Part 4 : Hitting the Big-Time

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Early in November, hobbling on crutches, Patrick went to the Paul Ricard circuit near Le Castellet in Southern France, where Team Tyrrell was testing at the time. He tried to convince Ken Tyrrell for several days that he was fit and ready to drive again. After a week of discussions, Ken finally asked Patrick to drive for his team in the 1974 F1 Championship. Tyrrell most probably knew for a long time that Depailler was the man he was after. He did leave his options open, though, and were also considering one or two other promising drivers. Patrick was a very happy man when he was told the news, even though he would be regarded as the team's second driver. The South African Jody Scheckter would have the honour to lead the team. Patrick was now a full time Grand Prix driver and that is what really mattered for him.

During a weekend in early December 1973, Patrick arrived at Team Tyrrell's workshop in Surrey for his first seat-fittings. He was still on his crutches and had to be lifted into the cockpit of one of the cars. Ken Tyrrell surely must have been quite sceptic about the chances of his latest recruit making a complete recovery before the first Grand Prix in January.

Patrick, however, was ready for battle in Argentina when the season started. It seemed that he had recovered completely from his injuries, although his ever-present crutches must have been reason for scepticism amongst some people of the F1 fraternity. Tyrrell decided to retain their 005 and 006/2 models of the previous year and Patrick was given the former in Argentina. Qualification was no walk in the park for the Frenchman and he eventually only managed to qualify in 15th position on the starting grid. In the race he made a good start and was lying in 10th place after the first lap. The rest of the race was very uneventful and Patrick moved up a few places due to retirements in front of him. On the final lap he was in 8th position when two cars in front of him in the race, that of Carlos Reutemann and Howden Ganley, both had to retire when they ran out of fuel. This meant that Patrick crossed the finishing line in 6th place. With this he scored his first World Championship point in F1.

Two weeks later at the Brazilian GP, Patrick again had a tough time to come to grips with the handling of the nervous Tyrrell during the qualification rounds and only managed the 16th fastest time. In the race itself he had a steady run again to finish 8th overall.

The year 1974 saw Patrick taking on a hectic racing programme. Not only was he assigned to the Tyrrell team, but he also received an offer early in the year to drive for the March Racing team in F2. His services were much in demand amongst F2 teams, following his very good performances of the previous two years in this formula. Again backing was received from Elf and Patrick was given one of the works March 742's for his European F2 campaign.

Following the two South American Grands Prix, Depailler was off to Barcelona to compete in his first race for March Racing. The race was held at the Montjuïch circuit. Patrick qualified the March on the front row of the grid and had a very good race to finish 2nd overall.

At the South African GP a few days later he qualified 15th. During the race he rapidly moved up through the field, even though he suffered from tyre vibration for most of the race. Patrick had his best run in the Tyrrell, since his debut for them. He finished 4th and was rapidly closing on the 3rd placed man, Mike Hailwood, at the time that the chequered flag came out. Depailler had scored four championship points, against zero of his more acclaimed team mate, Scheckter, who had a better car at the time.

A month later at the Spanish GP the new Tyrrell 007 appeared. It differed from its predecessors in having a wedge-shaped, fairly pointed nose and also side-mounted radiators. Tall but slim air deflectors were incorporated at each end of the front aerofoil, to assist airflow to the radiators. A larger wheelbase was also incorporated. Two other different features on the car were the use of a narrower air-intake box and a rear aerofoil that had a deeply concave trough-like profile.

Only one Tyrrell 007 was available in Spain and this was given to Scheckter. Depailler was given Scheckter's old car, the 006/2. Jody had problems with the new car in practise and Patrick had to part with his, without having done a decent run in the car. With his qualification round being completely disrupted, Patrick could only qualify in 16th position. For the race itself, though, he was again handed the 006/2 after the problems on the 007 were solved. Depailler had yet another steady drive in the unfamiliar car, to claim another 8th position. Scheckter finished in the points for the first time for Tyrrell and the new car brought some extra confidence to the team.

