Formula 1

About the season

Niki Lauda's Ferrari 312T ended the team's eleven-year title drought and brought him his first World Championship. At the Dutch Grand Prix, the small, virtually sponsorless Hesketh Racing team and its driver James Hunt scored one of the greatest upset wins in the sport's history: after a wet start, they switched to slicks early, and Hunt narrowly beat Lauda out of the pits - the only Grand Prix win Hesketh ever took, and the team folded at season's end for lack of sponsorship. At the Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuïc Park, Rolf Stommelen's rear wing broke, sending his car into a spectator area and killing five people, including two photojournalists; the race was nonetheless allowed to continue for four more laps before being stopped - the same race in which Lella Lombardi became the first, and to date only, woman to score World Championship points. In August, American driver Mark Donohue died two days after a practice crash at the Austrian Grand Prix; it remained the last rain-related fatal accident in Formula 1 until Jules Bianchi's crash in 2014. Niki Lauda won the 1975 Drivers' Championship with 64.5 points (Ferrari), 19.5 points ahead of the runner-up. Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship with 72.5 points, 18.5 points ahead of the runner-up. Across 14 completed races this season, there were 170 retirements. 9 different drivers won a race this season. Niki Lauda took the most race wins, 5 in total. Fittipaldi won the season-opening race, the Argentine Grand Prix. The season's biggest upset win came from Mass at the Spanish Grand Prix, starting from grid position 11. Lombardi made the biggest gain of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix, from grid position 24 to finishing 6 (up 18 places). The closest finish of the season came at the Dutch Grand Prix, with a gap of just 1.060 seconds. The British Grand Prix saw the most retirements of the season, with 20 drivers failing to finish. The most dominant win of the season came at the German Grand Prix, with a margin of 97.7 seconds. Lauda won the United States Grand Prix, the final race of the season.