The Faces of Racing's Fast Crowd

It is as though the emotional cost of each victory and defeat has been etched into them, the erosion of a life lived on the outer edge. At right is the premier example, Jackie Stewart of 1973. Now world champion for the third time and winner of a record 27 Grand Prix races, he will forever carry the mask molded on him by his calling. But the crags, that now-familiar squint and set of jawline, are not Stewart's alone. The look is representative of all the drivers who follow the Formula I circuit each season and who are now headed to the U.S. for the big windup next week at Watkins Glen. As with the 34-year-old champion, the portraits of the top challengers on the pages that follow, even when helmeted and hidden, reveal their mood of tension in repose.

Making up a global Grand Prix gallery are England's grizzled Graham Hill (left), François

Cevert of France, Belgium's Jacky Ickx and the intense Brazilian, Emerson Fittipaldi.

Wearing that touch of worldly weariness are American Peter Revson and South Africa's young Jody Scheckter (left), and Sweden's fast-rising Ronnie Peterson.

EIGHT PHOTOS

NEIL LEIFER