First practice was on Friday, more or less from 10:30am to 2pm, and when it started the pits seemed to be knee-deep in March cars, the way it used to be with 250F Maseratis in the mid-1950s. The Tyrrell team had three blue ones, the STP-March works team had a red one and two Dayglow red ones, and the STP Corporation had their car now painted in Dayglow red colours.
Stewart was driving 701/2, with 701/4 as a spare, Servoz-Gavin had the new 701/6 and in the works team Amon had 701/1, with the new lightweight 701/7 as spare, and Siffert had 705/5, while Andretti had 701/3.
There were five Lotus cars, the brand new 72/2 for Rindt, the prototype 72/1 for Miles, the old 49C/R10 on loan to Soler-Roig, the other works 49C/R6 as a spare, and Hill in Walker’s 49C/127.