da Motorsport Settembre 2000
".....The qualifying schedule at Monza was fairly relaxed and Jochen
didn't leave Switzerland until Friday morning, Bemie and Nina joining him in his BMW 2800.
As they drove towards Milan the subject of retirement came up again, as Nina recalls: "Jochen said, 'I can't stop, I want to go on.
If I win the world championship I want to go on; this is the time I can make the big money.'"
Ecclestone agrees that stopping was no longer a possibility: "No, that's not what he had in mind - his blood was racing."
There was much discussion about what he might drive in '71.
Rindt was intrigued by the turbine Fl car Chapman had been developing, but there was also a chance he and Bemie would do their own thing, as was already the case in F2.
"It was much easier in those days to do something," explains Bernie, "But whether it would have been a sensible thing to do, I don't know. It may well be that we could have done something with Lotus. It was really seeing what was available rather than any particular plan to do something different."
The BMW pulled over into the Monza paddock at 2pm and Jochen was surprised to find the Lotus transporter arriving at the same time. It had left England late and delays at customs hadn't helped.
The already overworked mechanics had to hurriedly finish off a new 72 chassis. For the first time the latest model was available for third driver Emerson Fittipaldi, who had been driving a 49C since Brands.
This latest car featured a number of modifications and was intended for Rindt, but the Brazilian was entrusted with shaking it down.
Towards the end of Friday afternoon session Rindt decided to run without front and rear wings. He'd done that with the 49B the previous year, and Tvrrell and McLaren were already wingless. He was delighted to find that the DFV was revving SOOrpm higher. There was no time to fit new ratios to take full advantage so the real test would come on Saturday. Meanwhile Chapman ordered a reluctant Miles to run minus wings and he found the car incredibly unstable. Fittipaldi takes up the story: "Colin asked me to scrub new tyres with this brand new 72.1 misjudged the braking point for Parabolica.
I was looking in the mirror because Jack Brabham w'as coming and I didn't want to be in his way. When 1 looked ahead again I was already 200 feet beyond the braking point. The next thing I saw was Ignazio Giunti's Ferrari. 1 had four wheels locked, like a torpedo 1 flew over the back end ol the Ferrari. I landed in the dirt and went over the bank. I landed nose down, vertically, with a tree holding the rear suspension. That was going to be Jochen's car me next day."
On Friday night Jochen attended a local awards ceremony with Bemie, and bike star Giacomo Agostini before returning to Nina at the Hotel de Ville. Practice did not start until 3pm on Saturday so Jochen had a lazy morning at the hotel. "I had breakfast with Jochen," says Fittipaldi. "He and Bemie asked me to drive for their F2 team in 1971 as number one because he didn't want to continue driving in both Fl and F2."
Later jochen and Nina had some lunch with jackie and Lynn Oliver before heading to the track for the late start.
Thanks to Emerson's shunt, Rindt had to stick with his normal chassis, 72/2. It now had new ratios, good for a top speed of 205 mph in wingless spec. A demon DFV was also fitted, along with new tyres and brake pads.
Before the session jochen was interviewed for his Austrian TV show and had a chat with March man Pete Kerr, his former F2 mechanic. Then it was time to go; he put on his white helmet and climbed aboard the red, white and gold car. As usual, the mechanics didn't fit the crotch straps which made Jochen feel so uncomfortable.
Jochen had agreed it wasn't worth flogging round and chasing pole, and that a position near the sharp end would be good enough. Of more importance was getting the car primed for the slipstreaming contest that was sure to come on Sunday, and which could see him crowned world champion. He immediately picked up a tow from Denny Hulme and followed the wingless McLaren for three laps before passing it just after Lesmo. Hulme was still right behind the Lotus as the pair rushed towards Parabolica. When Jochen got on the brakes, the front-left brake shaft almost certainly failed. The car, teetering on the edge of adhesion without its wings, instantly turned in that direction. It mighthave struck the barriers a heavy but glancing blow, but instead thewedge nose of the 72 somehow forced a gap under the bottom layerand slammed into a solid supporting post. The impact was horrific -and unsurviveablc. The luck, as he'd feared, had finally run out...."