1977 United States Grand Prix

  1977 United States Grand Prix

Race details
Race 15 of 17 in the 1977 Formula One season
Date	October 2, 1977
Official name	XX Toyota United States Grand Prix
Location	Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course Watkins Glen, New York
Course	Permanent road course
Course length	5.435 km (3.377 mi)
Distance	59 laps, 320.67 km (199.24 mi)
Weather	Rain with temperatures reaching up to 63 °F (17 °C); winds gusting up to 12.8 miles per hour (20.6 km/h)[1]
Pole position
Driver	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford
Time	1:40.863
Fastest lap
Driver	Ronnie Peterson	Tyrrell-Ford
Time	1:51.85 on lap 56
Podium
First	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford
Second	Mario Andretti	Lotus-Ford
Third	Jody Scheckter	Wolf-Ford

The 1977 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on October 2, 1977 at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York. This event was also referred to as the United States Grand Prix East in order to distinguish it from the United States Grand Prix West held on April 3, 1977 in Long Beach, California.

Summary

By holding off a charging Mario Andretti, James Hunt won at Watkins Glen for the second consecutive year, but the World Championship crown returned to Austrian Niki Lauda, whose fourth place clinched his second title in three years. Racing in cold and rain, Hunt took his second win of the year for McLaren, while Lauda's title was the culmination of a comeback from the life-threatening injuries he sustained at the Nürburgring in 1976.

For the first time, the American race was being held before the Canadian Grand Prix, which would follow a week later. Lauda led the championship with 69 points, while Jody Scheckter was second with 42 points. With 9 points being awarded for a win, Lauda needed only to score a point in any of the final three races to clinch the title, while Scheckter needed to win them all to have a chance.

From the start of practice on Friday, Hunt's McLaren was dominant, setting a track record of 1:40.863. Brabham teammates Hans-Joachim Stuck and John Watson were a quarter of a second back, followed by Andretti, Ronnie Peterson and the Ferraris of Carlos Reutemann and Lauda. On Saturday morning there was rain just before the end of untimed practice, and so the afternoon session served only as practice for a possible wet race on Sunday, as Friday's times determined the grid.

Sunday began cold but dry, with a crowd over 100,000. Before the warmup, however, it began to drizzle, and by the five-minute signal, it had picked up enough that only John Watson was willing to gamble on starting with slicks. At the flag, everyone got away from the grid and through the first turn without incident, but the spray was so heavy that nothing was visible after the first five cars. Stuck quickly jumped ahead of Hunt, and after one lap, they were followed by Andretti, Reutemann, Peterson, Lauda, Scheckter, Jacques Laffite and Gunnar Nilsson.

Immediately, Scheckter began to take advantage of the others' uncertainty in the conditions and, by lap five had moved from ninth to fourth. Stuck was also going well in the wet, and, despite losing his clutch cable in the first few laps, pulled away from Hunt. Lauda passed his teammate Reutemann for fifth spot when the Argentine spun. On lap 15, with Hunt four seconds behind, Stuck, struggling to make gear changes without a clutch, popped out of gear entering a corner and went straight on. He retired with damage to the monocoque.

Hunt now led Andretti by 10.5 seconds, with Scheckter 14 seconds further back in third. The rain stopped, and drivers sought the wet sections of a drying track to cool their tires. With 10 laps remaining and the lead at 22 seconds, Hunt backed off in response to a pit signal. Lauda was coasting in fourth, a position sufficient to clinch the Championship. Scheckter had slowed in third to preserve his tires.

With two laps to go, Andretti, who had been closing while Hunt cruised home, was only 6.7 seconds behind. As they began the last lap, the margin had closed to 1.5 seconds, but Hunt increased his lead slightly to win by just over two seconds. The McLaren pit had not informed him how close the Lotus was until the start of the final lap, when Teddy Mayer gave him a frantic wave to pick up the pace.

Lauda thus took his second title, and Ferrari took their third consecutive Constructor's Championship.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	James Hunt	McLaren-Ford	59	1:58:23.267	1	9
2	5	Mario Andretti	Lotus-Ford	59	+ 2.026 secs	4	6
3	20	Jody Scheckter	Wolf-Ford	59	+ 1:18.879	9	4
4	11	Niki Lauda	Ferrari	59	+ 1:40.615	7	3
5	22	Clay Regazzoni	Ensign-Ford	59	+ 1:48.138	19	2
6	12	Carlos Reutemann	Ferrari	58	+ 1 Lap	6	1
7	26	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Matra	58	+ 1 Lap	10
8	24	Rupert Keegan	Hesketh-Ford	58	+ 1 Lap	20
9	16	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Shadow-Ford	58	+ 1 Lap	16
10	30	Brett Lunger	McLaren-Ford	57	+ 2 Laps	17
11	18	Hans Binder	Surtees-Ford	57	+ 2 Laps	25
12	7	John Watson	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	57	+ 2 Laps	3
13	28	Emerson Fittipaldi	Fittipaldi-Ford	57	+ 2 Laps	18
14	4	Patrick Depailler	Tyrrell-Ford	56	+ 3 Laps	8
15	9	Alex Ribeiro	March-Ford	56	+ 3 Laps	23
16	3	Ronnie Peterson	Tyrrell-Ford	56	+ 3 Laps	5
17	25	Ian Ashley	Hesketh-Ford	55	+ 4 Laps	22
18	27	Patrick Nève	March-Ford	55	+ 4 Laps	24
19	19	Vittorio Brambilla	Surtees-Ford	54	+ 5 Laps	11
Ret	15	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	Renault	30	Alternator	14
Ret	6	Gunnar Nilsson	Lotus-Ford	17	Accident	12
Ret	8	Hans Joachim Stuck	Brabham-Alfa Romeo	14	Accident	2
Ret	10	Ian Scheckter	March-Ford	10	Accident	21
Ret	2	Jochen Mass	McLaren-Ford	8	Fuel Pump	15
Ret	14	Danny Ongais	Penske-Ford	6	Accident	26
Ret	17	Alan Jones	Shadow-Ford	3	Accident	13
DNQ	23	Patrick Tambay	Ensign-Ford
Source:[2]

Notes

• Lauda won the Driver's Championship with two races left.

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Niki Lauda 72 2 Mario Andretti 47 3 Jody Scheckter 46 4 Carlos Reutemann 36 5 James Hunt 31

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 89 (91) 2 Lotus-Ford 62 3 McLaren-Ford 47 4 Wolf-Ford 46 5 Brabham-Alfa Romeo 27

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 8 results from the first 9 races and the best 7 results from the remaining 8 races were retained. Numbers without parentheses are retained points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

References

Further reading

• Doug Nye (1978). The United States Grand Prix and grand prize races, 1908-1977. B. T. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-1263-1
• Rob Walker (January, 1978). "18th United States Grand Prix: Wet But Not Wild". Road & Track, 82-86.