tenth place grid position up the inside of the first corner in his Ferrari, and banged wheels with Carlos Reutemann's Brabham and Revson's McLaren. Andretti continued, to the delight of the crowd, now in seventh behind the Ferraris of Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni. Reutemann followed in eighth with a broken nose, while Revson pitted at the end of the lap to have his front wing straightened. Stewart was three seconds clear of Hulme after one lap, and five seconds up after two. Fittipaldi, up to third after the first lap, immediately knew that his car was not right. His right rear tire began deflating on lap five, and when two replacements quickly did the same thing, the team realized that a misaligned suspension was the problem, and he retired. On lap 20, Stewart's lead was 20 seconds, and it was clear that any battle on this day would be for second place. With Fittipaldi out and Reutemann forced to stop for a new nose cone, the second Tyrrell of François Cevert was now in third and closing on Hulme. Scheckter was comfortably ahead of Ickx, but the Belgian was quickly being caught by Ronnie Peterson. On Saturday, in the rain, Peterson had crashed his March heavily, and the mechanics initially said that it was unrepairable. They decided to attempt to rebuild it in time for the race, and after starting in 26th position, Peterson was now the most impressive driver on the track, apart from race-leader Stewart. At about half-distance, Cevert got by Hulme for second place, and Peterson passed Ickx for fifth. On lap 40, a brief shower suddenly soaked Turn one. Scheckter, running marvellously in fourth place, was caught out by the slippery surface in the downhill, 90-degree right-hander and spun his McLaren up onto the bank. Ickx, in the meantime, repassed Peterson to take the position vacated by Scheckter. Andretti had been struggling with the performance of his tires, but now found them better on the wet track and increased his pace. On the last lap, with Stewart coasting home 40 seconds ahead of Cevert, Ickx's Ferrari began trailing smoke. Peterson pulled alongside him and signalled frantically at the back of the car. The Swede's gamesmanship worked, as Peterson beat the Ferrari to the line by just over half a second to take fourth place! Revson had passed both Andretti and Mike Hailwood on consecutive laps