Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe designed the Lotus 72 for 1970, and it changed how a Formula One car looked. The radiators moved from the nose to a pair of sidepods, the brakes went inboard, and the body took the shape of a wedge. In a back-to-back test it was 12 mph faster than the Lotus 49 it replaced, on the same Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8.
It raced from 1970 to 1975 — 75 Grands Prix, 20 wins and 17 poles — and only nine chassis were built. It took the constructors' title in 1970, 1972 and 1973, and carried two drivers to the championship: Jochen Rindt in 1970, still the sport's only posthumous champion, and Emerson Fittipaldi in 1972. The car started out in Gold Leaf red, cream and gold; for 1972 the team became John Player Team Lotus and the car went black and gold. The D-specification first raced in 1971 and was the car's 1972 form.
The British Grand Prix of 15 July 1972 was held at Brands Hatch and billed as the John Player Grand Prix. Jacky Ickx put his Ferrari on pole; Fittipaldi started alongside him. Ickx retired with falling oil pressure on lap 49, and Fittipaldi won by 4.1 seconds from Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell, with Peter Revson's McLaren more than a minute further back. Pocher identifies the chassis it modelled as number 7 of the nine.
Fittipaldi won five races that season and clinched the title at Monza on 10 September — in a different 72D, his usual car having been badly damaged on the way to the race. He was 25 years and 273 days old, the first Brazilian world champion and the youngest there had been, a record that stood until Fernando Alonso in 2005. Lotus took the constructors' title the same day.