Jody Scheckter's stormy F1 start: a rookie campaign to rival the best

F1
- Last updated: September 6th 2023

He arrived in F1 virtually unknown, but wild, bushy-haired Jody Scheckter made his name in more ways than one after a stellar — but controversial — rookie campaign. The 1979 champion recalls his early races with McLaren

Jody Scheckter portrait

Scheckter at Kyalami in 1973: his second GP start came courtesy of extra cash for McLaren to run a local driver

Bernard Cahier via Getty Images

Author

Damien Smith

Oscar Piastri’s going pretty well in his maiden Formula 1 season, isn’t he? Although in an underwhelming McLaren, admittedly it’s sometimes hard to notice, and so far there’s been nothing from the Australian that you could describe as headline-grabbing. Fifty years ago, another young hopeful from the southern hemisphere was making waves – and creating the odd storm – in a much more competitive McLaren team, in a strange, broken up rookie campaign that should actually be remembered among the best from anyone.

Jody Scheckter’s 1973 is mostly recalled for the infamy that surrounded him at Silverstone’s British Grand Prix, when he triggered a nine-car pile-up that effectively ended the F1 career of Andrea de Adamich and wiped out the whole of Team Surtees. We spoke to Scheckter for this month’s magazine to recall that day. But there was much more to the wild, bushy-haired South African than an apparent reckless streak.

From the archive

He’d arrived in England in March 1971, whereupon Jody bought Emerson Fittipaldi’s Merlyn Formula Ford to make his way. A little over 18 months later, he was lining up to make his F1 debut in a third McLaren M19 at Watkins Glen – an astonishing rise. It was quite a debut too. Scheckter qualified on the third row, ahead of new champion Fittipaldi, made a good start to run third and was still fourth by half-distance behind Jackie Stewart, François Cevert and team-mate Denny Hulme. He was unlucky to be caught out by a shower of rain, so only finished ninth – but with the race’s second-fastest lap he’d still made his point.

“I’m not even sure I’d run in an F1 car before I got to the Glen,” says Jody. “It was quite nice because nobody knew me and I could just walk around. I was always just concentrating on how I could go faster, how I could get information from my team-mates and that sort of stuff. There was some water at the end of the straight and I spun, but the team were not all that upset about it. I suppose they were quite impressed with the lap times I was doing.”

USA GP 1972: Jody Scheckter, McLaren-Ford

Scheckter on his F1 debut at Watkins Glen, 1972

Ullstein bild via Getty images

Scheckter had been racing in Formula 2 for McLaren, but in 1973 the team chose not to commit to the junior category. Jody was left high and dry, given that Hulme and Peter Revson had the full-time deals in F1, and was offered the crumbs of occasional third-car drives – an option unavailable to hopefuls today. But every time he turned out for the Yardley-sponsored team, Jody made an impact – more often than not in a positive way.

His home race at Kyalami was an early chance, thanks to the carrot for McLaren of decent start money to run a local lad. This time Scheckter qualified the M19 on the front row, led briefly and ran second to Stewart for 27 laps. Running fourth in the late stages, an engine failure robbed him of a points-scoring finish.

“I didn’t really know anybody,” says Jody. “The only person I knew was Jackie Stewart who was introduced to me in South Africa. I just remember in an F1 car at a corner at the end of a long straight it just gripped more and more, I couldn’t believe how it didn’t slide. Those were the impressions on my first laps.”

As a third driver, Scheckter recalls feeling like the runt of the litter. “We had Goodyear tyres and at that time they were always experimenting because there were different tyre manufacturers. So Denny would get a tyre that was quicker, then he would send the tyre that he had to Revson – and I got Revson’s! This was how the development went. I think I went quicker than Revson with the slower tyres sometimes.”

Jody Scheckter in 1973 French GP at Paul Ricard

On course to win at Ricard before unfortunate block

Grand Prix Photo

Did his team-mates give him the time of day? Jody chuckles. “Peter I didn’t spend a lot of time with, but I was quite friendly with Denny. He didn’t tell me everything. The next race was Paul Ricard and he was going down to the lower gear out of the hairpin and I wasn’t, and he didn’t tell me. But you know, I don’t blame him.”

