1972

Pos	Driver	Nat	Car	Pts	Wins	Share of the leader
1	Emerson Fittipaldi	Brazilian	Team Lotus	61	5
2	Jackie Stewart	British	Tyrrell	45	4
3	Denny Hulme	New Zealander	McLaren	39	1
4	Jacky Ickx	Belgian	Ferrari	27	1
5	Peter Revson	American	McLaren	23	0
6	François Cevert	French	Tyrrell	15	0
7	Clay Regazzoni	Swiss	Ferrari	15	0
8	Mike Hailwood	British	Surtees	13	0
9	Ronnie Peterson	Swedish	March	12	0
10	Chris Amon	New Zealander	Matra	12	0
11	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	French	BRM	9	1
12	Mario Andretti	American	Ferrari	4	0
13	Howden Ganley	New Zealander	BRM	4	0
14	BRBrian Redman	British	BRM / McLaren	4	0
15	Graham Hill	British	Brabham	4	0
16	Carlos Reutemann	Argentine	Brabham	3	0
17	AAAndrea de Adamich	Italian	Surtees	3	0
18	Carlos Pace	Brazilian	March	3	0
19	Tim Schenken	Australian	Surtees	2	0
20	Arturo Merzario	Italian	Ferrari	1	0
21	Peter Gethin	British	BRM	1	0
—	SBSkip Barber	American	March	0	0
—	DBDerek Bell	British	Tecno	0	0
—	MBMike Beuttler	British	March	0	0
—	BBBill Brack	Canadian	BRM	0	0
—	DCDave Charlton	South African	Team Lotus	0	0
—	Patrick Depailler	French	Tyrrell	0	0
—	WFWilson Fittipaldi	Brazilian	Brabham	0	0
—	NGNanni Galli	Italian	Ferrari / Tecno	0	0
—	Niki Lauda	Austrian	March	0	0
—	JLJohn Love	Rhodesian	Surtees	0	0
—	Helmut Marko	Austrian	BRM	0	0
—	FMFrançois Migault	French	Connew	0	0
—	Jackie Oliver	British	BRM	0	0
—	Henri Pescarolo	French	March / Politoys	0	0
—	Sam Posey	American	Surtees	0	0
—	Jody Scheckter	South African	McLaren	0	0
—	Alex Soler-Roig	Spanish	BRM	0	0
—	Rolf Stommelen	German	March	0	0
—	John Surtees	British	Surtees	0	0
—	DWDavid Walker	Australian	Team Lotus	0	0
—	Reine Wisell	Swedish	BRM / Team Lotus	0	0

Read from the season’s final standings row, never summed from the race results. 21 of 42 entries in this table carry no championship position and are ruled below the placed field, ordered by points.

Read from the season’s final constructor standings row. A constructor scores through both of its cars, so these totals are not the sum of any one driver’s line above.

Both championship tables on this page are read from the season’s standings rows at round 12, the last round loaded, and neither is derived by adding up the race results. That distinction is the whole point: for most of the sport’s history only a driver’s best few results counted toward the title, a race stopped short paid half points, and a driver could be excluded from a championship he had scored in, so a table built by summing the results column would disagree with the championship as it was actually awarded. Positions are the source’s own; where it recorded none, the row prints a dash and sits below the placed field rather than being given a place it never held or dropped from the page. A points total is printed as it is stored, to two decimals where it needs them, because the sport has awarded half points and split shared drives since the 1950s and those fractions are real. The calendar is every round in the archive for 1972, in round order, with the winner taken from the classification code the source prints rather than from its sort key; three of the 1,161 races loaded were won by a shared car, and for those the calendar names one driver while the race classification credits both. The Cars column counts the rows in each race’s classification, which includes cars that retired, so it is entries with a recorded result rather than a count of cars that took the start. The drivers and constructors counted in the masthead are those that appear in a race result for 1972, not those that entered. The constructors’ championship has been awarded since 1958, so both tables exist for this season. 1972 is complete: all 12 rounds are loaded and both tables are final.