On the 5th May, a week after the Spanish GP, Patrick was at the Pau circuit for the GP de Pau, F2 race. He was blindingly quick from the moment go and set pole position for the 75 lap race. The race began on a wet circuit and Patrick lead from the start. He was only briefly challenged by Hans Stuck, also in a works March 742, until Stuck had an accident on the first lap. After that nobody could match the speed of the French driver. By the end of lap two he was leading by 12 second and by the eight lap his lead had increased to over a minute. When Patrick crossed the finishing line at the end of the race, he had lapped the entire field almost twice. He had finally won his first race in a F2 race. This was also one of the most dominant performances ever seen in F2. A masterly display of controlled driving.

Patrick's next appointment in his diary was the Belgian GP at Nivelles. Tyrrell had a second 007 ready by that time. Patrick had a good run in practise and qualified 11th on the grid, but was still overshadowed by teammate Scheckter who was on the front row at the start. A broken brake strap meant that Patrick had to retire, while occupying 5th place in the race.

Patrick received an offer to drive an Alpine A441 sports car in the Nürburgring 1000km race, with Jabouille as co-driver. They did well in the 2litre car to finish 10th overall in a race that was dominated by 3 litre cars like the Matra-Simca MS670's, Alfa Romeo 33TT12's and Porsche 911's. Patrick nevertheless enjoyed the chance to compete on one of his favourite circuits.

One race that Depailler was much looking forward to was the Monaco GP. Following his brilliant performances in F3 races on this circuit, he felt that he was in with a good chance to challenge the F1 frontrunners. He did very well in practise and set 4th fastest time, out qualifying Scheckter for the first time. On the warm-up lap prior to the race, disaster struck when fuel suddenly began to leak from a metering unit. He quickly had to change into the team's spare car, but had to start on the back of the grid. His chance of winning was immediately wiped out by this mishap. Patrick, ever the fighter, still did his best and was throwing the Tyrrell around in spectacular slides on the tight circuit. A pit stop in the race, due to a loose wheel nut, saw him slip further behind and at the chequered flag he was in a distant 9th position.

Patrick all of a sudden seemed to have found his feet in the Tyrrell and at Anderstorp for the Swedish GP he was the sensation of the meeting. He surprised a few people when he claimed pole position for the race. At the start of the race he applied too much wheel spin and was passed by both Scheckter and the local man, Ronnie Peterson. Peterson, however, soon had to retire with drive shaft problems. The Tyrrell cars were placed first and second and were opening up a gap to the third placed man. In the final part of the race, the Tyrrell pits informed their drivers to keep their positions and not to race each other. James Hunt was closing in on them, at the time, and Tyrrell did not want to risk loosing both its drivers, if they should have decided to speed up and race each other. In the end Jody won by 0,3 seconds from Patrick. This was Jody's first win in F1 and Patrick's first podium finish.

Patrick's good form was continuing at the Dutch GP. He made an excellent start from 8th on the grid and soon found himself in 3rd place in the race. He was holding on to this position until lap 37 when his car began to oversteer. By the end of the race he had dropped back to 6th place for a hard earned World Championship point. At the French GP he was doing well in the first practise session by setting the 3rd fastest time. He was confident of posting an even faster time in the following sessions, but unfortunately damaged the front of his car in an accident at one of the corners. He therefore had to rely on the old Tyrrell 006/2 for the rest of the weekend and eventually started in 8th place. He also finished the race in the same position.

Depailler had another storming drive in mid-July for March Racing when he won the GP di Mugello in Italy. He was now very much the man that everyone feared in the European F2 Championship.

The next GP was in England and here he had to retire due to engine failure. At the German GP, Patrick was again very fast and qualified 5th. While running in 6th place in the race, he damaged his car on the guardrails in an attempt to overtake Peterson at the Adenau Bridge.

A week later he and Peterson were at it again. Both men were competing in the Kanonloppet F2 race at Karlskoga in Sweden. Peterson was driving a works March similar to that of Depailler in this race. Patrick qualified on pole and had a titanic battle with Peterson during the race, where he also set the fastest time. In the end it was the Swede that crossed the finishing line less than a second ahead of the Frenchman.

At the Österreichring, for the Austrian GP, Patrick performed well in the race. He was lying in 4th place, after he moved through the field from his 14th position on the grid. On lap 43 he went sideways in one of the corners and was struck by Jacky Ickx. After the incident Patrick stop and climbed out of his car. It was thought that he had retired due to damage to his car, but he was actually ill with heat exhaustion caused by the very hot conditions in which the race was run. When he arrived back in the pits he told Ken Tyrrell why he could not continue after which Ken informed him never to quit a race again, unless he wanted to loose his job as a racing driver.

