Peter Kenneth Gethin (21 February 1940 in Ewell, Surrey, United Kingdom – 5 December 2011) was a British racing driver from England.
He participated in 31 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 21 June 1970. He won the 1971 Italian Grand Prix in the fastest average speed in Formula One history, but this was his only podium finish. Gethin also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races, winning the 1971 World Championship Victory Race and the 1973 Race of Champions.
Gethin also raced for Team McLaren in the 1970 Canadian-American Challenge Cup series, driving the McLaren M8D that had been driven by Dan Gurney in the first three races of the season. Gethin won one race and finished third in the 1970 championship.
In 1974 Gethin won the Tasman Series, a Formula 5000 series held in Australia and New Zealand. Gethin drove a Chevron B24 Chevrolet. Gethin later ran a Formula 3000 team. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Peter Kenneth Gethin competed in 31 World Championship F1 Grands Prix, plus a number of non-Championship races, winning 1971’s World Championship Victory Race and the Race of Champions in 1973. He also contested F5000 and the Can-Am series and took 1974’s Tasman series with a Chevron B24 though for many people he would be remembered most for his victory at Monza in 1971 when the top five cars were covered by just 0.61 seconds.
The son of the jockey Ken Gethin, he was born in Ewell, Surrey, on the 21st February 1940. After leaving school, he worked in a garage and then started racing in the early 1960s and would go on to be one of the most successful F3 rising stars of that decade. His debut race came at Brands Hatch in 1962 with a Lotus 7 although he spun out while leading but went on to take second and third in class at Brands Hatch and Goodwood. The following year proved a successful one in sports cars with a Lotus 23 and he had wins and podiums at Brands Hatch, Goodwood, Snetterton, Oulton Park plus won a sprint race at Brands Hatch with a Lotus 27. Continuing with the 23 he won 1964’s Guards Sports Car Championship after taking wins and podiums at Goodwood, Snetterton, Brands Hatch, Aintree, Crystal Palace and Mallory Park on his way to the title. Then came a move into F3 and racing a Lotus 22 and a Lucas Brabham there were wins at Brands Hatch and Croft plus podiums at Oulton Park, Karlsgoga, Silverstone, Cadwell Park and the British GP meeting. Away from F3 he also won an Oulton Park sports car race in Chris Williams’ Elva BMW. 1966 saw seven podium placings with the Brabham plus victories at Crystal Palace, Brands Hatch, Mallory Park and Oulton Park plus the King Hussein Trophy at Ingliston. Racing in Libre events he had a win and podium at Oulton Park and Mallory Park plus took the SMT Trophy with an F2 Lotus 44. 1967 was a busy year with regular outings in an F2 Cooper, his best result a second place at Hockenheim, while in F3 with the Brabham he won at Oulton Park and took podiums at Silverstone, Pau and Crystal Palace. He was fourth at Brands Hatch when debuting a Chevron B7 and there were Libre victories at Oulton Park in a McLaren M2A and a Lola T70. Other drives saw him in a Ford Falcon in the British Saloon Car Championship at the British GP meeting plus he shared a Ford GT40 with Eric Liddell in the BOAC race at Brands Hatch. He started the following year with an F2 Chevron before switching to a Brabham and there were podiums at Albi, Ingliston and Vallelunga and a fourth at Pau. In F3 he stood in for Chris Williams at Chevron, taking first and second at Brands Hatch and Monaco while in sports cars he was third at Brands Hatch’s Guards International Trophy race.
He had by now come to people’s attention with his consistently competitive performances, particularly taking second at Albi in the Brabham after battling with H.Pescarolo and J.Rindt, and was recruited by Bruce McLaren to drive the Church Farm Racing M10B in the F5000 championship in 1969. He was involved in a season-long battle with Trevor Taylor’s Surtees, and moved ahead in the points after the final round in which Trevor was eliminated while lapping a slower car. Peter was Champion at his first attempt and had taken wins on his way to the title at Oulton Park, Mallory Park and twice at Brands Hatch. He would later say “Bruce had faith in me and I like to think I justified it during 1969.” During that year he also contested Formula A in America and took a win at Lime Rock.
