#147 1966 German Grand Prix

On Sunday, July 31, 1966, Ludovico Scarfiotti is unable to beat his biggest rival Gerhard Mitter in the uphill race in Freiburg, the fifth round of the Mountain Championship, and thus gives up the chance to win the European Championship title for the third time. Mitter completes the race, divided into two heats, in an overall time of 12'08"9, with an average speed of 110.6 km/h, outdistancing Scarfiotti by more than two seconds. The German driver, in his 2000 cc eight-cylinder Porsche, also sets a new track record, completing the best run in 6'02"4, at an average speed of 111.089 km/h. This victory virtually gives Mitter the Mountain Championship title, which is awarded based on the five best placings of each driver. Mitter moves up to 42 points in the overall standings, leaving Scarfiotti behind with 21 points. There are only two races to go, the Ollon-Villar race in Switzerland and the Gaisberg uphill in Austria. Scarfiotti (who missed two races, won one and came second twice) has - mathematically - no chance of winning over his opponent. Ludovico Scarfiotti tries his best on the twisty road leading to the Schauinsland peak (it is 11.200 kilometres long, with a difference in altitude of 780 metres and 172 turns), but Mitter not only feels at ease on this road, but also proves that he drives a much more powerful car. In the Sestriere race, it looked like Porsche's eight-cylinder car did not have enough power to beat the more agile and easy-to-handle Ferrari Dino. The Stuttgart car and its driver were forced to a halt after winning the Rossfeld, Mont Ventoux and Trento-Bondone races only to the credit of a superbly performing Scarfiotti and due to some problems with poor carburation. Ludovico Scarfiotti will see an old dream come true on Sunday, August 7, 1966, on the German circuit of the Nürburgring: to race in an agile Formula 1 single-seater in a Grand Prix for the World Drivers' Championship. Indeed, for the next Grand Prix, Ferrari decided to enter not only the two 12-cylinder cars driven by Lorenzo Bandini and Mike Parkes, but also a 2400 cc six-cylinder, entrusting Scarfiotti to drive it. The friendly driver from Porto Recanati is no newcomer to Formula 1, but he has raced very few times in this formula, with only modest results (at Reims, a few years ago, he went off the track, breaking his leg). However, he has now shown to be in top form and to possess the qualities of a thoroughbred champion, so his return to Formula 1 is logical and natural. 

Scarfiotti has won many races with Scuderia Ferrari's big prototypes; last year, he also won the European Mountain Championship with the Ferrari Dino, therefore he really deserves the trust Ferrari has placed in him. Moreover, for the Modenese manufacturer, the problem of replacing Surtees is not yet solved, as the races held so far in the World Championship have made it clear that Bandini is unable to rise above a certain average standard and that Parkes is still very inexperienced. Scarfiotti could be the right guy. In the meantime, Ferrari's decision to line up three cars at the German Grand Prix, the sixth round of a World Championship so far dominated by Jack Brabham and his Repco-Brabham, indicates that the Modenese manufacturer wants to deliver a prestigious performance as some sort of compensation for a very unlucky season. It will be the Nürburgring to host the 38th German Grand Prix. This is the sixth race out of the nine scheduled for this year's World Championship. The Automobile Club of Germany, which is responsible for organising the event, is concerned that, due to the low number of entries, there may not be enough Formula 1 cars to make up a good starting grid and to keep the circuit (22,8 km for 15 laps) busy enough to entertain the crowd. For this reason, eleven Formula 2 cars have been invited to take part in the event. As they cannot take part in the actual Formula 1 Grand Prix, as they do not conform to Formula 1 rules, it was at first considered to have them race in a separate round after the start of the Grand Prix. In the end, it was decided to line them up on the starting grid together with the Formula 1 cars, while differentiating the championships. At the beginning, the entries for the Grand Prix were the full house, with the only exception of the Cooper-Maserati of Rob Walker-Jack Durlacher, who couldn't accept the AvD starting conditions, so Siffert was without a driver. McLaren had initially entered, but then does not turn up: David Bridges' V8 Brabham-B.R.M. is accepted as a replacement at the last moment, with John Taylor at the wheel. Team Lotus makes no changes from the Zandvoort race, with Clark driving the R14 with Climax 2-litre V8 engine and Arundell driving the R11 with B.R.M. 2-litre V8 engine. After the rubber and steel vibration damper on the front of the crankshaft broke at Brands Hatch and Zandvoort, Coventry-Climax decided to run the engine without the damper. Jack Brabham was supposed to have a new chassis, built based on the test work done by Hulme on the #2 single-seater. However, as it was not possible to prepare it in time, Brabham keeps the original car, so that he and Hulme have the same cars as at Zandvoort.

