Ronnie Peterson was born on February 14th 1944 in Orebro, Sweden. Petersoninherited the racing enthusiasm of his father, Bengt who made a living as a baker, but was an avid driver. In 1962 Peterson started racing karts, and rapidly reached the pinnacle of European karting.
By 1966 Peterson had made his Formula 3 debut, in a Brabham-derived car built by his father. He managed impressive results and signed to race with the Tecno team from Italy, and Peterson raced with them starting in 1968. It was a great pairing, and Peterson won the 1969 Formula 3 championship with the team.
Peterson made his Grand Prix debut at the 1970 Monaco Grand Prix in a customer March entered by the Antiques Automobiles team. He impressed the factory and was soon offered a works drive.
Continuing with the March works team in 1971, Peterson had his coming, finishing runner up in the world championship behind Jackie Stewart, scoring one 3rd place finish, and four 2nd place finishes.
The March team was run on a shoestring budget, and he had a poor 1972 season, finishing 9th overall with his only podium being a 3rd place, coming at the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.
Peterson moved to Lotus alongside reigning world champion Emerson Fittipaldi in 1973 and won his first Grand Prix at the Paul Ricard circuit, France. Peterson went on to win 3 further Grand Prix’s that season, including the final race of the year at Watkins Glen, where he beat James Hunt by 0.668 seconds; the smallest margin of victory in an American Grand Prix until 2002. Despite the three wins, poor reliability meant he finished 3rd in the world championship.
3 more wins came in 1974 for Peterson who was teamed up alongside Jacky Ickx, including the premier F1 event , the Monaco Grand Prix. However the Lotus 72E chassis was out of date, and Peterson finished 5th in the drivers championship in ’74 and 13th in ’75 after failing to secure a podium in the whole season.
For 1976 Peterson left Lotus and returned to March, but he only scored one win in the season, coming at the Italian Grand Prix. He finished 11th in the drivers championship.
In 1977 Peterson joined the Tyrrell team, and was to race the infamous Tyrrell P34, or the ‘six wheeler’. However it was a disastrous season and his only podium was a 3rd place at Spa.
Surprising many, Peterson moved back to Lotus for the ’78 season alongside team leader Mario Andretti. Together, Andretti and Peterson blew away all competition, and Peterson secured his first win of the season in Kyalami, South Africa. A number of other podium finishes came for Peterson before he won again in Austria.
This was to be Ronnie’s last ever Grand Prix win, as he was tragically killed at the Italian Grand Prix of 1978, when he was involved in a several-car collision at the start of the race. Despite his death, he still finished 2nd in the world championship, second only to Andretti.
Ronnie remembered
Ronnie Peterson was undoubtedly the fastest driver in F1 of his era. He was the quiet, nice guy of the paddock, but behind the wheel, he was as aggressive and as determined as anyone, sliding the cars into corners and shunning the smooth driving style of the aerodynamics of the time.Forget Sterling Moss; surely ‘SuperSwede’ Ronnie Peterson is the greatest F1 driver never to win the World Championship?
