Another win for Wolf

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 34

Another win for Wolf

NZPA-Reuter Monte Carlo Jody Scheckter, of South Africa, took a firm grip on the world motor-racing championship with a narrow victory in his Wolf Ford at the Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Scheckter took the chequerflag less than a second ahead of the Austrian, Niki Lauda, after fuel problems threatened to rob him of the lead he had held from start to finish. “In the second to last lap the engine cut out completely,” he told reporters. "I knew Lauda was gaining but I wasn’t worried. I can run as fast as he can.”

Scheckter’s second Grand Prix win of the season, for a Wolf team which only entered the circuit this year, gives him 32 points in drivers’ championship — s-ven ahead of Lauda. Lauda’s Ferrari team-mate, Carlos Reutemann (Argentina), who finished third yesterday, is third in the table with 23 points.

For Britain’s world champion, James Hunt, it was another luckless day. He abandoned his apparently ill-fated McLaren M 23 during the twenty-fifth lap, saying the engine had blown up. On Monaco’s narrow circuit, which snakes through the streets from the hills to

the Mediterranean waterfront, Scheckter took command from the start by surging past the grid leader — Britain’s John Watson (Brabham). When Watson retired with gearbox trouble, Scheckter was clear of the field. Scheckter’s win marked the 100th victory for the Cosworth Ford Formula One engine. Jochen Mass, of West Germany (McLaren) held off a last-minute challenge from Mario Andretti (United States) whose JPS-Lotus clipped a guard rail as he was battling for fourth place. Andretti finished fifth, with Alan Jones, of Australia, in a Shadow, sixth.