When Ferrari decided to withdraw from the sports car championship for 1974, there were a lot of drivers on the market and Carlo Chiti acted to get some of them for Autodelta and Alfa Romeo. I was signed along with Mario Andretti and Carlos Reutemann. Rolf Stommelen and Andrea DeAdamich were still in the team and Jacky Ickx would drive in some races. It was a very strong team.
A lot of people thought the Championship in 1974 would not be very good because Ferrari wasn’t there, but when we went to Monza there was a very good field with two Matras against the three Alfa Romeo 33TT12s. I remember Mr. Chiti was very happy when Mario and I got the pole position and at the start we were in the lead, but it was wet and these conditions were better for the Matras. They got into the lead while the Autodelta team was having trouble with tires. I think one car was on intermediates and had to change to wet tires and the other car wasn’t so quick. But the Matras had reliability problems and the lead car blew up the engine. I got back in the front but the other Matra was catching me, and the Gulf Mirage was also quick, but it had problems too. When the second Matra retired, Mario and I were way in front and we had a wonderful win. For me it was so good to win my first race for Autodelta, with the other Alfas finishing 2nd and 3rd.
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