‘Cars were crashing all around’: Jody Scheckter on 1973 British GP nine-car pile-up

He’d put the wind up world champion Emerson Fittipaldi at Paul Ricard and might well have won the French Grand Prix without the Brazilian’s ill-judged lunge that led to words. Months before, immediate speed had marked his debut at Watkins Glen, then came a front-row start at home at Kyalami. Yes, it was all happening for ‘wild child’ Jody Scheckter – at least when the third McLaren was made available. So… fourth time lucky, at Silverstone for the 1973 British Grand Prix? Well, no. Not exactly.

The infamous nine-car pile-up Scheckter’s M23 triggered at the end of the first lap could have finished his career before it had properly kicked in, and it did effectively finish another’s and wiped out a whole team – that of a fit-to-burst John Surtees.

Scheckter, then 23, was fourth from sixth on the grid as they rounded Woodcote. “The McLaren’s tail began to slide out and he was too late in applying correction,” wrote Denis Jenkinson in Motor Sport. “In a graceful pirouette the McLaren spun right across the track, hit the retaining wall of the pits and bounced back into the middle of the track.” Those directly following – Denny Hulme, François Cevert, James Hunt, Peter Revson and Clay Regazzoni – all missed the prone M23. Eight others weren’t so fortunate. All hell broke loose on the pit straight.

“The tyre that I had qualified on was a soft compound and the outside left [rear] was graining, so they put a harder new tyre on for the race,” recalls Scheckter. “I slid the car as much as I could around the different bends and when it came to Woodcote I took it like I normally did. Actually I passed [team-mate] Denny into that corner just before, then it just jumped away, let go. I was sliding along the pitwall and I thought if I left the brakes off the wheels would turn to go down the track, but it just went into the wall and came back. Cars were crashing all around me and I just put my head down. Then it went quiet, so I looked up – and they were still crashing, so I put my head down again. Lucky, lucky, lucky.”

The “finesse and judgement” Jenks expected for Silverstone had been lacking – but he wasn’t entirely damning. “Others were making some pretty caustic remarks to the McLaren team about their hot-headed young South African charger, but secretly wishing they had a driver with as much fire in their own team,” he wrote.

Scheckter’s name was mud, with Surtees on the hunt for him. “When I got back I was asking, ‘Where’s the spare car?’” says Jody. “[Team manager] Phil Kerr said, ‘You go back to the motorhome and hide away please.’

It was perhaps just as well that with Hulme and Revson as McLaren’s full-timers – the latter eventually winning the restarted, topsy-turvy race – Scheckter had been forced to look elsewhere for summer employment. US rides with Sid Taylor in Formula 5000 and in Vasek Polak’s brutal Can-Am Porsche 917 turbo removed him from the line of fire. “I thought, ‘I can get away from all this shit,’” Jody admits. “But when I got there, we had a press conference and the first thing they asked was, ‘What happened at Silverstone?’”

Contrary to accounts, Scheckter doesn’t recall Surtees holding a grudge – “we got on OK” – but there’s one man with whom he’s never made peace. “Andrea de Adamich was the only one who was injured [see overleaf], but I didn’t know that at the time. Years later, I went to Ferrari’s 60th anniversary celebrations and he was still upset with me.” Scheckter was labelled as trouble – not that he particularly cared: “I don’t think it bothered me that much. I was quick, I’d passed Denny, that was more important than losing the car going into a corner with a new tyre. That can happen to anybody. But if I’d been slow and not competitive, that would have worried me.”

Six years later, as a wily, mature veteran, Scheckter won his world title for Ferrari. Fortunes for the others caught up in Silverstone ’73 were as varied as you’d expect for a cross-section of 1970s racing drivers: four of the nine (including Jody) are still with us, which isn’t a bad return; but one died at the very next race; two were lost to air crashes; one succumbed to natural causes; and one was taken in the most incomprehensible manner, on the public road. Beyond Scheckter, read on for more on the fates of the wrong place, wrong time ‘Silverstone Nine’ of ’73.

1 – Jody Scheckter

Yardley McLaren M23

Jody Scheckter and the rest on Hangar Straight before the start of the 1973 British Grand Prix. Ahead of him are Ronnie Peterson and McLaren team-mates Denny Hulme and Peter Revson. Jackie Stewart, François Cevert and Emerson Fittipaldi are to his left

2 – Andrea de Adamich

Ceramica Pagnossin MRD Brabham BT42

The only driver hurt in the pile-up, after the Italian’s Brabham crashed headlong into the barriers on the outside of the circuit. De Adamich was trapped for 40 minutes in the wreck with a broken ankle, which effectively ended his F1 career after 30 starts for Ferrari, McLaren, March, Surtees and Brabham. The bespectacled journeyman finished fourth twice (Spain, 1972; Belgium 1973). He also won the Brands Hatch 1000Kms and Watkins Glen 6 Hours for Alfa Romeo in 1971. He later had a successful media career as an F1 commentator and set up a driving school. Now aged 81.

