1977 British Grand Prix

Owing to the large number of entrants, a special system of pre-qualification was devised, taking place on the Wednesday before the race. Fourteen cars took part, most from teams which were not members of FOCA. Debutant Gilles Villeneuve also took part, along with Patrick Tambay, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Brett Lunger, Patrick Nève, Mikko Kozarowitzky, another debutant Andy Sutcliffe, Guy Edwards, Tony Trimmer, David Purley, Emilio de Villota, Brian Henton, Arturo Merzario and yet another debutant, Brian McGuire.[3]

Kozarowitzky crashed his RAM March in the first session, and Purley suffered a huge accident in the second session, when the throttle stuck open on his LEC. He suffered multiple fractures and spent many months recovering. He later returned to racing but never appeared in a World Championship Formula One race again.[4] The fastest five drivers after both sessions were Villeneuve, Tambay, Jarier, Lunger and Henton, all of whom went through to the full qualifying sessions. Merzario and Nève were subsequently also allowed through, as was de Villota, who replaced Harald Ertl when the Austrian driver withdrew his entry.[3]

Henton and de Villota were eliminated after the qualifying sessions, along with Alex Ribeiro and Clay Regazzoni. James Hunt took pole position by less than 3 tenths from Northern Irish racing driver John Watson in the Brabham, whilst the rest of the top 10 qualifiers were Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Gunnar Nilsson, Mario Andretti, Hans Joachim Stuck, Vittorio Brambilla, Gilles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson in the leading Tyrrell. It was also proven to be a relief for Hunt to secure pole position in front of the home crowd, this was because British racing drivers had not been lucky all season up to this point.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Niki Lauda 39 2 Mario Andretti 32 3 Jody Scheckter 32 4 Carlos Reutemann 28 5 James Hunt 22 Source: [6]

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 56 (58) 2 Lotus-Ford 47 3 McLaren-Ford 34 4 Wolf-Ford 32 5 Brabham-Alfa Romeo 19 Source: [6]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 8 results from the first 9 races and the best 7 results from the remaining 8 races were retained. Numbers without parentheses are retained points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.