Crowned world champion for Ferrari at Monza — 'It was just a relief', says Jody Scheckter

A first phone call for a while with Jody Scheckter to chat ahead of the Italian Grand Prix about Monza, in its centenary year. It was the scene of the last of his 10 Formula 1 wins, on the September day in 1979 when he clinched the world championship. In a Ferrari. Leading Gilles Villeneuve to a 1-2. In front of a delirious tifosi. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr can only dream.

So how are you, Jody? “Still alive,” comes back the familiar deadpan South African response.

“Gilles was quick, you had to put your head down and do the best you could”

Never one to suffer fools, especially pesky journalists asking silly questions, Scheckter was generally labelled a spiky, often difficult character when he was racing. I got to know him later in life, in the 1990s when he was a racing dad looking grumpy to find himself back where he started in the bottom paddock at Brands Hatch with sons Toby and Tomas. It was always a buzz to talk to him, even if he claimed he couldn’t remember anything about the 1970s, his wry humour mixing delightfully with a general sense of impatience and boredom. I liked him immediately.

But today, this could be hard work. You liked Monza, didn’t you, Jody? “Yes.” Long pause. “ I always went quite well there.” Third at his first Italian GP for Tyrrell in 1974, his results at this wondrous cathedral of speed were, in truth, patchy. But the one that counts, the big win and title in ’79, enshrined Scheckter as a Monza legend forever. Not that he remembers much about it.

“In terms of the championship it was just a feeling of relief,” he says. “It wasn’t wow, wow, wow – just relief. I suppose the best memory of all it was the 40th anniversary.” Scheckter was Ferrari’s guest of honour at the 2019 Italian GP and completed an emotional lap in his old 312 T4, the barking, rasping flat-12 reminding a modern tifosi how grand prix cars used to sound. “It was a big honour for me to be among the guys of today – and my car sounded a lot better than theirs,” he says. “It was a really good weekend for me. I want to try and make it to the 50th [in 2029]. But I don’t think I will.” (He’s only 72).

OK, so let’s warm him up and get him going on. Cynics like to rub some of the shine off Scheckter’s greatest F1 achievement by suggesting Villeneuve dutifully let him win that day, and only after René Arnoux’s Renault had retired from the lead… Bingo. He’s off.

“No, no, no – everybody gets that wrong,” says Scheckter, suddenly animated. “Ferrari had very strong guidelines. First and second, you don’t fight. If you are sixth and seventh and no one else is going to attack you, you don’t fight. So as soon as [Jacques] Lafitte dropped out” – the Ligier had been pushing the Ferraris in third – “I just backed off on my revs. On the last two or three laps I didn’t want to take a chance and pushed on. But I outqualified Gilles.” He did, third played fifth on the grid. “I was quicker than him there.”

Scheckter had joined Ferrari for ’79 after two years at little Wolf, with a single intention: to finally win the world title he’d spent the best part of a decade chasing. The T4 was just what he needed, but among the quick ground-effect Ligiers, the growing force of Renault’s high-boost turbos and a Williams team hitting the sweet spot mid-season with its increasingly effective FW07, Scheckter had his work cut out.

“Yeah, absolutely,” says Jody. “I’d been trying for seven or eight years to get the championship. Gilles was quick and you just had to put your head down and do the best you could, and that’s what I tried to do.”

Villeneuve had joined Ferrari at the end of 1977, replacing Niki Lauda who’d stalked away as soon as his second title was secure, still enraged by Enzo Ferrari’s cold response in the wake of his fiery Nürburgring accident the summer before. As McLaren’s Teddy Mayer fumbled the greatest fresh talent of his generation, having run Gilles in a third M23 at a memorable British GP, Ferrari swooped – and Enzo had signed a new favourite son.