3 – Jean-Pierre Beltoise

Marlboro BRM P160E

His F1 day of days at Monaco in 1972 was already fabled history when the French veteran found himself caught up in the Silverstone melee. There had been other high points. He’d finished second in the non-champ springtime 1972 International Trophy at Silverstone and won the end-of-season John Player Victory Race at Brands – but  by 1973 the BRM rot had set in. Beltoise had one more season in the top flight, then missed  out on a Ligier drive to  Jacques Laffite. Enjoyed years competing in touring cars and had two racing sons, Julien and Anthony. Died in 2015, aged 77.

4 – George Follmer

UOP Shadow DN1

Fiery Phoenix-born Follmer was already 39 when he was thrown into F1 by Don Nichols and his ambitious Shadow assault in 1973. He scored a point on his debut in South Africa and had a sensational podium third next time out thanks to attrition at Montjuïc, but it was all downhill from there in what turned out to be his single F1 shot. The intra-Shadow rivalry with Jackie Oliver in both F1 and Can-Am proved spicy. His racing career was interrupted by a nasty crash at Laguna Seca in 1978, but Follmer continued into the 1980s and finished third at Le Mans in 1986 in a Joest Porsche 956. Now 89.

5 – Graham Hill

Embassy Racing Shadow DN1

A hit to the rear broke a wishbone, but the veteran limped to the pits and lined up for the restart. Retired after 25 laps with steering trouble. Hill was clinging on by 1973. He’d set up Embassy Racing after all hope of a decent drive dried up. Struggled to make the new Shadow work, switched to a heavy Lola and, back at Silverstone two years after the pile-up, announced his retirement having failed to qualify at Monaco – of all places. Then in November came the Elstree air crash in which he perished along with Tony Alcock, Ray Brimble, Terry Richards, Andy Smallman and Tony Brise.

6 – Mike Hailwood

Brooke Bond Oxo/Rob Walker/Team Surtees TS14A

He’d earned the George Medal for pulling Clay Regazzoni from  a blaze at Kyalami, but for ‘Mike the Car’ there was little reward on track at unreliable Surtees. Now this. Things looked up in 1974 when he switched to McLaren – until his F1 career ended in a leg-breaking crash at the Nürburgring. ‘Mike the Bike’ was back with a fairy-tale Isle  of Man TT Formula 1 win on a Ducati in 1978, then he smashed the lap record a year later claiming the Senior TT for Suzuki – only for Mike and daughter Michelle to die in a senseless road collision with a lorry making an illegal U-turn in March 1981.

7 – Jochen Mass

Team Surtees TS14A

What a way to mark your F1 debut! Short and not very sweet – much like the rest of his time at Team Surtees. But Mass went on to make 104 GP starts, including this inauspicious beginning, most notably in the McLaren M23 for three seasons – scoring his only F1 win in the tragic and truncated Spanish GP in ’75 . The career dwindled at ATS, Arrows and March, but disillusion turned to satisfaction and fulfilment in Group C, first via Porsche and then Sauber with whom he won Le Mans in 1989. Now 76, this Goodwood favourite is best described as one of our international racing treasures.

8 – Carlos Pace

Brooke Bond Oxo Team Surtees TS14A

He’d left Frank Williams for this. Frying pans and fires spring to mind. Brazilian Pace made it one for three for furious, exasperated ‘Big John’ at Silverstone – although in Carlos’s case better was to come: fourth at the Nürburgring and a podium third at the Österreichring, attrition leaving him behind just Ronnie Peterson and Jackie Stewart. Unhappy mid-1974, Pace was eventually levered into Brabham by backgammon buddy Bernie Ecclestone. So much promise, only one win – gloriously at home at Interlagos in 1975 – and too soon he was gone: killed in a light aircraft crash in 1977.

9 – Roger Williamson

STP March Racing/Wheatcroft Racing March 731

Like Jochen Mass, this was Williamson’s F1 debut. The popular racer had caught the eye in Formula 3, particularly that of a local businessman and dedicated racing enthusiast. Tom Wheatcroft was convinced and put his shoulder to push Williamson up the ladder. F1 was the aim for ’74, but such was his enthusiasm ‘Wheatie’ bankrolled a taster mid-1973. Silverstone was unfortunate, but maybe Zandvoort would be better. Then… the upturned car, the fire, David Purley’s desperation that quickly turned to disgust and despondency – all caught live on TV. Something had to change.