When unsung F1 hero Jody Scheckter was the best driver in the world

The next year, 1973, he won the Sports Car Club of America’s Formula 5000 series, bagging three victories in a Trojan-Chevy and one in a Lola-Chevy, taking the championship ahead of pre-season favourite Brian Redman, a far more experienced man. He raced five grands prix for McLaren in 1973, too. At Paul Ricard he qualified second, led 42 laps, and could well have won had he not tangled with reigning world champion Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus while they were lapping a backmarker, ending both their races and causing Emmo to call Jody “a madman and a menace”. Worse was to come at Silverstone a fortnight later. Scheckter spun on the opening lap and triggered a truly enormous shunt, which, coming so soon after his having incurred Fittipaldi’s wrath, caused the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association members to demand that he be banned. That did not happen, but McLaren judiciously ‘rested’ him for four races instead.

To put it bluntly, at this stage in his career, 23-year-old Scheckter had become widely regarded as a gifted ruffian. It was a pretty fair judgment, too. But very soon it would no longer be so. Why not? Because, shortly after he had returned from his four-race ‘rest’, in qualifying for his sixth grand prix, the 1973 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, he was running just behind Cevert when the Frenchman lost control of his Tyrrell in the fast uphill Esses, causing it to crash with such force that a restraining barrier was uprooted. Scheckter stopped to try to help. What he found – and saw – changed him for ever. Poor Francois had been cut in half, and Jody never drove with such undisciplined abandon ever again.

From the following year onwards, 1974, in which season Scheckter was now racing for Tyrrell, alongside not Cevert, whom he had expected to be partnering, but another Frenchman, Patrick Depailler, he added a degree of shrewd decorum to his raw speed, and the result was that he quietly but quickly became one of the finest drivers in F1. That year – his first full season in F1, remember – he won two grands prix, at Anderstorp and Brands Hatch, and he was in contention for the world championship right down to the wire, the season’s finale at Watkins Glen. In the end he finished third in the title chase behind Fittipaldi (McLaren) and Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari).

In 1975 he won his home grand prix, at Kyalami, and he scored two more podiums, at Zolder and Silverstone. In 1976, given a six-wheeled Tyrrell that he loathed, he won again at Anderstorp and scored fine second places at Monaco, Brands Hatch, Nürburgring and Watkins Glen, where he led 41 of the race’s 59 laps in a scintillating dice with McLaren’s James Hunt, who eventually pipped him for the win.

In 1977 and 1978 Scheckter raced for Wolf, a brand-new one-car team, and — get ready for a bold claim now — in my view he was probably the best driver in the world at that time, especially in 1977. In a car that was good but not great, run by a team who were doing everything together for the first time, he won the opening grand prix of the season, in Buenos Aires, then he won again at Monaco and Mosport. At Long Beach, too, he all but won, leading 76 of the 80 laps before a deflating right-front Goodyear dropped him to third behind Mario Andretti’s Lotus and Niki Lauda’s Ferrari. He could have won at Zolder, too, where he led the first 16 laps before first a spin then an engine failure extinguished his chances, and also at Monza, where, again, he led at the start, before another engine failure ended his run after 23 laps. Fuji apart, when he finished, he was never lower than third, and he suffered seven DNFs. Moreover, when the car (or the team?) were not great in qualifying, which they sometimes were not, Scheckter, by now famously the fittest driver in F1, often made up for it on race day with indefatigably gritty drives. In Buenos Aires he converted 11th in qualifying to a win; at Zandvoort 15th on the grid became third at flag-fall; at Watkins Glen he went from ninth to third; at Mosport, from ninth to first. He finished second in the world championship standings, beaten only by Lauda, whose very few reliability problems (just two DNFs) had occurred only when his Ferrari had anyway been uncompetitive.

The 1978 Wolf was a crude and boxy attempt at a ‘wing car’. As such, it was never going to trouble the scorers in a meaningful way, yet, even so, Scheckter bagged four podiums that year, at Monaco, Hockenheim, Watkins Glen and Île Notre-Dame.

So he did: Toby, born in 1978, and Tomas, born in 1980, racing drivers both. Jody backed both of them, with energy and money, and Tomas, in particular, showed real flashes of his old man’s flair. He won races in British F3 and IndyCar, and more besides, and in 2001 he was given the role of test driver for Jaguar’s F1 team, alongside race drivers Eddie Irvine, Pedro de la Rosa and Luciano Burti. Just 20, as bored and frustrated as all F1 test drivers sometimes were and are, young Scheckter was fined £200 for kerb-crawling in Northampton, and Jaguar fired him. When the story came out, I sent Jody a long and sympathetic SMS. He immediately called me back, and thanked me for it. When I next saw him, he told me that a remarkably small number of F1 insiders had done as I had. I was surprised then and I am surprised now. Jody had been devastated by the news, naturally, and he could have done with more support.

And now? Now Jody runs Laverstoke Park, an award-winning 2500-acre biodynamic farm in Hampshire, UK. I have been there a number of times — to interview him and/or to buy its excellent organic produce. “It’s funny,” he once told me. “I used to race in F1 for Ferrari. Then I sold hi-tech weapons simulation kits to governments all over the world. Now I’m wondering whether to charge 6p or 7p for an egg.”

You would like Jody Scheckter. You really would. He is a lovely guy. He was a great driver, too. No, make that a brilliant driver.