Jaguar had thrown the towel, Alpina followed suit and Luigi had lost his sponsor. Expectations were low, and rightly so. But in Monza, an ill-prepared and not particulary good-loking AMG Mercedes came to fight the Italian privateers. AMG would do a fine job in later years, but this was a bad idea. The driver pairing of Heyer and Schickentanz was fine in 1971 but Schickentanz hadn't driven much lately. The car, heavy and handicapped with an automatic 3-speed gearbox - and the attempt to qualify at Le Mans was a joke, like building a brand new car soon after for the home race at the Nürburgring.
What remained were two Italian teams, one serviced by Luigi - they would become champions - and the other one was the ex-Alpina car, prepared by Facetti and driven by himself and Finotto. The car was not reliable and faded from the scene.
No other high points? Perhaps the Eggenberger BMW 320's, which had some fine results, or the Zakspeed Escorts, finally reliable; they won at the Nürburgring. And of course the Scirocco's, Bergmeister and Siegrist finishing second in the championship, just like VW who finished second in the makes championship, behind BMW.
The races: |
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| Silverstone | |||||||||||