page_title: Ronnie Peterson
section_title: 1973–1976
hierarchical_section_title: Ronnie Peterson / Formula One / 1973–1976
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Grote Prijs van Nederland voor Formule I wagens op circuit Zandvoort, de verongelukte wagen.
context_page_description: Bengt Ronnie Peterson was a Swedish racing driver. Known by the nickname 'SuperSwede', he was a two-time runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship.
  Peterson began his motor racing career in kart racing, traditionally the discipline where the majority of race drivers begin their careers in open-wheel racing. After winning a number of karting titles, including two Swedish titles in 1963 and 1964, he moved on to Formula Three, where he won the Monaco Grand Prix Formula Three support race for the 1969 Grand Prix. Later that year he won the FIA European Formula 3 Championship and moved up into Formula One, racing for the March factory team. In his three-year spell with the team, he took six podiums, most of which were scored during the 1971 Formula One season in which he also finished as runner-up in the Drivers' Championship.
  After seeing out his three-year contract at March, Peterson joined Colin Chapman's Team Lotus in the 1973 season, partnering defending champion Emerson Fittipaldi. During his first two seasons with Lotus, Peterson took seven victories, scoring a career-best 52 points in 1973.
context_section_description: Peterson's first Grand Prix win was at the 1973 French Grand Prix, held at Paul Ricard, in a Lotus 72. He took three more wins that year, in Austria, Italy and the United States, but poor reliability restricted him to only third place in the World Championship at season's end.
  For 1974, the Lotus 76 was brought forth. The car, however, proved to be a failure, disliked by both Peterson and his teammate Ickx. The team therefore opted to let them drive the much older Lotus 72:s. Peterson did well in the old car and claimed three more victories: the French and Italian Grands Prix, as well as the Monaco Grand Prix.
  1975 was a bad year for Lotus. Peterson and Ickx were forced to drive with the now archaic 72 model, whose age was now really beginning to show.
  Peterson had signed for Shadow but Lotus owner Colin Chapman convinced him to stay with Lotus due to a promise Chapman made to accelerate the rate of development on the Lotus 77. He drove the first race of 1976 in the Lotus 77 before rejoining March Engineering. Driving the March 761, he won the Italian Grand Prix.
  He also continued to drive sports cars, particularly for BMW in 1974 and 1975. For instance, he was paired with Hans-Joachim Stuck in a BMW 3.0 CSL for the South African "Wynn's 1000" in November 1975, where they started on pole but finished in second after a number of stops with engine vibrations, spark plug, and similar problems. Stuck and Peterson together for BMW in Europe, Africa, and also in North America.
caption: Peterson in the Lotus 72 at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix.
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