The car with the 2.5-litre 4-cylinder Climax engine is in the transporter in case of need. Graham Hill and Stewart will drive the older 2-litre B.R.M. V8 Tasman again, as the cars with the H-16 engine still give problems in gear changes, and at the Nürburgring it is essential to have a perfect gearbox that the driver can use without worries. The Cooper team will this time entrust chassis number #6 to Surtees, number #3 to Rindt and number #7 will be used as a spare, while the management of the Maserati 12-cylinder engines remains unchanged. Ferrari will line up three cars and three drivers: Bandini and Parkes will use the 3-litre 12-cylinder engines, while Scarfiotti will use the 2,4-litre V6 engine. Dan Gurney will drive his Eagle, again fitted with a 2.7-litre Climax engine. The rest of the entries consist of private teams and owners: Bondurant on Bernard White's 2-litre V8 BRM, Spence on Parnell's Lotus 25-B.R.M. V8, Bonnier and Ligier on their Cooper-Maserati, Anderson on his Brabham-Climax, Chris Lawrence on JA Pearce's Cooper-Ferrari V12 and John Taylor on Bridge's V8 Brabham-B.R.M. The entries for the Formula 2 cars have been carefully selected and arrangements have been made with some German drivers to borrow cars for this “race within the race”. The Ken Tyrrell Matra team comes with two cars, one with a Cosworth engine for young driver Ickx and one with a B.R.M. engine for Hubert Hahne, the German BMW saloon driver, Winklemann Racing, lends Rindt's Brabham-Cosworth to Hans Herrmann and Alan Rees drives the other one, the Lotus cars of the Ron Harris Team will be driven by Gerhard Mitter, Pedro Rodriguez and Piers Courage, all three with Cosworth injection engines. The Matra team has a Cosworth-engined car for Beltoise, a B.R.M.-engined car for Schlesser and a spare car with a Cosworth engine. The other two Formula 2 entries are Ahrens driving his Brabham-Cosworth and Moser in a similar car. Practice starts on Friday at 12:00 a.m. and the first session lasts an hour and a half with sunny weather. Through the first part of the session, on the Hatzenbach series of downhill turns, it is possible to notice four categories of drivers on this part of the track. The first category are those drivers who know exactly what they are doing and where they are going, who enter the series of turns very quickly, maintain speed the whole time and come out of the last left-hand turn at a very high speed and only just under control and need a bit of blocking on the right.

