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1978 German Grand Prix

Formula One motor race held in 1978

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ173120
Source-derived summary

The 1978 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 30 July 1978 at the Hockenheimring. Mario Andretti won the race from pole position, ahead of Jody Scheckter and Jacques Laffite.

Report

This was the debut race of future world champion Nelson Piquet. Mario Andretti took pole with Ronnie Peterson in second and Niki Lauda third. At the start, Peterson got off better and took the lead from Andretti, and held it for four laps before Andretti retook it. Lauda ran third in the early stages, before he was passed by Alan Jones, and the duo battled until Lauda's engine failed, his fifth engine related retirement of the year. The two Lotus cars were cruising at the front, and Jones ran third comfortably until he retired with a fuel vaporization problem. Lotus's hopes of a 1–2 ended when Peterson's gearbox failed, Andretti was unaffected by that and cruised to his fifth win of the season, with Jody Scheckter second and Jacques Laffite third.

Classification

Pre-qualifying

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Qualifying

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Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1978 German Grand Prix” is formula One motor race held in 1978. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through German, Grand and Prix, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, German, Grand and Prix is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “formula One motor race held in 1978” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q173120. Authority coordinates are 49.328, 8.566. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1978 German Grand Prix”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1978 German Grand Prix primary sources, 1978 German Grand Prix archive and German research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 1978 German Grand Prix” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.