25 Change of leadership, eight different leaders, 13 failures, action-packed racing to the end and five drivers who drive via the finish line within just 0.61 seconds: What Formula 1 fans can only dream of today became a reality on September 5, 1971. At that time, the (probably) scarce finish in F1 history occurred in Monza.
If it had needed a definition for the word “photo finish”, that Sunday afternoon on Monza Eni Circuit in the royal park could have been a prime example.
When Peter Gethin crosses the finish line in his BRM after nerve -wracking 55 laps, the Brit spers the right arm up with a mixture of pure joy and calculating foresight. “It was so scarce that the target judges could have had doubts. So they would probably declare the pilot as the winner who was most convinced of success,” the then 31-year-old revealed.
And indeed: the race management had to take a close look to realize that the Brit had won the GP with just a hundredth of a second ahead of the second-placed Ronnie Peterson (March-Ford). But that’s not all: Behind Gethin and Sweden, three other drivers came to the finish line within only 0.61 seconds.
It was a unique coup of the BRM pilot that had actually only went into the race as an outsider and had only collected only one World Cup point (for McLaren) by September 5, 1971. The Brit had to watch the GP of Italy – the last one that was still held on the Ultra High Speed route from Monza without braking harassment – from behind from behind.
The most efficient Formula 1 pilot of all time
It was only towards the end of the race that Gethin fought to the front with disregarding all speed regulations of his team into the five-member top group around Peterson and Francois Cevert (Tyrrell-Ford), who seemed firmly convinced that they could make the race among themselves.
But in the Parabolica, the very last curve of the course, Gethin flew past both with his twelve cylinder and finally won the Grand Prix with half a wagon length.
To this day, the most statistically efficient pilot in the history of Formula 1. Only three leadership rounds were granted the then 31-year-old GP winner, all in Monza.
However, it can no longer be determined whether the closest race of all time in Italy in Italy on September 5, 1971 was no longer determined, because only two places were measured behind the comma at the time. At the United States GP in 2002, which Rubens Barrichello won 0.011 seconds ahead of Michael Schumacher, it was almost as short. However, the drama in Monza in 1971 was completely different …