The second category is made up of those drivers who enter slowly and fail to get into the rhythm of the right-left-right-left movement and keep losing speed, so much so that they come out of the last turn at a lower speed than they could have reached. The third category consists of those drivers who enter the turn too quickly, or on the wrong line, then get stuck and trudge around in a messy way. Finally, the last category is those drivers so aggressive that they have to change their approach and start all over again halfway through the lap. Surtees, in his Cooper-Maserati, seems to be in great shape, even though he didn't do many laps. In contrast, Anderson seems to be on track all the time, driving smoothly but not very fast. Stewart, Clark, Bondurant and Scarfiotti all deliver impressive performances, while Brabham and Rindt only come out to lap once, very late in the session, and Gurney, Hulme and Taylor don't get on track at all. The Brabham team cannot boast of its usual efficiency for now, because their car is still being rebuilt when practice begins, and Hulme's engine blows up before his lap even starts. Gurney and Taylor's cars are not yet ready and the Ligier car has not arrived yet, but all the F2 cars are on track testing. Last year, Clark set the lap record in the race with a time of 8'24‘1 driving a 1,5-litre Lotus-Climax, and during practice this year he has lapped in 8'22’7. It is therefore a surprise to find out that the fastest lap in this first practice session is only 8'26"0, but not surprising to discover that it is Stewart who recorded it. Clark is second fastest and Scarfiotti is third, in line with the trend on the Hatzenbach circuit. The F2 cars struggle on the steep hills, as the 1-litre engines are not powerful enough to cope with the difficulty of the Nürburgring, but some drivers are able to compensate for this handicap on the downhills and tight corners. At 4:00 p.m. the second practice session begins. From the Flugplatz, it is possible to see the fastest cars coming over the edge of the steep hill and see how they go down, and from the same area one can see the fastest cars on the edge of the next hill and on the fastest part of the circuit, which is the long downhill on a steady left-hand turn towards Schwedenkreuz and the tight right-hand turn at Aremberg. As soon as practice starts, however, it begins to rain and, although it does not rain for the entire hour and a half of practice, the circuit is still wet and the surface incredibly slippery; even the Formula 2 cars get sideways at any opening of the throttle.

Surprisingly, all the drivers take to the track for practice, but no times worth recording are achieved. However, Gurney makes sure to set some qualifying laps on his Eagle, as does Hulme. Ligier starts his first lap in his blue Cooper-Maserati V12 but spins out in the woods not far from the start. He is thrown from the car and suffers a fractured knee and other minor injuries, an accident that will probably put him out of the game for some time. On Saturday morning there is another free practice session from 11:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. The weather is again good and sunny, and everyone is out driving. In the Schwalbeswanz area, which includes a very fast approach to a right-hand turn over a bridge with a hump, followed by an uphill left-hand turn on a blind side, there is some good driving from everyone. After a short descent there is a left-hand turn, where there is a concrete bank, and here Stewart is very impressive to watch driving, as are Gurney and Beltoise. In the corners just before, the young Ickx is also spectacular to watch, and Brabham and Parkes give the crowd some heart-stopping moments. Surtees is executing the right trajectories, thus, for two laps Brabham decides to follow him. Hulme, who has taken to the track again in his V8 car fitted with a new engine, lends his car to Brabham who has complained of gearbox problems. Clark disappears for a while, while his mechanics change the gearbox of his Lotus to one with different gears and, although still impressive to watch, he does not give the impression of being the fastest. Formula 2 cars lift off the ground with all four wheels as they go over the bridge, and of these the Matras seem to be the best balanced for landing. Most of the heavier Grand Prix cars lift to the limit of their suspension, but very few of them take to the air. The 12-cylinder Ferraris land on the track with a terrible thud and the V6 car driven by Scarfiotti clearly does not have the same handling as the newer Ferraris. Beltoise has taken to the track both in the Matra-Cosworth training car and in his own car. In both cases, he is impressive in the way he works. The pace of this last practice session is very fast. The cars pass one after the other and the drivers push to the limit of grip, doing much extra-work, the front wheels often come off the ground while coming out of the concrete ditch, the rear wheels touch the banks, and the engines are pushed to the limit. It is no surprise to find that ten drivers go well under the 8'30"0 mark and that eight of them have driven faster than the existing lap record. 