In 1970 he was promoted to the McLaren F1 team after Bruce McLaren was sadly killed in a testing accident at Goodwood. Peter was there and told of the day; “I was told that I would be driving in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps and Bruce (had) invited me down to Goodwood where I was due to test the F1 M14A and then the M8D Can-Am car. The opportunity came after Denny Hulme suffered methanol burns to his hands after a fuel filler cap popped open while he was testing at Indianapolis with the latest McLaren Indycar. I was just strapping myself into the cockpit of the M14A in the Goodwood pit lane when we saw a pillar of smoke rising from the opposite end of the circuit. One of the fastenings securing the rear bodywork had worked loose, the 180mph slipstream ripped it off and Bruce was slammed into a disused marshals’ post in the M8D. He never stood a chance. By the time we got there it was immediately obvious that he was dead. It was a profoundly moving moment which stayed with me for many years.” He admired and respected Bruce and said “he could have persuaded me to drive his Can-Am transporter from one end of America to the other no problem! He was a lovely man.”
His debut came at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort and he joined a three car team which also included Andrea de Adamich and Dan Gurney. He qualified eleventh and in the race was running tenth when he had an accident on lap 19. He missed the French and British races as Denny Hulme drove for the team but he returned for the German GP. After qualifying seventeenth, it would prove a disappointing race as he retired after three laps due to throttle failure. Despite a poor qualifying position in Austria, in the race there was a high attrition rate among the drivers and he moved up the field. He was running as high as eighth before being passed by Ignazio Giunti’s Ferrari and Jo Siffert’s March but he can home tenth for his first GP finish. At Monza, he started well in the race and was up to thirteenth but technical problems dropped him to the back of the field, where he stayed until the end of the race. However, despite the high number of drivers who retired, he finished ninth but due to being a number of laps down was not classified. Mont-Tremblant in Canada saw a strong performance as he out-qualified both his team mates in eleventh and his race strategy served him well, going on take sixth place and achieve his first F1 points. Unfortunately, Watkins Glen was not as good a race as he started well back on the grid and eventually came home fourteenth. He was back on form for the season ending Mexican GP, qualifying a season best tenth and he raced strongly, but was forced to retire with an engine failure on lap 28. Alongside F1 that year he was the F5000 Guards Champion again, taking wins at Mallory Park, Zolder, Zandvoort, Castle Combe, Anderstorp, Silverstone, and twice at Brands Hatch plus second place finishes at Thruxton, Mondello Park and Oulton Park. He was third in the CanAm Championship for McLaren with his best results a win at Elkhart Lake and second places at Edmonton and Donnybrooke. There was a race at Zolder with an F2 Brabham plus he took victory in a Chevron B16 when co-driving with Brian Redman in the Nurburgring 500.
Despite Teddy Mayer saying he did much better than he expected, his place in the CanAm team was taken by Peter Revson for 1971 though he continued in F1 with them, teamed with Denny Hulme. The season opening race at Kyalami was a frustrating one for him as he retired just 7 laps into the race due to a fuel leak though the Spanish GP saw an eighth place finish. On his first appearance at Monaco he had a poor qualifying session but during the race began gaining places and was high as eleventh before hitting the barriers on lap 23. After Monaco he raced the team’s M19A and though he finished at Zandvoort he was not classed, and following this was ninth at Paul Ricard though retired at Silverstone and the Nurburgring. A mid-season switch saw him leave McLaren and sign for Louis Stanley’s BRM team and he contested four races, finishing tenth in his first race, at Austria. Then came Monza for the Italian GP where qualifying for the BRM drivers saw Joe Siffert third, Howden Ganley fourth and Peter starting in eleventh place. The final stages of the race were a battle between R.Peterson, F.Cevert, M.Hailwood and H.Ganley, though Peter had been involved until being baulked earlier and losing the tow. However, as the five prepared for the last lap he was back in the fight. R.Peterson slid wide in the Parabolica, which forced F.Cevert to take the slower, tighter inside line, but then Peter outbraked him and gained sufficient momentum to pass Peterson on the line. They were separated by 0.01s, with F.Cevert 0.08s further back, M.Hailwood another 0.09s and H.Ganley 0.43s behind him. In a strange statistic, despite this win, he never led an entire lap when in Formula One as he passed from fourth to first in the last lap at Monza. Describing the final lap, he told how “I dived up the inside at Parabolica. The car started to slide and I piled on the opposite lock, telling myself ‘don’t lift, don’t lift’ and I came out of the corner first. I knew as long as I didn’t fumble a gearchange I could get to the line first, but Ronnie was surging up on me and passed me 20 feet after the flag. I knew it was going to be really close, so I waved my arm in triumph, not because I was showing off, but I reckoned that as this was Italy and they might not be too clever on their timing, the chances were that they’d give the win to whichever driver raised his arm!” Amusingly, he later told how he left the paddock in style in team boss Louis Stanley’s Mercedes 600 but would later be seen by the side of the road, still in his overalls, changing a flat tyre on the car. Over the Italian GP weekend, Louis Stanley spent his time trying to recruit Francois Cevert to drive for them for 1972 and on the evening before the race, Peter found himself moved to the bottom of the dinner table to make room for Cevert. Following Monza came Canada, where he was fourteenth though the race was stopped after 64 laps due to the weather while the US GP saw him finish ninth. In non championship races, he was second for McLaren in the International Trophy and second at Oulton Park. Racing for BRM, he retired from Oulton Park’s Gold Cup though won the Brands Hatch victory race but it was a hollow victory as team mate Siffert was sadly killed during it. There were a number of F5000 races, his best result a second place at Castle Combe, plus he finished second in the Interserie Championship with Sid Taylor’s McLaren M8E, taking a victory at Zolder and second places at Keimola and Norisring.
