The 1971 Formula One season included the 22nd FIA Formula One World Championship season, which commenced on March 6, 1971, and ended on October 3 after eleven races.
After the death of Jochen Rindt the previous year, Lotus had a desultory season, with young and inexperienced drivers such as Emerson Fittipaldi appearing in the cars. The team spent a lot of time experimenting with a gas turbine powered car, and with four wheel drive again. Using their own chassis heavily inspired by the Matra MS80 but with conventional tanks, Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart easily took success in 1971. Of the 11 races in the season, Mario Andretti, Jacky Ickx, Jo Siffert, Peter Gethin and Francois Cevert won one race each, while Stewart won the other 6 races.
Jo Siffert and Pedro RodrÃguez, who had an intense rivalry driving for John Wyer's Gulf-sponsored works Porsche endurance sportscar team both lost their lives racing in 1971. Rodriguez died driving a Ferrari 512 at an Interserie race at the Nosiring, Germany in July; and Siffert died in a fiery crash at the World Championship Victory Race non-championship Formula One event at Brands Hatch in October.
The Belgian Grand Prix was originally supposed to be held on June 6 (between the Monaco and Dutch Grands Prix), at the notorious 8.7 mile (14.1 km) Spa-Francorchamps circuit, but the failure of the track owners and authorities to bring Spa up to mandatory safety specs meant that the circuit was deemed unsuitable for Formula One cars to race on and the event was promptly cancelled.
Read more about 1971 Formula One Season: Season Review, Teams and Drivers, 1971 Drivers Championship Final Standings, 1971 Constructors Championship Final Standings, Non-Championship Race Results
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“For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“When we reached the lake, about half past eight in the evening, it was still steadily raining, and harder than before; and, in that fresh, cool atmosphere, the hylodes were peeping and the toads ringing about the lake universally, as in the spring with us. It was as if the season had revolved backward two or three months, or I had arrived at the abode of perpetual spring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)