The
1978 United States Grand Prix
was a Formula One race held on October
1, 1978 at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race
Course
in Watkins Glen, New York
. This event was also referred to as the
United States Grand Prix East in order to
distinguish it from the United States Grand Prix
West held on April 2, 1978 in Long Beach, California
.
__FORCETOC__
Summary
Mario Andretti returned home as the
newly-crowned World Champion and put his amazing
Lotus 79 on the pole before a record crowd of over
150,000 fans, but
Ferrari's
Carlos Reutemann completed a sweep
of the two United States races in 1978 by finishing 19 seconds
ahead of Australian
Alan
Jones. Andretti, driving for the first time since winning the
title and losing teammate
Ronnie
Peterson at the
Italian
Grand Prix, developed brake problems early on and eventually
retired with a blown engine.
Friday was warm and sunny, and it took Andretti only 11 laps to set
a new track record of 1:39.82. He later lowered that to 1:38.92,
ahead of the Ferraris of Reutemann and Canadian rookie
Gilles Villeneuve, then the two
Brabhams of
Niki Lauda and
John Watson.
American
Brett Lunger, about to drive in his
last Formula One race, was at the wheel of an Ensign for the first time, after his
McLaren
was damaged
in the opening lap crash at Monza
that eventually claimed the life of
Peterson. Bobby Rahal had been
enlisted from
Formula Atlantic to
partner
Jody Scheckter, as Canadian
Walter Wolf was running two cars for the
first time.
Starting carefully in his first F1 drive, Rahal took more than a
second off his lap time in the Friday afternoon session, then
another half-second on Saturday and qualified 20th. High winds on
Saturday meant that only eight drivers would improve their times,
with Alan Jones making the biggest impression as he jumped up to
third spot on his last lap. Despite the wind, Andretti improved his
pace-setting time to 1:38.114, more than a second ahead of
Reutemann.
After Friday's qualifying, Andretti had been so
pleased with his car that he said, "We don't know any more that we
can do. She is so right. What can I say?"
In fact, the race organizers feared that an Andretti win would
trigger pandemonium in the massive crowd, and they had Mario and
his wife, Dee Ann, pose for photos on the podium with the winner's
trophy before the race!
Sunday produced threatening skies, but no rain. On the
last lap of the morning warm-up, the rear stub axle on Mario's
Lotus broke in the left-hander entering The Anvil (nicknamed
"Ickx's Corner" after a spectacular crash
the Belgian had there in 1976). The car spun
several times and then hit the barrier, knocking off a rear
wheel. Andretti reiterated his feelings from the start of
the weekend, now lamenting, "When I get a car right, and it was, it
'is right!" Faulty material in the
part was blamed, and, with no time to test the spare car, Andretti
would have to use new teammate Jean-Pierre Jarier's car for the
race.
At the start, Andretti jumped into the lead, but
Emerson Fittipaldi and
Hector Rebaque (in 13th and 23rd places) both
immediately burned out their clutches. Rebaque's race was over, but
Fittipaldi managed to get his car in gear, nursed it around for a
lap while it cooled off, and then drove brilliantly through the
field to eventually finish fifth!
After one lap, Andretti had a four car-length lead over Reutemann
and Villeneuve. They were followed by Jones, Lauda, Jarier, Hunt,
Watson and Scheckter. Knowing the car had a brake problem, Andretti
was hoping he could cope with it, as he had at Monza. Immediately,
however, his lead began to disintegrate. On lap three, Reutemann
went by, and on lap four, Villeneuve. As the Ferraris pulled away,
Jarier came in on lap 11 from 11th place to change a deflating
front tire. After going back out, the car was still bottoming, but
once his fuel load lightened, he went like mad, setting fast lap
again and again. His (and the race's) eventual fastest lap would
have qualified him third!
Nearing the halfway point, Ferrari was running a
comfortable first and second. Then, on lap 23,
Villeneuve's engine suddenly blew a piston, and Jones, who had
overtaken Andretti two laps earlier, inherited second, 35 seconds
behind Reutemann. On lap 25, Lauda passed Andretti for
third, and three laps later, Andretti's engine blew, taking the
wind out of the crowd. The real interest in the race at this
point became the battle between Scheckter and Jean-Pierre Jabouille's Renault
. When Lauda also blew up just a lap
after Andretti, their dice was suddenly over third place.
In addition, Jarier was now immediately behind them and closing
at a remarkable rate.
When Jabouille ran into brake trouble, he was caught by both
Scheckter and Jarier. Jarier went by both of them to take third,
while Scheckter also passed Jabouille to regain fourth.
Unfortunately, Jarier's spectacular run up to third place in the
spare Lotus ended with three and a half laps to go when he ran out
of fuel, giving Scheckter the final podium position. Reutemann came
home almost twenty seconds ahead of Jones after driving a flawless
and well-measured race for his second American win of the season
and the third of his career. Jabouille's fourth place scored the
first points for Renault and the first for a
turbocharged engine, foreshadowing the change
that would rock Formula One to its roots within the next few
years.
Classification
Notes
- Lap Leaders: Mario Andretti 2
laps (1-2); Carlos Reutemann 57
laps (3-59).
- In the wake of Ronnie Petersen's fatal crash at the 1978 Italian Grand Prix, this was
the first use of the now standard procedure of having a specially
trained medical team line up behind the cars at the start of the
race and follow them for most of the first lap. In this race, the
Medical car hit a curb and was in the
air for a short period of time.
References
- Rob Walker (January, 1979). "19th United States Grand Prix:
Mario Unlucky, Carlos Superb". Road & Track,
100-103.
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