F1 1970 Championship 2
JAR - F1 1970 - R3 - Jarama
A four-car contest became a duel for victory as Kasperi Sirén beat Drik Crozet by 0.749 seconds in the third Championship round.
Four in contention
For much of the first part of the 41-lap race, there was little room between the men who would decide it. From lap three through lap 15, Kasperi Sirén, Drik Crozet, Andrew and Simone Porcu ran as a group covered by less than four seconds. Crozet had started from pole, but Sirén was ahead by the end of the opening lap. What followed was not a solitary leader's race: the three behind him stayed near enough to keep both victory and the remaining podium places in question.
All 13 starters drove the Formula RSS 1970 V8, leaving the contest to be settled between identical cars. Porcu and Andrew were particularly close in the early running, less than two seconds apart through a long succession of laps. Their fight was part of the leading group's story before it became a separate contest for third.
The lead changes hands
Crozet made his challenge count on lap 21, passing Sirén for the lead. Sirén answered on the following lap, moving back ahead in the vicinity of Fangio. The exchange gave the race its decisive turn, though it did not settle it. Crozet remained within striking distance in the closing stages, while Sirén kept the advantage he had recovered.
At the flag the difference was just 0.749 seconds, with both men having completed the full distance. Sirén's victory was his second successive Championship win. Crozet's brief spell in front, followed by his pursuit to the finish, made this a much closer affair than a reading of the lap-by-lap lead alone would suggest.
Andrew takes the third place
Behind them, Andrew's long argument with Porcu reached its turning point on lap 25. He passed Porcu near Bugatti to take third and went on to complete the podium, with Crozet only 0.996 seconds ahead of him at the finish. Andrew also set the fastest lap, 1:27.758, a measure of the pace he had brought to the contest at the front.
Porcu finished fourth. He had been within reach of the leaders during the early four-car phase, and his result was a reminder that the battle for victory had initially involved more than the two men who eventually settled it.
A climb through the field
There was another sustained contest farther back. Tommie van-Ostade started 12th and finished sixth, but his progress was not simply a matter of positions gained. Mika Hakala, up from 11th on the grid to sixth by the end of the opening lap, remained close to him for much of the middle portion of the race. Van-Ostade was ahead by the end of lap 19.
Richard Rossier then provided the later opposition. The two ran close through a long stretch of the second half, until van-Ostade passed him near Fangio on lap 36 for sixth. Rossier finished seventh and Hakala eighth. Between Hakala's opening-lap advance and van-Ostade's eventual place, the contest behind the leading four had its own changes of fortune.
The Championship at halfway
The victory also changed the Championship lead. Sirén and Florian Masse had arrived level on points; after three of the six rounds, Sirén heads the table with 80, three ahead of Masse. Crozet stands third on 71. For Sirén, the significance of this narrow win lies in both parts of that result: he withstood a renewed challenge on the circuit and left the round alone at the head of the Championship.
Half the programme remains. This race showed how little separated the leading cars, and how quickly an advantage won in one lap could have to be defended over many more.