Clark, as usual, gives an outstanding performance with a time of 8'16"5, followed by Surtees, Stewart, Scarfiotti, Brabham, Bandini, Parkes and Gurney. Among the other drivers, Bondurant's time does not match the competitive way in which he takes corners, and among the Formula 2 cars, Beltoise is a bit slower than he looks. Young Jacky Ickx is better than any other F2 driver. Shortly before the end of practice, Scarfiotti goes off the road in his Ferrari V6, with little damage, and Graham Hill breaks a part of his B.R.M.'s engine. Therefore, there is no time to rest in the garages on Saturday evening. The race is held on August 7, 1966. It is a cloudy, rainy morning and, although the rain stops during lunchtime, it starts again before the race start scheduled for 2:00 p.m. As a result, there are doubts and problems with the tyres. The Ferrari team comes into the pits with Dunlop tyres instead of the usual Firestone; even Lotus, who has always fitted Dunlop tyres, now switches to Firestone just before the start. The B.R.M. team diversifies their strategy: Hill uses Goodyear tyres and Stewart uses Dunlop tyres, while the Cooper team sticks to Dunlop. The Brabham team and Gurney have no problem with the choice: they signed a contract with Goodyear and never showed any inclination to try anything else, being well satisfied with the tyres supplied. Gurney has some tyres cut by hand to get more draining, but in the end, he decides to stick to the standard model. Twenty-seven cars are lined up for the start, with Moser and Mitter missing, who will not start in the F2 category. The German Lotus driver is still suffering from a foot injury and felt the strain of testing was too much. The 3-litre cars win the acceleration run up to South Bend and return to the pits to start the first of what looks like 15 very difficult and treacherous laps, as the rain falls steadily. Surtees takes the lead ahead of Brabham, Bandini and Rindt. As the pack emerges from the Hatzenbach woods to reach the bottom of the Quiddelbacher-Hohe descent, someone touches the front of John Taylor's car, which spins and bursts into flames. A badly burned Taylor is forced to rush to hospital. Ickx, who is immediately behind Taylor, is forced to perform a rough manoeuvre to avoid him, which takes him off the road, but he still manages to restart after helping the unfortunate Taylor. Instead, unfortunately Anderson is unable to avoid running over Taylor's wrecked car.

The rain falls steadily, as the leading drivers complete the first lap and, although Surtees remains in the lead for most of the way, it is Brabham who comes out first over the edge of the Tiergarten, chased by Surtees itself and Rindt. Then comes Clark, alone, followed by Gurney, Stewart, Bandini, Parkes, Hill, Hulme and Bondurant. Beltoise is in the lead for the Formula 2 car standings and is already ahead of Bonnier, Arundell and Lawrence. At the back of the grid comes Anderson, slowed down by Taylor's accident. The grid positions seem to be settled, but on the second lap Ickx is forced to return to the pits and withdraw: his Matra-Cosworth has been damaged after going off the track the previous lap. One can get an idea of how slippery the track is by looking at Brabham's lap time from a standing start, which is 9'28"2, over a minute slower than the average time on a dry track. Surtees stays alongside Brabham for the second lap, which they both finish with a time of 9'16"1; now the rain is sporadic, which at the Nürburgring is much more treacherous than a continuous downpour. Gurney gets closer to Clark, who is not happy with his Firestone tyres, while Hill passes Parkes and Bandini and quickly gets closer to Stewart. On the third lap, Gurney overtakes Clark and Hill overtakes Stewart and on the next lap Hill overtakes Clark as well. In the meantime, the race lead remains unchanged, with Brabham setting the pace and Surtees just outside the spray radius of the Brabham-Repco V8. Rindt cannot keep up with the pace and he is on his own on his Cooper-Maserati, well ahead of Gurney and the pack. Bondurant returns to the pits after three laps: the engine of his B.R.M. is running badly and one of the intake ducts of the nearest bank of cylinders quickly fills with petrol; a sure sign that the valve is blocked due to a broken camshaft. Thus, his race comes to an end. Anderson withdraws because of a transmission problem, Ahrens withdraws as well and goes back to the pits because of a gearbox problem and Bonnier finally gives up when he is lapped by Brabham and Surtees on lap four. On the same lap, Courage goes off track in his Lotus-Cosworth F2 and Rees' Brabham-Cosworth F2 withdraws due to a valve gearbox problem. Beltoise, on the other hand, is so fast and has such a consistent advantage over all the other cars in the F2 race that it could very well look as if he were driving a Formula 1 car. Much further back come Hahne and Schlesser, the latter in the spare Matra-Cosworth that Beltoise used in practice instead of his Matra-B.R.M..

