The 1971 season was one of rebuilding, young newcomer Emerson Fittipaldi settling into the team, suffering early season unreliability and claiming just a trio of podium finishes all season. But in 1972 not even the combination of Jackie Stewart and the Tyrrell-Ford 005 could keep up with him. Emmo won five times and became F1’s youngest champion, aged just 25. The 1973 season started the same way, the flying Brazilian winning three of the first four rounds, but a string of mid-season retirements where he failed to finish four out of five consecutive races, dropped him to second in the championship. No matter: team-mate Ronnie Peterson won four races in the sister car ensuring that the Constructors’ Championship would stay with Lotus for another season.
And that really should have been that for the Lotus 72. It had delivered (with a little help from its Lotus 49 predecessor) both titles in 1970, taken both again all by itself in 1972 and delivered the Constructors in 1973. Not a bad effort over four seasons. It was to be replaced for 1974 by the Lotus 76, but that turned out to be far too clever for its own good, suffering from braking problems, excessive tyre wear and reliability issues with its clutchless transmission, so the good old 72 was wheeled out again, and used by Peterson to win three more times, in Monaco, France and Italy.