1970 Monaco Grand Prix

Infobox Grand Prix race report
Type = F1
Country = Monaco
Grand Prix = Monaco
Official name = XXVIII Grand Prix de Monaco
Date = May 10
Year = 1970

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Race_No = 3
Season_No = 13
Location = Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Course = Street circuit
Course_mi = 1.954
Course_km = 3.145
Distance_laps = 80
Distance_mi = 156.337
Distance_km = 251.600
Weather = Sunny and warm
Pole_Driver = Jackie Stewart
Pole_Team = March-Ford
Pole_Time = 1:24.0
Pole_Country = UK
Fast_Driver = Jochen Rindt
Fast_Team = Lotus-Ford
Fast_Time = 1:23.2
Fast_L

Fast_Country = Austria
First_Driver = Jochen Rindt
First_Team = Lotus-Ford
First_Country = Austria
Second_Driver = Jack Brabham
Second_Team = Brabham-Ford
Second_Country= Australia
Third_Driver = Henri Pescarolo
Third_Team = Matra
Third_Country = FranceThe 1970 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at the Circuit de Monaco on May 10, 1970. It was the third race of the 1970 Formula One season.

Report

There were no significant changes in the drivers' lineup for Monaco, and the only news was Ronnie Peterson, entering in a non-works March. The Lotus team decided to bring the old 49 chassis instead of the new 72, despite testing it in a non-championship race at Silverstone a couple of weeks earlier. In qualifying, March swept the front row, with Jackie Stewart on pole (for the Tyrrell team) and Chris Amon alongside him. Third was Denny Hulme's McLaren, and fourth the Brabham of Jack Brabham; behind them was the Ferrari of Jacky Ickx. The first Lotus driver was Jochen Rindt, qualyfing in only eighth place.

Despite the rain in the previous days, the sun shone on race day, and the track was dry. At the start, Stewart led the field, with Amon, Brabham, Ickx and Jean-Pierre Beltoise behind him; on the second lap, Beltoise passed Ickx. Stewart began to pull away, and so the order remained unchanged until lap 12, when Ickx retired with a driveshaft failure. On lap 22 Beltoise, who in the meantime went into fourth, retired with transmission problems; on the same lap Brabham passed Amon into second place. It seemed Stewart could comfortably repeat the victory he took in Spain, but on lap 27 his March began misfiring, and he stopped in the pits dropping off. This left Brabham in front, with Amon, Hulme and Rindt, who worked his way from the middle of the pack, behind. In his first race, Peterson was doing well, in seventh place; meanwhile the engine failed on Jackie Oliver's BRM, leaving the marshalls some hard work to clean up all the oil he dropped on the track.

At about the same time, Hulme had problems with the gearing of his McLaren, the shift jumping gears, so he dropped back behind Rindt and Pescarolo; on lap 62 Amon's suspension failed, and he was forced to retire, leaving the Austrian in second place, nine seconds behind Brabham. He then increased his pace, and towards the last laps he was on the tail of the Australian. Brabham's victory seemed to be on the way though, as he resisted to all the pressure that Rindt brought on him. But the unbeliavable happened: on the last lap, Brabham misjudged the braking into the Gazomètre, the very last corner, and went straight into into the straw bales, handing the victory to Rindt (a victory greeted by a big jump of joy by Colin Chapman). Brabham quickly reversed and finished the race in second position. Third was Pescarolo in a Matra, while the remaining points positions were rounded out by Hulme, Graham Hill (who worked his way up from the last spot on the grid) and Pedro Rodríguez.

Classification

References

*cite web |title=The Official Formula 1 website |url=http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1970/527/ |accessdate=2008-01-15
*cite book |last=Lang |first=Mike |title=Grand Prix! Vol 2 |publisher=Haynes Publishing Group |year=1982 |pages=pp119-121 |isbn=0-85429-321-3

F1 race report
Name_of_race = Monaco Grand Prix
Year_of_race = 1970
Previous_race_in_season = 1970 Spanish Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 1970 Belgian Grand Prix
Previous_year's_race = 1969 Monaco Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = 1971 Monaco Grand Prix