On the 1st September Patrick tried his hand at Formula Atlantic racing for the first time. He was invited to compete in the Canadian Formula Atlantic Challenge race at Trois Rivières in the Quèbec province. Formula Atlantic racing in Canada was very much based on the F2 rules in Europe. An agreement was made between the organizers of Pau race in France and the men from Trois Rivières. The top drivers in the Pau race would be invited to race at Trois Rivières, while the top performers in the Canadian race, would again receive an invitation to Pau. The race at Trois Rivières was also held on a street circuit, just like its French counterpart.

This meant that Patrick was naturally looking forward to the challenge, since he had by then built a reputation of being very quick on demanding circuits of that nature. The Ecurie Canada team from Montreal entered him for this event. The car was a 1973 F2 March that was converted into a Formula Atlantic. The bodywork was from a 1974 March. Patrick put the red painted car on pole position and was leading the race when a wing strut broke on the car. The ill handling March was suddenly a handful and Patrick slipped down to third place at the finish. His only consolation was that he set fastest time in the race.

Back in Europe his next race was the Italian GP at Monza. This was a rather uneventful race, apart from a visit to the pits after damaging a wheel at the chicane. He eventually finished 11th. Two weeks later he was off to Canada once more for the Canadian GP at Mosport Park. He qualified 7th and finished 5th to claim another two points for his championship cause.

The F2 season was drawing to a close and Patrick was in a good position to clinch the championship title, which turned out to be a two-way battle between himself and the German driver Hans-Joachim Stuck. On 29 September he competed at Hockenheim in his penultimate F2 race of the season. In both Heats he finished second, but on aggregate he was appointed as the winner of this race. The nine points he got from this win put him firmly in place to become the F2 champion.

A week later he made yet another trip to North America. This was for the final GP of the year at Watkins Glen in the USA. Patrick's end of season good form continued and he finished this race in 6th place. The additional point that he claimed in this race meant that he finished the season with 14 points and was classified in 9th position overall in the World Championship standings.

His final race of a very full and eventful year was the all-important GP di Roma at Vallelunga. At stake was the European F2 Championship. Patrick wasted no time in putting his stamp on this race. He dominated the event from start to finish by claiming pole position and winning both the Heats. Fastest lap in Heat 2 was an added bonus. Not only was he the winner of this race, but he also received the honour of being crowned as the European F2 Champion for 1974.

At the end of the year he could look back at a most successful year in F2, while his debut season in F1 also showed good promise, even though he very much raced in the shadow of teammate Scheckter. Patrick was the first, though, to admit that he was perhaps not psychologically in the right condition for F1, since he did not have enough confidence. He was very timid and was sometimes completely lost, since he had not the English to explain his problems to his team. When he was completely lost in explaining the technical set up of his car, he would say: "Give me Jody's car…." to spare himself further embarrassment.

In the off-season Tyrrell decided to retain the services of both its drivers. The 007's of 1974 were also used in the first Grands Prix of the new season in South America. The only appreciable alteration that was made to the car was that the front brakes were moved outboard.

Argentina once again was the setting for the first race of the year. Patrick was trying desperately hard in practise to claim a decent grid position, but the Tyrrells were suffering from handling problems in the hot conditions. In the end he had to be satisfied with 8th fastest time, just in front of teammate Scheckter. During the race he had a steady run and eventually finished 5th, about a minute behind the winner Emerson Fittipaldi.

Two weeks later at Interlagos, Patrick's Saturday qualification session ended against a barrier following a front wishbone failure, but not before he had secured 9th spot on the starting grid. Race day was extremely hot and Patrick settled in 8th position after the start. Later he had moved up to 6th place .On the 32nd lap his race ended in the catch fences after yet another front wishbone failure.

Jody Scheckter recalls an interesting story on the weekend of the Brazilian GP. He and Patrick had arranged a helicopter to take them to the circuit on the morning of the race and thereby avoiding the notorious traffic jams of the city. When the helicopter did not show up, they were left with the problem of getting to the circuit on time for practice. They managed to find a car, but were then confronted with the daunting prospect of facing the race day traffic. It was decided that Patrick would drive, hoping that his experience of Paris traffic would stand them in good stead. Jody says that he spent most of the time with one hand over his eyes as Patrick made lanes where they did not exist. It was not long before the local traffic police spotted them and pulled them off the road. Luckily they were both dressed in their race overalls and the police was sympathetic to their cause. The police switched from following them to leading them with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Such was their rate of progress that it took them only a couple of minutes more to reach the circuit as what it would have taken them in the helicopter.

