hesketh 308. The spare Ferrari was a different one, as Regazzoni had wrecked chassis 016 testing at the Glen the week before the race so chassis 010 was flown out. There should have been 25 starters but reserves Dolhem and Schenken started as well. Schenken was black flagged, but Dolhem was allowed to continue as Andretti had not initially started. Beltoise had crashed in practice so the only cars not allowed to start were Stuck's March 741 and Ashley's Brabham BT42.

When BRM was put into liquidation on 1 November, Mike Pilbeam became a freelance designer, and would become a famous name in hillclimb circles. Trojan's complete withdrawal from motor racing left Ron Tauranac without a role, so he set up his own company, Ralt Cars on 18 November, planning to have cars built for Formula 3 in 1975, and his move would have an even bigger impact on motor racing than Pilbeam's. At the end of November, Hexagon Racing would discover that they had failed in an attempt to win Gitanes sponsorship for 1975 and announced their withdrawal from F1, selling their Brabham BT44 back to the factory and leaving Watson's future uncertain.