Ricard, a long four months after Kyalami, reignited the stuttering F1 career momentum. This time he was in for Revson, who was cup tied by a USAC race in Pocono, which meant Jody had the new wedge-shaped McLaren M23 to explore. He stuck it in the middle of the front row, between Stewart and Fittipaldi, then sensationally led from the start until with 12 laps to go the Lotus driver made a move while they were lapping Jean-Pierre Beltoise’s BRM. Young Jody shut the door and they collided.

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“It’s funny, I’ve got a picture of myself on the front row with Stewart and Emerson,” he says. “That was my third F1 race and when I think back that was quite impressive even by today’s standards. I always tried to run with a lot less wing and that’s what I did then, so I was very quick on the straight, but slower around the corners. That’s where they would catch me, but they couldn’t pass me. Then Emerson dived me. They say it wasn’t my fault, it was his fault. Anyway, he came to me as the young driver and shouted. I remember saying, if it happens again I’ll do the same, and he walked off.”

Scheckter really did have a wild streak. “I think so. But young drivers crashing, ‘this guy should be banned’ and all that kind of stuff, it didn’t really worry me at all. The team didn’t say to me ‘you better not do this or that’. If they did I would have taken some notice. But I can’t remember it ever bothering me.”

Silverstone was next. As Scheckter recalls in our magazine article, the mistake was a relatively small one with heavy consequences, basically because again he’d qualified a quick McLaren well and was running so close to the front. Thereafter, it was perhaps just as well that McLaren had little for him. As the F1 dust settled, he beat Brian Redman to the US Formula 5000 crown in a Sid Taylor-run Trojan, and gave himself several frights in Vasek Polak’s monstrous Porsche 917 turbo Can-Am car, criss-crossing the Atlantic to notch up 19 races in the US between May and October. Fantastic experience.

Jody Scheckter in practice for 1973 British Grand prix

Scheckter in practice ahead of the 1973 British Grand Prix

Grand Prix Photo

Then at the end of the season McLaren recalled him for Mosport and Watkins Glen, for just his fifth and sixth F1 starts. His remarkable season ended on a terrible note of deep trauma. “I had an accident with Cevert at Mosport,” says Jody. “At the Glen we spoke and shook hands. Then you know what happened after that.”

Scheckter was one of the first on the scene after the Frenchman’s dreadfully violent fatal accident. “The biggest thing was seeing Cevert,” he says. “I remember jumping out of the car, the battery was sparking, I knew there was a risk of fire and I grabbed the safety belts to take them off. Then I turned around. I don’t remember what I saw. I walked away with my hands up, stopping other drivers. Somebody sent me a picture of that years later.

“It worried me that life carried on around the track and this guy was dying. It was like the end of the world. That definitely affected me. People said you were safer after that, but it didn’t affect how I drove the car. But the shock for me… it was the first person I’d seen dead or being close to dying.”

Jody Scheckter waves hios arms at other drivers in front of Francois Cevert wrecked Tyrrell

Scheckter flags down drivers after Cevert’s crash

Heinz Kluetmeier via Getty Images

When it happened, Scheckter was expecting to be Cevert’s team-mate in 1974 and had become one of the few to know before it was announced that Stewart was retiring. “I did the deal [to join Tyrrell] before Francois died,” he says. “It was at that race. Ken came down to my cabin at the hotel and I had the conversation there.”

Thereafter, the F1 wild child became better-known for his heightened sense of self-preservation, although he’s not sure about that. “I don’t know what the definition is of looking after yourself. Is that drinking less?”

From the archive

“I probably did have an awareness, but I wasn’t really involved in the safety debate at that time. If there was a change it was when I went to Tyrrell and Ken used to tell me ‘you’ve got to finish’. Maybe that calmed me down a little bit, or made me look at the bigger picture rather than just trying to be quickest.”

Today, after Canada, Oscar Piastri has eight F1 starts to his name. By that stage 50 years ago, Scheckter was already done with McLaren. For his seventh grand prix at the start of ’74, Jody was the supposedly senior driver at a top team, beside Patrick Depailler.

Innocence? It didn’t last long in F1 back in the 1970s.

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