Tyrrell built a new chassis in time for the South African GP that incorporated various other modifications such as revised suspension geometry. Coil-spring damper units replaced the torsion bars at the rear. The side mounted water radiators were also repositioned and were now angled in the fibreglass side pods, which had been cut back. A narrower and taller air box was also fitted over the engine.

The Tyrrells had a good qualifying session at Kyalami and Scheckter and Depailler were 3rd and 5th fastest respectively. It also turned out to be a very good race for the team. Scheckter moved into the leads on the 3rd lap and Patrick was running 4th. Having worked his way through to 3rd spot behind Scheckter and Reutemann, he was doing his utmost to stay in 3rd place and for several laps resisted every attempt that Fiitipaldi made, in trying to overtake him. Then Fittipaldi's engine began to misfire and Patrick could breath easier again. In the end it was Jody that scored an impressive win in front of his home crowd. Patrick held on to 3rd place, although it was a close call after the brakes on his car started playing up.

Patrick's first F1 race in Europe for the '75 season was at the non-championship BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone. In this race he finished 5th. Two weeks later it was the turn of the Spanish GP at the Montjuich street circuit in Barcelona. This race saw the drivers going on strike over the unsatisfactory manner in which the guardrails had been installed around the circuit. CSI representatives gave their approval after some alterations, but the drivers were still not happy. Only after they were threatened with contractual obligations, they got into their cars to start the practice session.

Several drivers had accidents during qualifying, amongst them Depailler who damaged his car against a guardrail. He still managed to qualify in a decent 7th position, albeit in the spare car. At the start of the race there was drama when Brambilla touched the car of Andretti, who ran into the back of Lauda's Ferrari. Depailler's car was also damaged in the melee and this lead to his retirement. The race was later marred by tragedy when Rolf Stommelen's Embassy Hill crashed out of the lead. The errant car killed three officials and a photographer, while Stommelen also received serious injuries. The organisers decided to stop the race after only 29 laps were completed.

After the Spanish GP, Patrick was invited to drive in a F2 race at Magny Cours. In this race he competed in a March 752 that was entered by Brian Henton. Here he displayed yet another skilled performance and eventually finished in second place - a mere 2 seconds behind the race winner, Jabouille.

Early in May the GP circus arrived in Monaco. Patrick had a difficult time in practise and could only qualify 12th fastest. In the race, though, he made a good start and was in 8th position after lap one. The race started on a wet circuit, but when it dried after a couple of laps, all the drivers had to pit for slick tyres. After his stop Patrick made outstanding progress and lap-by-lap he gradually closed in on the 4th place battle between Peterson, Mass and Hunt. On lap 60 he caught these men and was putting extreme pressure on Hunt, who some laps later crashed into the barriers. On lap 68 Patrick set the fastest lap of the race and on the penultimate lap he passed Mass to clinch a fighting 5th place in the end.

A week later he was once again seen behind the wheel of a March 752 at the Pau F2 race. Laffite won, Jabouille was second and Patrick finished third. From Manaco the GP teams headed north to Zolder for the Belgian GP. The Tyrrells were again not very competitive in the qualifying rounds, but in the race Jody and Patrick finished 2nd and 4th respectively. At the Swedish GP a week later, Patrick repeated his feat of the previous year by qualifying the Tyrrell on the front row of the grid. Early on in the race he was running in third place behind Brambilla and Pryce. On lap 14 he dropped back with fluid seeping from a broken brake pipe. He had to pit for repairs, which also meant that he lost a lot of time. In the end he finished 12th, 2 laps behind the winner.

Depailler had a disastrous weekend at Zandvoort for the Dutch GP. A disappointing qualifying session was followed by a first lap incident during the race. Patrick and Brambilla had a coming together that made the Tyrrell limp back to the pits with a punctured front tyre. By the time he got the wheel changed the other cars were already on their second lap. He could not make up the time that he lost and eventually finished 2 laps down in 9th place.

