Crowned world champion for Ferrari at Monza — 'It was just a relief', says Jody Scheckter

Few moments in Monza's 100-year history are as emotional as Jody Scheckter's 1979 Italian GP victory in a Ferrari, securing the drivers' and constructors' titles. Damien Smith revisits the F1 win with the South African veteran

Jody Scheckter at work in the cockpit of his Ferrari 312 T4 on his way to victory in the 1979 Italian Grand Prix

Scheckter heads to victory at Monza in '79

Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

A first phone call for a while with Jody Scheckter to chat ahead of the Italian Grand Prix about Monza, in its centenary year. It was the scene of the last of his 10 Formula 1 wins, on the September day in 1979 when he clinched the world championship. In a Ferrari. Leading Gilles Villeneuve to a 1-2. In front of a delirious tifosi. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr can only dream.

So how are you, Jody? “Still alive,” comes back the familiar deadpan South African response.

“Gilles was quick, you had to put your head down and do the best you could”

Never one to suffer fools, especially pesky journalists asking silly questions, Scheckter was generally labelled a spiky, often difficult character when he was racing. I got to know him later in life, in the 1990s when he was a racing dad looking grumpy to find himself back where he started in the bottom paddock at Brands Hatch with sons Toby and Tomas. It was always a buzz to talk to him, even if he claimed he couldn’t remember anything about the 1970s, his wry humour mixing delightfully with a general sense of impatience and boredom. I liked him immediately.

But today, this could be hard work. You liked Monza, didn’t you, Jody? “Yes.” Long pause. “ I always went quite well there.” Third at his first Italian GP for Tyrrell in 1974, his results at this wondrous cathedral of speed were, in truth, patchy. But the one that counts, the big win and title in ’79, enshrined Scheckter as a Monza legend forever. Not that he remembers much about it.

Jody Scheckter sprays champagne on the Monza podium after winning the Italian GP and 1979 championship

Scheckter breaks out the champagne to celebrate the race, drivers’ championship and constructors’ title

DPPI

“In terms of the championship it was just a feeling of relief,” he says. “It wasn’t wow, wow, wow – just relief. I suppose the best memory of all it was the 40th anniversary.” Scheckter was Ferrari’s guest of honour at the 2019 Italian GP and completed an emotional lap in his old 312 T4, the barking, rasping flat-12 reminding a modern tifosi how grand prix cars used to sound. “It was a big honour for me to be among the guys of today – and my car sounded a lot better than theirs,” he says. “It was a really good weekend for me. I want to try and make it to the 50th [in 2029]. But I don’t think I will.” (He’s only 72).

OK, so let’s warm him up and get him going on. Cynics like to rub some of the shine off Scheckter’s greatest F1 achievement by suggesting Villeneuve dutifully let him win that day, and only after René Arnoux’s Renault had retired from the lead… Bingo. He’s off.

“No, no, no – everybody gets that wrong,” says Scheckter, suddenly animated. “Ferrari had very strong guidelines. First and second, you don’t fight. If you are sixth and seventh and no one else is going to attack you, you don’t fight. So as soon as [Jacques] Lafitte dropped out” – the Ligier had been pushing the Ferraris in third – “I just backed off on my revs. On the last two or three laps I didn’t want to take a chance and pushed on. But I outqualified Gilles.” He did, third played fifth on the grid. “I was quicker than him there.”

Jody Scheckter leads at the start of the 1979 Italian Grand Prix at Monza

Scheckter and Villeneuve hit the front at the start from third and fifth on the grid

Bernard Cahier/Getty Images

Jody Scheckter at Monza with his 1979 Italian Grand Prix winning Ferrari

Scheckter celebrated the 40th anniversary of his win in 2019, returning to Monza with the 312 T4

Alamy

Scheckter had joined Ferrari for ’79 after two years at little Wolf, with a single intention: to finally win the world title he’d spent the best part of a decade chasing. The T4 was just what he needed, but among the quick ground-effect Ligiers, the growing force of Renault’s high-boost turbos and a Williams team hitting the sweet spot mid-season with its increasingly effective FW07, Scheckter had his work cut out.

