1970 Dutch Grand Prix

1970 Dutch Grand Prix
Zandvoort original layout
Zandvoort original layout
Race details
Date June 21, 1970
Official name XVIII Grote Prijs van Nederland
Location Circuit Zandvoort, Zandvoort, Netherlands
Course Permanent racing facility
Course length 4.193 km (2.605 miles)
Distance 90 laps, 377.370 km (234.487 miles)
Weather Cloudy
Pole position
Driver Lotus-Ford
Time 1:18.5
Fastest lap
Driver Belgium Jacky Ickx Ferrari
Time 1:19.23
Podium
First Lotus-Ford
Second March-Ford
Third Ferrari
Lap leaders

The 1970 Dutch Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Zandvoort on June 21, 1970. It was race 5 of 13 in both the 1970 World Championship of Drivers and the 1970 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. This race was held the same day as the 1970 FIFA World Cup Final in Mexico City, Mexico, but that event took place later in the day from this Grand Prix.

The race was won by Lotus-Ford driver Jochen Rindt in his new monocoque-chassis Type 72, a radical wedge shape first used on the 1968 Indianapolis Lotus, with inboard braking and torsion bar suspension, it represented a major technical advance, giving the driver superior ride and vision in a better ventilated seat. Rindt had only raced the car twice before (but in a different spec) and had preferred his old Lotus 49 in the preceding Monaco and Belgian rounds of the World Championship. Three years earlier the 72's predecessor; DFV-debutant Type 49 won in 1967 won first time out at exactly the same track with Jim Clark driving. Rindt racing the 72 without the complex anti-squat and anti-dive features, which the Austrian had never believed in, effortlessly dominated the practice and race putting little pressure on the car and not even having to use the maximum road width or line. The race also saw the debut of Clay Regazzoni with Ferrari, who finished fourth.