Jo Siffert finished second for the BRM team and March driver Ronnie Peterson came in third.

Jackie Stewart's domination in 1971 clinched his second Driver's Championship with three races remaining, but the final round belonged to his Tyrrell teammate, François Cevert.

The Frenchman took the lead from Stewart on lap 14 and went on to claim his only career win, the first GP victory for a French driver since Maurice Trintignant in 1958.

It seemed nearly every spare works F1 car and quite a few independents, as well, were present to try for a share of the $267,000 in prize money, easily the richest purse in F1.

Unfortunately, the two most popular American drivers, Mario Andretti and Mark Donohue, who was fresh from a stunning third-place finish in Canada in his Formula One debut in a Penske-White Racing entered McLaren were committed to drive on Sunday in a USAC race which had been rescheduled to the GP weekend after it had been called off on the previous weekend because of extremely heavy rain.

On Saturday, with the temperature now 110° and both Goodyear's and Firestone's qualifying tires breaking down after a few laps, Emerson Fittipaldi pipped Stewart's time from the day before, but the Scot returned to the track and grabbed the pole by .017 of a second.

Denny Hulme joined them on the front row in his McLaren, followed by Clay Regazzoni's Ferrari, Cevert and the soon-to-be-absent Andretti.

On lap 15, American Sam Posey, in his first Grand Prix, retired from a fine run with a blown piston in his Surtees.