The practice sessions were dominated by the Ferraris, with Ickx lapping comfortably faster than he had done on his last visit to the circuit, for the 1970 German Grand Prix. The gas turbine Lotus 56B of Dave Walker suffered an engine fire during practice, and Walker took over Tony Trimmer's car for the race. Robert Lamplough and Bernd Terbeck were driving old BRMs recently bought from the factory, and although Lamplough qualified his P133 relatively well, Terbeck's even older P126 blew its engine and he was unable to start the race.