By Pete Lyons MONZA, Italy-The 47th Gran Premio Nazionale d'Italia was a very long event, three days long, but just when it was getting endles s there was a r estful little pause and we had the Italian Grand Prix. It was a nice short , sha rp, eventful motor race and it was worth all the trouble of waiting for it. Politics, if you' ve been paying attention so far this year, are running wild in Formula One and the last round of the European season was a real laugh riot. Over the summerful of increasingly bitter controversies there has grown up high feeling between the Italian Side and the English Side, and it was certainly too much hope that it wouldn't all come to a head at Monza, But that race, that great period between 3:30 and 5pm on Sunday afternoon, was wonderful. It started off with Jacques Laffite on Pole in his ' Gitanes Ligier- Matra, which was a testimony to the basic soundness of the rather small French team' s effort quite as much as to the fact that Laffite had been testing at Monza the week before, and was thus more ready than some to take advantage of the single dry hour of practice that was granted by the Po River Valley weather. . Laffite got a good start and directly behind him, third fastest qualifier, so. did Carlos Pace (his Martini Brabham-Alfa nearly a second quicker than the Ferrari of his ex-teammate Carlos Reutemann). The two twelves arrived into the First Ronnie Peterson found his way to the winner's circle aUhe ItalianGP after one of his drier seasons. Here he powers his oversteering March 761 olit of a corner Chicane together, but then Jody Scheck- h T II P34 f J d S h kt d Pt ' k 0 ' 11 tel', who had been a close second best on ahead of t e yrre so 0 y cec er an a riC epa. er. Chris Mullen Photos the grid, overtook them both under the Y ellow flag and led the lap), The Elf DRIVING CH.AMPIONSHIP, SEPTEMBER 12. 1976 RESULTS Tyrell-Ford stayed in front for the first 10 I.Ronnie Peterson, March. 52 laps or 186.784 miles in laps, but then Ronnie Peterson, who had 1:30:35.6 for an average speed of 124.l04mph; 2Clay Regazzoni. started eighth, put his March-Ford ahead Ferrari. 52; 3-Jacques lafitte.ligier. 52; 4Niki lauda. Ferrari, 52; and there for the rest of the race he 5-Jody Scheckler. Tyrrell .. 52; 6-Patrick Depailler. Tyrrell. 52; 7 Vittorio Brambilla. March. 52; 8-Tom Pryce. Shadow. 52; 9-Carlos managed to stay. , Reutemann. Ferrari. 52; lO-Jacky Ich, Ensign. 52: ll-John "For a while there we had three drivers Penske. 52: l2: A!an J!)nes, Surtees, 51: 13-Gunnar in the first irrepressi- ..... '. '<N!lssOn Lotus, 51; I'-Brett Lunger, Surtees. 50: IS-Emerson . Fittipaldi. Copersucar. 50; 16-Harald Ertl. Hesketh. 49. halfshaft; ble Ken Tyrrell, rubbing his hands to- . 17-Henry Pescarolo. Surtees. 49; 18-A, Pesenti-Rossi. Tyrrell. 49; gether. He was anticipating by about 19-J-P Jarier. Shadow. 47. three months, but certainly Peterson DNF: Rolf Stommelen. 41, fuel system; Mario Andretti. 23. ( h" T 11 t ) S h k shunt; Hans Stuck, 23. shunt; James Hunt. 11. shunt; Larry W 0 JOlnS yrre nex year, c ec ter Perkins. 8. engine failure; Carlos Pace, 4. engine failure; Jochen (who leaves at the end of this one) and Mass. 3, ignition, Patick DepaiUer (who hasn't announced '--________________ ...1 anything as yet) put up a terrific nose-to- tail chase for laps. Until the two Tyrrell engines went off that is, Depailler's through a misfire and Scheckter's through a peculiar "loss of power," and the pair of six-wheelers gradually dropped back. Taking their place though was the outstanding Clay Regazzoni, who had been hopeless in practice but who stormed through the field in the race like a man determined to shut up all those people who were saying this was his last race. He overtook the still competitive Laffite and towed him with him, and both stayed hard after Peterson right to the flag. Just the sligh- test slip would have cut Ronnie off a road that was persistantly but unpredictably slippery with light rain showers. "It's really difficult leading everyone like that, having to be the one to take the gamble for them," said SuperSwede with the wreath around his neck, "but I was lucky not to fall off." He was lucky with his car too, for having announced his decision to leave March his 761 took the opportunity of running-for once- without any problems the whole distance! "When I saw the checkered flag I wasn't sure I'd done the right thing to quit ... " he smiled wistifully. It was the first Peter- son victory in exactly two years-he's now a three-timer at Monza. But th,e hero of the weekend was Niki Lauda. Six weeks ago he was so near the edge of death that a priest waved his hand over him and said. "Goodby, my son." Continued On Next Page HISTORIC AUTO RACES CSRG OCTOBESRGINSVITATIONALS Cla.'.;si(' Hpol'ts RaeingGl'Ollp at SEARS POINT RACEWAY Sunday, October 10,1976 . CSRG is a Northern California organization dedicated to the preservation' and enjoyment of racing as it used to be. We welcome inquiries . . . Owners of pre.1962 Sports Racing and formula cars are invited to join with the CSRG in a day of low key racing arid practice. For information, contact: CSRG 104 Hill Road Berkeley, CA 94708 (415) 841-7951 (415) 2847292 (415) 3927528 Perhaps the best news of the entire Italian GP weekend was that Niki Lauda has returned to F1 racing and was able to finish in fourth position in the car seen here. Monza Scrutineering Adds Comedy To Confusing Italian GP Weekend MONZA, Italy-The Marlboro McLaren team-so said sympathetic mechanics from other teams-had half-expected trouble on this visit to Italy and had gone out several days earlier than the border posts or the wayside villages might have anticipated. In fact they encountered no dramas at all, and the team was beginning to relax when in the middle of Saturday morning's final practice a deputation of officials went along the pits requesting fuel samples. It was nothing new that Monza .race organizers were being bears about scru- tineering. All during the meeting there had been extraordinarily stringent meas- urements tak-en of things like wing heights. In fact, they were so stringent that on Friday evening they got them- selves into serious difficulty. They start- ed investigating a part of the Yellow Book that specifies airboxopenings; to paraph- rase it, the highest part of the opening itself must be no higher than 80 cm from the bottom of the chassis, although there is a further tolerance of 5 cm so that the structure of the airbox itself may "dome up" over the opening (After all, how else could you make the opening?) It is a clear indictment of the stupidity of the current F1 regulations-which are a hodgepodge of individual ' decisions about problems that have arisen over several years past and which are present- ed in two languages in several different sections of a book with no good correla- tion between either themselves or the announced earlier intention of the fram- ers of each individual rule-that the scrutineers could find that two teams had illegal airboxes. On the JPS cars, skirtings hanging down the sides established the lower limit of the chassis at below 80 cm from the highest part of the airbox opening. Never mind the new-in-July rule that simplifies the measurement of rear wing heights at 90 cm above the ground; no simplification was made of the airbox measurement. Continued On Next Page