For one lap the situation seems to settle down, but on lap six Hulme starts gaining pace and overtakes Stewart, and on the next lap he catches up Clark, who was desperately trying to remain close to Graham Hill, as the B.R.M. is more manageable on Goodyear tyres than the Lotus on Firestone tyres. On lap eight, Hulme gets ahead of Hill and seems set to catch up with Gurney, who is still in an excellent fourth place. However, on lap nine, Hulme's Repco engine shuts down due to an ignition problem and the driver is forced to stop at the side of the track. Rodriguez is forced to withdraw on lap eight. Brabham is still in the lead followed by Surtees. Rain regularly pours down every fifteen minutes and, in such conditions, the drivers cannot risk driving too fast. Rindt still finds himself in a lonely third place followed by Gurney (P4) and, much further back, Graham Hill (P5), still followed by Clark (P6), then Stewart (P7) and then the whole Ferrari team, in most unfortunate P8, P9 and P10, in order Parkes, Bandini and Scarfiotti. Seeing the Maserati-powered cars in second and third place respectively does not make things any better for the Maranello team. Beltoise has overtaken Spence, who had clutch problems. As Scarfiotti starts his tenth lap, the Ferrari V6's engine makes a squealing sound, as if the fuel injection system is malfunctioning, and he is unable to complete the lap, as is Parkes, who slides off the road into the bushes. When breaking at South Bend, Lawrence suffers a broken ball joint in the front arm of Pearce's Cooper-Ferrari V12. On the next lap, lap 12, Clark loses control of his car on the slippery track and goes off the road, unhurt but unfortunately out of the race. Spence's engine, which was running out of battery power due to a broken alternator drive belt, shuts down. Apart from the very difficult task of staying on the slippery road and never knowing when and where the next downpour will come, Brabham seems to have no problems: his car behaves perfectly. In contrast, Surtees is far from happy: his Cooper's clutch has long since stopped working, the pedal has been stuck, so he is forced to make clutchless gear changes. As the fuel is consumed, the car's centre of gravity changes and its handling gets worse and worse, so much so that Surtees can no longer keep up with Brabham: the gap increases from 5 seconds after 13 laps, to 17 seconds on lap 14 and 44.4 seconds at the end of the race.

Meanwhile, a cheering Brabham wins the German Grand Prix. Rindt keeps a firm third place and, just when Gurney's fourth place seemed assured, his engine cuts out and stops on the downhill run to Adenau. Quite a blow for the Eagle team to see Gurney's car break down so close to the end. The B.R.M. team takes a not very noteworthy fourth and fifth place, and Bandini is the last driver to finish on the same lap as the leaders. Just when the race seemed to be over and the timekeepers had already stopped their clocks, Gurney suddenly arrives and completes the 15 needed laps to take seventh place. The clip that held the capacitor inside the distributor on his car broke, causing the capacitor to detach. It has taken Gurney a long time to find the fault and reattach the detached part, but he has finally succeeded, and he finishes the last half lap. Obviously, his seventh-place finish does not tell the real story of a top-class drive that could have led even to fourth place. Jack Brabham is obviously very pleased to have won his fourth consecutive Grand Prix (he has won in France, England, the Netherlands and now Germany), but he is even more pleased to have won a race at the Nürburgring. Young French driver Beltoise ruled the Formula 2 race, finishing eighth, after Gurney, but first in his class race ahead of Hahne, Schlesser, Hermann and even ahead of Formula 1 driver Arundell. However, the Formula 2 race did not meet the expectations of the organizers, perhaps because all the top drivers who normally captivate the Formula 2 category are currently working on Grand Prix cars. Jack Brabham wins the German Grand Prix in the car he is also constructor of, and becomes virtually World Champion. The 40-year-old Australian driver has already won the French, British and Dutch Grands Prix this season. Before the race, it seemed very unlikely that his Brabham-Repco, the least powerful and heaviest of the new 8-liter Formula 1 cars, would be able to succeed also on a circuit like the Nürburgring, made for agile cars and classy drivers. Instead, friendly Jack showed that he has enough class to give all his colleagues a run for their money, and proved that in a small workshop it is possible to build racing cars at least not inferior to those of famous manufacturers' names. But let's now get back to the Nürburgring race. 

