BRITISH GP SPECIAL
He’d put the wind up world champion Emerson Fittipaldi at Paul Ricard and might well have won the French Grand Prix without the Brazilian’s ill-judged lunge that led to words. Months before, immediate speed had marked his debut at Watkins Glen, then came a front-row start at home at Kyalami. Yes, it was all happening for ‘wild child’ Jody Scheckter – at least when the third McLaren was made available. So… fourth time lucky, at Silverstone for the 1973 British Grand Prix? Well, no. Not exactly.
The infamous nine-car pile-up Scheckter’s M23 triggered at the end of the first lap could have finished his career before it had properly kicked in, and it did effectively finish another’s and wiped out a whole team – that of a fit-to-burst John Surtees.
Scheckter, then 23, was fourth from sixth on the grid as they rounded Woodcote. “The McLaren’s tail began to slide out and he was too late in applying correction,” wrote Denis Jenkinson in “In a graceful pirouette the McLaren
