For those not so young who are watching Grand Prix videos from the 70s or early 80s for the first time, it is always surprising to see that slight jump starts were more or less tolerated. It doesn't look serious, especially in the context of a Formula 1 GP.
This phenomenon could be partly explained by the difficulty of slipping the clutch of an F1 car with phenomenal torque and a power of more than 400 HP without any driving assistance such as traction control. The drivers, forced to slip their clutch in order not to miss the start - no clutch being able to withstand this power for long - sometimes it was extremely difficult to keep the car from moving any longer, thereby moving forward a meter or two. This explains why the driver, to avoid an obvious false start, sometimes released his foot from the accelerator and re-disengaged at the very moment the flag was lowering, causing him to miss his momentum.
To complicate matters, during the 1970s, standing start procedures did not follow strict protocol. Each race director had his own way of giving the signal, which could change at any time. Some starters even took great pleasure in playing on the drivers' nerves by moving their arm without lowering the flag during the last 10 or 15 seconds during which it was agreed that they would give the signal.
We must also not forget that the starting grids varied from one circuit to another, particularly at the time of transition between the 3-2-3 grids and the more staggered even grids which still exist today. There were also circuits where the starting straight was more or less sloping like at Brands-Hatch.
They were so tolerant back then about this that it often happened that drivers positioned themselves in front of their assigned position on the grid to be at the exact height of the driver supposed to be in front of them on the line, while in other occasions they remained at the very back. In this case, the trick was to release the clutch a little, a second or two before the signal, so as to arrive at their starting location right at the moment of the flag dropping, which meant that technically they were not stealing the start. The main advantage being to avoid slipping the clutch for too long and, better still, to find oneself in a flying start at the moment of the signal, which was clearly advantageous compared to those who made a real standing start.
In the video below from the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix, we can see a typical start from the 70s. In fact, it's almost a caricature of the starts of the time, the worst example I've personally seen.
It is obvious that giving a new start in car racing for each false start is far from being as simple as in athletics. That was motivated by many reasons: the need to refuel on the grid in the event that refueling is prohibited during the race and, especially knowing many were too short on fuel for weight reasons, and the risk involved in multiplying starts (the most dangerous moment of the race) with the costs and the additional workload that this would imply for the teams and mechanics in the event of pileups, as well as the risk that this eliminates several competitors, particularly the most important ones from the start of the race, the time constraints of television in the case of races transmitted live, given the time it takes to restart the entire procedure, the obligation to carry out a new warm-up lap in addition if the interruption lasts too long or if the weather conditions change, and above all the additional constraints to be subjected to the clutches and transmissions, to name just a few reasons... in short, there was no shortage of reasons to tolerate barely stolen starts.
Certainly, one could object that time penalties were possible and even actually applied against offenders in the event of an early departure in a too conspicuous manner, particularly on the part of the leaders, but abuse this penalty for the slightest early departure or a few meters gained at low speed on the grid would have been abusive and above all would have complicated the race for the spectators and the teams that would be obliged to take into account the penalty in question, thus distorting the spectacle.
But over time, the technology and the departure procedure have evolved so much that these problems are now a thing of the past. Like all progress, it happened gradually.
Playing with the tolerance of race directors or taking advantage of their dilettantism or incompetence ended up no longer being tolerated, especially after the drama of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in 1978 which caused the death of Ronnie Peterson, after the starter gave the signal before the last ones had all stopped, thereby creating a traffic jam before the first chicane with cars arriving at high speed and the first having taken a standing start (well... almost).The difference in speed and the particularity of the track which narrows at the approach of the first chicane having led to the drama that we know. This is why we see a marshal wave a green flag behind at the back of the starting grid once he is certain that all the competitors have stopped, thus signaling to the race director that he can finally give the signal.
That particular race was also one of the rare ones in that era where some drivers have been penalized for stealing the start. It was actually at the restart after Ronnie Peterson's accident, when the leaders, Gilles Villeneuve and Mario Andretti were given a minute penalty each for starting a few tenths before the signal.
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