With the ever-increasing demands by the Formula One entrants and further demands of expenditure of hard cash by the GPDA Safety Brigade, there are times when one is given to wondering why organisers carry on with Grand Prix racing. Whatever the reason, this year’s Dutch Grand Prix saw a bumper entry and there was no squabbling or dissatisfaction over who was to start as all 25 drivers listed in the entry were to be accepted on the starting grid. After scrutineering had taken place on Friday morning, practice got under way in the afternoon with a following wind blowing down the straight, thus encouraging “a fast day” as it is known. The weather was very grey and gloomy and with the scrub grass and sand dunes all around and the muddy-looking North Sea just behind the grandstands, the Zandvoort circuit was about as gay and entrancing as it is ever likely to be and one began to see why everyone likes circuits like Barcelona and Monte Carlo.
However, the job in hand was to put in some fast laps as soon as possible as there was every likelihood of the weather breaking up later on, and the bogey time was the 1 min. 19.23 sec. set up by Ickx last year in the original prototype flat-12-cylinder Ferrari. Now there were not only two similar cars as spares, with 1971 engines, but three of the second version of the flat-12-cylindered cars, the 312B/2 models, and it was Regazzoni setting the pace with number 5 car, having been out earlier in the week doing some unofficial practice. He had got down to a cool 1 min. 17.98 sec. when the engine blew up and the car was wheeled round the back of the pits with oil dripping from everywhere, and work began on removing the engine and installing a new one.
Also in the first part of the afternoon Team Lotus had a disaster, for Walker had barely begun to circulate in Fittipaldi’s Lotus 72 when he fell off the edge of the track and damaged the rear end too badly for immediate repair, so that was the end of all Charlton’s hopes of joining Team Lotus for this race. He was to have taken over 72D/R5 when the turbine car was ready for Walker to drive.