Right behind Jack Brabham come John Surtees and Jochen Rindt in Cooper-Maserati cars, then Graham Hill in a B.R.M. 2000 and Jackie Stewart, also driving a B.R.M. Bandini on a Ferrari comes sixth. Surtees performs magnificently and, during almost a lap, manages to stay ahead of Brabham. It must be said that the Brabham-Repco seems more consistent on wet conditions: it has rained for almost the entire race, which explains why the race record set last year by Clark has not been improved. This is precisely why the two Cooper drivers seemed unable to take advantage of the great power of the Maserati engines. World Champion Jim Clark, who lapped at an average speed of over 165 km/h in practice, has never made it into the leading positions and withdraws on lap 11. There is not much to say about the Ferrari drivers, other than Bandini's rather poor sixth place in the 12-cylinder 3000. Scarfiotti (in the 6-cylinder 2400) and Parkes have been racing for a while in the mid-positions only to withdraw, the former because of an engine failure, the Englishman because of ignition problems. Fourteen of the world's most famous Formula 1 drivers line up at the start based on the results of the times they set during practice. At the moment, on the twisty Nürburgring circuit, the sky is full of clouds. The distance to be covered is fifteen laps, for a total of 342.150 kilometres. From the very first lap, a fierce fight for the top positions begins. Brabham takes the lead immediately, followed closely by Surtees' powerful Cooper-Maserati in second place and by Rindt's Cooper-Maserati in third. Unfortunately, it starts to rain, forcing the drivers to reduce their speed considerably. Right after the first lap, Surtees manages to take the lead to the cheers of the crowd, but the lap is not even over yet when Brabham takes the lead again. During the same lap, a frightening accident occurs: Englishman John Taylor, at the wheel of a McLaren-B.R.M. originally entrusted to New Zealander driver Bruce McLaren, collides with a Formula 2 car driven by Belgian driver Jacky Ickx. Taylor's car goes off the track and catches fire: the driver is pulled out of the driver's seat just in time and rushed to the Koblenz hospital, where his conditions are deemed quite serious due to the second-degree burns he suffered. As time goes by, the fight between Brabham and Surtees becomes increasingly tough. By lap 5, the gap between the Australian's car and Surtees' Cooper-Maserati, still being chased by team-mate Jochen Rindt, is only 0.7 seconds. Every time the Australian is told from the pits that Surtees is getting closer and more dangerous, Brabham pushes even harder to keep his lead steady at four to five seconds.

On lap nine, Ferraris driven by Parkes and Scarfiotti are forced to withdraw. On lap 11, Jim Clark also withdraws because of mechanical problems. In the last five laps, Surtees gives up trying to stay close to Brabham, who is on his way to a well-deserved triumph. At the same time, unfortunately, a fatal accident interrupts the 4th edition of the Coppa Città di Enna, a speed race for sports cars and prototypes. During lap 6, at the exit of the turn leading to the grandstands straight, the Alfa Romeo Giulia T2 driven by Palermo Doctor Franco Lo Dico, racing under the pseudonym of Crui, goes off the road, hits a rocky ridge above the track and flips over several times, sliding on the ground. As soon as the service ambulance arrives, the emergency crew finds the unlucky driver unconscious amidst the wreckage of the car: he is rushed to the hospital in Enna, but sadly Dr. Lo Dico dies shortly after admission. The mournful misfortune brings a shadow of sadness over the competition, which was intended to be a technical and organisational success. The race, which is divided into several classes, has its most interesting part in the fight between the Ferrari-Dino driven by Marsilio Panetti and Nino Vaccarella from Brescia and the Ford GT40 driven by Casoni. The fight goes on for many laps, then Vaccarella is forced to withdraw due to a fire starting on his car, and afterwards Casoni comes into the pits to fix a problem, giving the way to Panetti. Casoni himself rejoins the race and sets the fastest lap at an average speed of 223.144 km/h.