“Yeah, absolutely,” says Jody. “I’d been trying for seven or eight years to get the championship. Gilles was quick and you just had to put your head down and do the best you could, and that’s what I tried to do.”

Villeneuve had joined Ferrari at the end of 1977, replacing Niki Lauda who’d stalked away as soon as his second title was secure, still enraged by Enzo Ferrari’s cold response in the wake of his fiery Nürburgring accident the summer before. As McLaren’s Teddy Mayer fumbled the greatest fresh talent of his generation, having run Gilles in a third M23 at a memorable British GP, Ferrari swooped – and Enzo had signed a new favourite son.

From the archive

Now Villeneuve was heading into his second full season and was fully on song. It could have been fireworks. That it wasn’t, that instead the team-mates got along famously, says much about both men. They bonded on trips from Monaco to Maranello between the races and found themselves united in approach and state of mind, amid the rampant politics that poisoned Ferrari for so many before and since.

Here’s a big clue as to why Scheckter and Villeneuve got on. “You know it’s funny, I never had a bad word with any of my team-mates,” says Jody. “If they were quicker than me it wasn’t their fault, it was my fault. You had to be dead honest. If you weren’t, the relationship just deteriorated. If you made an adjustment and it was a little bit better, you’d think f**k, I don’t want to tell him that. But you have to.

“Gilles was an honest, honourable guy. We said right at the beginning, when we first got together, we agreed there was so much bullshit out there with the Italian press, so let’s stick together and not listen to them. And that’s what we did. I didn’t take any notice.

“I think other drivers, [Carlos] Reutemann for example, got all wound up by all the bullshit. Every time I went up there [to Ferrari] before I started working for them, the Old Man invited me in and we had lunch. The first day at work he didn’t! I was sat outside, you know? You can imagine people getting wound up by that. But I thought, I want to win the championship, I’m paid enough, I don’t care. Any real professional racing driver, all the top guys, you’ve got to take that attitude, otherwise you’ll get wound up by all sorts of bullshit.”

Gilles Villeneuve leans in to the Ferrari cockpit of Jody Schecketer in the 1979 British Grand Prix

Screening out the bullshit: Jody and Gilles in Argentina, ’79

Grand Prix Photo

In this context, it’s no surprise Villeneuve never had a problem sticking to the rules at Monza that day in 1979. It also further explains his fury three years later when Didier Pironi raced him and won at Imola, in a scandal that triggered the sequence of events that ended in violent abruptness with Gilles’ fatal accident in practice at Zolder.

“He came to me after Imola [1982],” says Scheckter. “We hadn’t spoken for a while because of other stuff. But he asked me to go to Maranello with him because he was devastated that Ferrari didn’t back him. Ferrari didn’t say anything and we knew very well what was the rule.”

Scheckter suddenly changes tack. “In South Africa [at the third race of 1979], when I put on hard tyres [after overworking his Michelins and switching to a fresh set] I caught Gilles up, and boy, it was tempting to take him! But I’m not sure I could have because I think the tyres were going off. But you know what it feels like when you catch somebody, you want to pass. Thank goodness I didn’t.”

Woah, Jody, hold on. You were with Gilles at Maranello after Imola 1982 and before Zolder? What on earth was said? What was it like being back there two years after your retirement – Scheckter famously quit F1 after an uncompetitive title defence in 1980 – and finding yourself pitched into one of the most famous intra-team rows in racing history?

“I don’t remember the visit.” Of course he can’t. Typical.

“I’m sure I would have said what I believed in…” he adds. “That gets me into trouble most of the time.” We can only imagine.

Scarily now the fourth oldest surviving F1 world champion, behind his friend Sir Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti, Jody Scheckter has mellowed over the years – but thankfully not by much. It’s still a buzz to hear his voice.

1979 Italian Grand Prix

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