The non winners

A few years ago the McLaren team had a slogan which read “Winning isn’t everything— but it’s somewhat better than finishing second”. While agreeing wholeheartedly with their viewpoint, even finishing third in a Grand Prix is no mean feat, so we did a count of all the drivers who took part in Formula One races in 1974 who finished in first, second or third place at least once during the season. Emerson Fittipaldi, Ronnie Peterson and Carlos Reutemann each won three Formula One Championship races, with Fittipaldi coming out top on points. These three left a lot of wins and places available to the rest of the competitors and all the famous names were in the first three at least once, but even so a lot of drivers who took part fairly regularly failed to score a first, second or even a third place and to them we dedicate this page and hope they have better luck in 1975.