1972 Formula One season
[2] The car sported a striking black and gold livery for their sponsor Imperial Tobacco had introduced a new brand of John Player Special cigarettes.
[5][6] When Formula One returned to Argentina for the first time since 1960, it was local driver Carlos Reutemann who made his debut and immediately scored pole position for Brabham.
Reigning champion Jackie Stewart started second in his Tyrrell and Peter Revson lined up in third for his first race with McLaren.
[7] Stewart secured pole position for the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, ahead of Regazzoni and Fittipaldi.
Hulme got off the line remarkably well: from his fifth position on the grid, he moved up to shortly take the lead, before Stewart regelated him back to second.
Veteran Mike Hailwood, driving for Surtees, started fourth but passed Fittipaldi and, later, the overheating McLaren of Hulme, before actually challenging Stewart for the lead.
Wilson had replaced Carlos Reutemann after the Swiss driver injured his ankle in a Formula 2 race a week earlier.
On the Jarama circuit, the Belgian Jacky Ickx took a dominant pole position, seven tenths ahead of Denny Hulme and Emerson Fittipaldi.
Fittipaldi got away slowly, so Ickx jumped ahead, but Beltoise surprised everyone, pulling off a dive to the inside of the first corner and coming out on top.
[9] In the drivers' championship, Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus) led with 19 points, ahead of Jacky Ickx (Ferrari and Denny Hulme (McLaren).
His gruelling schedule of racing in F1, Can-Am and touring cars, as well as promotional events for sponsors Elf and Ford, and a side job as sports commentator on United States television on top of that, resulted in a case of gastritis.
Championship leader Emerson Fittipaldi qualified on pole position in the Lotus, ahead of Clay Regazzoni in the Ferrari and Denny Hulme in the McLaren.
Regazzoni's teammate Jacky Ickx, second in the championship, lined up in fourth, with Francois Cevert, the primary Tyrrell driver for this race, in fifth.
Both Ferraris retired: Ickx with a problem to his accelerator linkage and Regazzoni when he hit backmarker Nanni Galli in the Tecno.
[10] The F1 circus moved down to France, where the French Grand Prix was held at the Circuit de Charade, a twisty and undulating 5.1 km (3.2 mi) stretch of public roads.
He drove a new-spec Tyrrell chassis, until he crashed into the guard rail, injured his hand, and was left with the old-spec spare car.
As the race got underway, not much changed in terms of position, but Helmut Marko was hit in the eye by a stone flicked up by Jacky Ickx's Ferrari.
The rough dirt on the track resulted in more trouble: Amon got a flat left-front tyre and a 50-second pit stop left him in ninth position.
[11] Coming to Brands Hatch for the British Grand Prix, Denny Hulme, third in the championship, was recovering from a high-speed crash in the Can-Am race of the week before.
Stewart and Amon, heroes of the last race, both crashed in practice and qualified in their spare cars, fourth and seventeenth, respectively.
After the Brazilian got back past, the leading pack stayed in their respective order until Ickx's Ferrari started leaking oil and he had to retire on lap 49.
Ronnie Peterson was fourth until his engine and gearbox gave up, he crashed off the road and hit two cars that had retired at the same spot earlier in the race.
[12] In the drivers' championship, Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus) led with 43 points, ahead of Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell) with 27 and Denny Hulme (McLaren) with 21.
When Peterson locked up, Regazzoni and Stewart got by, and they even gained another place when Fittipaldi's gearbox blew up and caused an engine fire.
Ickx's engine was losing a bit of power due to a split exhaust manifold, but he won the race with almost a minute to spare.
Jacky Ickx delighted the crowd with a pole position for Ferrari, just 0.04 seconds ahead of Chris Amon in the Matra.
Amon fell back to fifth place, promoting Regazzoni to second, and even to first when the Swiss driver passed his teammate for the lead.
A lot of drivers retired, including Amon with overheatingbrakes and, on lap 46, leader Jacky Ickx with a failure of all the electrics.
Future champion Jody Scheckter was running fourth in his debut race and actually went past the freshly crowned Brazilian, but when a sudden shower arrived, he spun off at the first corner.