He stayed with BRM through 1972, alongside Howden Ganley and Alex Soler-Roig, with the team now Marlboro sponsored after featuring a Yardley livery the previous year. He started with their P160B before it was replaced by the P160C version mid-season but the team found themselves over-stretched in trying to run a number of cars. Struggling with reliability issues, from his ten starts he only finished twice. He retired in Argentina with an oil leak but in South Africa although he finished he was a number of laps down and was not classified. The Spanish GP was a bad race for the team as all their drivers retired while he crashed out of the following race at Monaco. Belgium saw another retirement, this time with a fuel pump failure and frustratingly his British GP race at Brands Hatch was ended due to engine failure. He missed the French GP though returned to finish thirteenth in the following Austrian race while returning to the scene of his famous victory, at Monza, he was sixth. Unfortunately the North American rounds saw retirements due to mechanical issues, suffering suspension failure at Mosport and engine failure at Watkins Glen. There were retirements from three non-championship races he contested but he was fourth in the Race of Champions, fifth in the John Player Trophy and sixth in the International Trophy. He had a number of outings in Chevrons, taking a win at Pau, fourth with a B24 at Donnybrooke in US F5000 and he won the Pietermaritzburg 3 Hours (with Jochen Mass), Goldfields 3 Hours (with Gerry Birrelll), plus third at Lourenco Marques and fifth at the Kyalami 9 Hours (with John Love) to take the Springbok title with the B21. There was only one GP with BRM during 1973, where he retired in Canada, though in F5000 he won the International Trophy, Oulton Park Gold Cup and a win at Brands Hatch plus second and fourth at Oulton Park and Mallory Park with a Chevron B24. In America he finished fourth in the Championship and took podium placings at Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta and Michigan while there were some F2 outings with a Chevron B25.
1974 saw his final GP outing in an Embassy Hill Lola at the British GP but he retired after a tyre deflated. He was runner up in the Rothmans F5000 Championship with the Chevron VDS team and took wins at Brands Hatch, Zolder, Zandvoort and Monza plus six podiums. He won the Tasman F5000 series with wins at Pukekohoe and Sundown and podiums at Surfers Paradise, Adelaide and the New Zealand GP and racing a Chevron B26 was fifth in an Interserie Silverstone race plus fourth in the BOAC 1000 with Brian Redman. Racing a VDS Lola he was runner up in 1975’s Shellsport F5000 Championship, taking wins with the T400 at Zolder, Brands Hatch and Zandvoort plus a podium at Snetterton while in the following year he contested US F5000 with VDS’s Lola T400 though without wins or podiums. His final year of racing came in 1977 and, taking podiums at Surfers Paradise and in the Australian GP, he was runner up to team mate Warwick Brown in the Tasman Series with a Chevron B27. He also contested CanAm with a Lola T332C and his best results were podium finishes at Mosport, Trois-Rivieres, Sears Point and Watkins Glen.
By the end of that season he decided that he would retire from active driving, having become tired of the travelling and testing. However, despite retiring he continued in racing when he ran a team of F2 Chevrons throughout 1978 for a couple of amateur American drivers. though he described it as a dreadful season, struggling to qualify and found it demoralising. In 1981 he worked for Count van der Straaten in Midland, Texas for over a year in a public relations programme for Team VDS before returning to his beloved West Sussex.
For his win at Monza, he received £800 although he said £300 went towards his bill at the Villa d’Este, though he never regarded it as the best of his career and was prouder of his win at Pau in the F2 Chevron in 1972.
Peter passed away on the 5th December 2011 after a long illness.