The week after the Zandvoort race he continued his very busy racing programme. This time around he was driving an Alpine-Renault A442 sports car. Renault-Alpine asked him and Scheckter to drive their turbo charged car at the Zeltweg 1000km race. The weather starred at the Österreichring and the race distance was slashed to 609km amid savage thunderstorms. Depailler excelled in the extremely wet and dangerous conditions and was leading by miles when he handed over to Scheckter. Rain in the electrics and fuel-system maladies finally put out the Tyrrell Twins' Alpine.

In the next two GP's in France and England, Patrick's only reward was a 6th place at his home event. After Silverstone it was off to the Nürburgring in Germany. Patrick could only managed one full lap in the Friday's practice session. On his first try in the morning the lower mounting for a front coil-spring damper unit broke and in the afternoon a punctured tyre again interrupted his progress. In the Saturday practice, though, he was very quick and claimed the 4th position on the starting grid. At the start of the race Lauda took the lead from Depailler and the rest.

Patrick would haunt Lauda for the next 9 laps. He was driving the best race of his F1 career up to that moment and everyone was amazed by the way that the Tyrrell driver was putting pressure on the more potent Ferrari. In the end it was not to be Depailler's day. On lap 9 his exhilarating chase was snuffed out by a suspension failure. It was so unusual that the mechanics had to strip parts from the spare car to send him back in the race in a very distant 13th spot. He did finish the race in the end, but was more than a lap down. Lauda's Ferrari suffered a puncture later in the race and surely Patrick could have won in the end. Unlucky indeed!

Another race in the Alpine-Renault was scheduled for the Watkins Glen 6 Hour race on 13 August. Patrick and Jody were looking forward to the race after they had secured pole position in qualifying. Jody started the race and was in the lead when they had to retire after only a few laps with terminal engine problems. This was bitter disappointment, especially for Patrick, who did not even have a chance to drive in the race.

At the Austrian GP a few days later a wet Österreichring was yet again waiting for Patrick, just like at the sports car race in June. He made a tremendous start from 7th position on the grid and nearly took the lead in the first corner. He settled in third place behind Lauda and Hunt for a while, before handling problems began to unsettle the Tyrrell. At the finish he had dropped back to 11th place.

After the aqua show in Austria many of the teams were glad to head towards sunny France for the non-championship Swiss GP. Switzerland decided to ban motorsport within its borders following the Le Mans disaster in 1955. With so many Swiss motorsport enthusiasts and good drivers coming from that country, it was decided to revive the Swiss GP, albeit it on a foreign circuit. Dijon, being close to the Swiss border, was a suitable venue for this race. Patrick arrived to represent the Tyrrell team. He had a very good race and finished 2nd, a few seconds behind Clay Regazzoni. Victory thus appropriately went to a Swiss driver.

A few days later Patrick was on his way to Trois Rivières after again receiving an invitation from Ecurie Canada to drive one of their cars in the Formula Atlantic race, following his good performance of the previous year. This time around his car, a March 75B, was a genuine Formula Atlantic model and not a hybrid as in 1974. Patrick yet again qualified on pole, but during the morning's warm-up he unfortunately suffered terminal engine problems. The team borrowed another March 75B from a driver called Tim Cooper, who was too slow to qualify, since there was no time to change the engine in Patrick's original car.

They put the nose cone of Patrick's car on that of the borrowed car, but the race stewards decided that he could not start from the pole in the borrowed car, so he had to start right at the back of the field. After he had completed only four laps in the race, Patrick retired with mechanical failure.

The penultimate World Championship GP of the year was at Monza. Patrick qualified in mid-field, but was soon up to 7th position in the race. While harassing Fittipaldi for 6th place, he made a mistake at the first chicane and shot up the escape road. In the end he finished in 7th position.

Patrick crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the third time in 7 weeks to compete in the United States GP at Watkins Glen. The trip was not really worth the effort, since he retired after just three laps after he and Carlos Pace had a coming together. Both cars were badly damaged and could not carry on. Depailler's season thus ended on a disappointing note. In general it was also a disappointing year in F1 for the Frenchman, although he had a few good performances that showed that he could run with the top men in the sport. He finished the year on 12 points and for the second successive year, was placed 9th overall in the Driver's Championship table.

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