Ronnie Peterson's greatest drives

[kals]

Bottom post of the previous page:

@Airflow and @John thank you both for the additional information. Very interesting stuff.

Is the Peterson film available in English language and / or subtitled?

[John]

@Airflow and @John thank you both for the additional information. Very interesting stuff.

Is the Peterson film available in English language and / or subtitled?

Almost all interviews are in English (Emmo, Watson, JYS etc). The documentary itself is in Swedish. Not sure who retails it though.

[Everso Biggyballies]

@Airflow and @John thank you both for the additional information. Very interesting stuff.

Is the Peterson film available in English language and / or subtitled?

Almost all interviews are in English (Emmo, Watson, JYS etc). The documentary itself is in Swedish. Not sure who retails it though.

It is on RFM as a download, listed in Swedish but with subs

[Airflow]

Here´s a better photo.

[Airflow]

Heres a link to the full movie on Swedish television, They is showing it tonight as a tribute. Maybe you need a VPN or something to be able to watch from abroad, I don´t know.

https://www.svtplay.se/video/19188387/s ... start=auto

[Everso Biggyballies]

It says only available in Sweden but sure there would be a way round it.

[Cheeveer]

Thank you very much for that article!

[John]

For those who haven't seen it, F1 uploaded a nice tribute to Ronnie on their youtube page. Sadly, hotlinking those videos don't work, but go to Youtube and head to F1's page and you'll find it.

[John]

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ate-ronnie

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... ing-ronnie

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... mad-ronald

Three more articles on Ronnie, courtesy of Motor Sport Magazine.

[Michael Ferner]

Here is a source from the book Superswede by Johnny Tipler. Sadly in swedish but the names and qoutes is there. Chapman wanted Andretti to be the fastest lotus in all the sessions. Ronnie had 20 gallons during qualification while Andretti had 5. However, at Brands, Ronnies manager forced Chapman to give Ronnie qualifying tyres and low fuel, Thats how the pole happened. Quoted by Eddie Dennis and Ghugie Zanon

Thanks Kals for the article, I really enjoyed it.

For those here who don't speak this glorious language, I'll translate what's written in the upper right corner:

At Brands, Mario had 16 sets of qualifying tires while Ronnie only had worn race tires from the previous GP. When he was sent out with a full tank of fuel, he qualified a full second faster than his teammate.

Following that stunt, he demanded light fuel and qualifying tires as well, which he recieved. He then used this setup for the rest of the qualifying session. He also had a personal contract with Count Zanon, who payed him some money for each pole.

The poleman at Brands recieved 100 bottles of champagne as a prize, most of which Chapman hogged.

@Airflow can you upload a new version without the camera flash on the right hand side?

- So he had fueled up runs
- He was a second faster than Andretti on one of those runs
- It seems that his final pole lap however was a light fuel run, with sticky rubber.

Aha. So it turns out, the story is BS, after all. And yet, nobody has followed my lead to look into period sources, it's still all accounts from memory, which as usually mix smatterings of knowledge with perceived wisdom. Examples? The 100 bottles of bubbly always went to the fastest man on the first day of practice, not to the pole man. And: Peterson did indeed record his fastest time on race rubber, not qualifiers, since he found out that the qualifiers went off before the completion of one fast lap. Andretti stayed on the qualies, and lost out - thats basically the story of the 1978 British GP qualifying. Read period sources, preferably in the specialist magazines, not the tabloids, and you will find out why this particular story doesn't fly, instead of the nonsense that some people write years afterwards.

You can call Chapman many things, but he certainly wasn't stupid. And it would be stupid to handicap one's own car during qualifying, and for what? Chapman wanted Andretti to win races, not pole positions. There are no world championship points in qualifying, but there is money at stake - by handicapping your number two you risk dropping him behind a rival, which you can't control in qualifying. Much easier to control the outcome of a race. There's absolutely nothing in it for a team to handicap its own driver in qualifying, and it really needs only a little bit of common sense to understand.

So, why do so many people write this nonsense? Let's just look at the undisputed facts: Peterson did, in fact, receive number two treatment at Lotus: Andretti would always get all the attention, the latest parts, and unrestricted access to the team's spare - the usual things. Ronnie was always very aware of that fact, and played the game - he didn't complain, and when prompted (which happened quite often, see below) he would usually say: "I know the contract that I signed".

Many, many seasoned observers couldn't quite understand why Andretti was almost always faster, since Peterson was by most regarded as the fastest man on earth. That's why Ronnie was often asked about his treatment at Lotus, and he would always say: "Andretti is really faster" - look into period reports, if you don't believe it! Some of those who couldn't understand would then invent stories such as the extra fuel, the old tyres, and even more outlandish nonsense. But, looking at the bare facts tells another, and much more likely story: when both drivers had the Lotus 79, Peterson would always, without exception, be faster in the first practice session. Many reports of the time make mention of Andretti's "methodical approach", improving his setup and whittling away at his times, so that by the end of practice he was faster, more often than not. Ronnie had the superior speed out of the box, the "natural speed" if you will, but Andretti was vastly superior when it came to setting his car up. That's all there is to it.

So, don't come with these second-hand accounts, written many years after the fact, to bolster your theories. I'm a historian, I always look into period sources. If you can't answer a simple question like, in which session did that happen, then I know you don't, relying instead on perceived wisdom. Facts always beat that. And just a tiny bit of common sense never goes amiss.

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

Ah, the Rocket. I became a fan when he wrang superior results from the tea-tray March. The last time I saw him in action was the Canadian GP at Mosport in '77. In a qualifying session, I was spectating from T10 which leads onto the pit straight so saw cars crest the hill on the back straight, disappear behind a hill and reappear for T9. His six-wheeler, 2nd generation P34 Tyrrell was hopeless. Bucking, kicking, lurching about in such an evil manner that if the car had a soul, it was saying, 'I'm going to kill you every chance I get'. I felt so sorry to see Ronnie tied to such a lemon. Qualifying results? He puts it P3 on the grid. Forever admired for such an heroic performance.