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#132 1965 South African Grand Prix

2022-05-15 01:00

Osservatore Sportivo

#1965, Fulvio Conti, Nicoletta Zuppardo, Translated by Alessia Andreoli,

#132 1965 South African Grand Prix

On Sunday, December 27, 1964, World Champion John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini have been in Johannesburg for a few hours, where they will take part in

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On Sunday, December 27, 1964, World Champion John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini have been in Johannesburg for a few hours, where they will take part in the South African Grand Prix, to be held on the East London circuit on January 1, 1965. On Monday, December 29, 1964, the two Scuderia Ferrari drivers will test for the first time with two cars equipped with 8 and 12-cylinder engines. In previous editions of the World Championship, the South African Grand Prix was included in the calendar as the final round. This year the Formula One season finished in October with the Mexican Grand Prix, and the organisers preferred to put the African Grand Prix at the beginning of 1965, so that it could be considered an official world championship race, as the 1964 regular races to award the Championship had already been held. 1965 will be the last year during which the 1500 cc cars will be used. It is fairly predictable that both Ferrari and the British manufacturers will not make too many changes to the cars that were the protagonists of the last World Championship season. Ferrari will still bet on the components and set-ups that had already been fine-tuned. One of the two tested cars was equipped with an 8-cylinder engine, that allowed John Surtees to win the world title; the other one was equipped with a 12-cylinder engine, that was already fine-tuned in the last months of 1964. Motor racing never sleeps: the 1964 season finished just two months ago; Surtees and Ferrari won the two Formula 1 world titles (drivers’ and constructors’). On New Year's Day, the 1965 World Championship will begin, with the South African Grand Prix. It is almost a prosecution of the thrilling events of the 1964 championship: 1965 will start with the race in East London, which will award the first points for next year's title. Needless to say, the break between the Mexican and the South African Grands Prix was so short that it did not allow the teams to prepare any new component, but only to complete the fine-tuning of those that were ready at the end of last season: the well-known 8-cylinder cars with modified chassis (Lotus and B.R.M.) and the promising 12-cylinder 512 (Ferrari). Nevertheless, only Bandini will be equipped with it, while Surtees will still drive the 158 Ferrari. The only changes in the official teams concern Jackie Stewart, who will take Ginther's place in B.R.M. team, and Jochen Rindt. 

 

For the rest, we will see the same line-ups as last year. In the meantime, the organisers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans announce the regulations for the race to be held on 19 and 20 June 1965: the minimum cylinder capacity for a car to be allowed to race is 1000 cc. The formula used to calculate the imposed distances which is used to establish the performance index ranking is modified: the minimum distance for large cars is increased and that for smaller cars is decreased (for a 1000 cc car, the imposed distance gets about two percent smaller, while for a 3000-cc car it is increased by three percent). The cars with a delay of more than thirty percent (previously it was twenty percent) will be eliminated after six hours of racing. At the end of the eighteen hours, cars with a delay of fifteen per cent (instead of the previous twenty per cent) will be eliminated. To calculate the energy efficiency, the weight of the vehicle with a full tank will be considered. All cars must be equipped with a fire extinguisher, easily accessible. The spare tyre must fit either the front wheel or the rear wheel of the car, while previously it was supposed to fit both the front and rear wheels, but this had not been respected up to now. The minimum required lap speed during official practice is increased to 155 km/h for cars from 1000 cc to 1500 cc; 165 km/h for cars from 1500 cc to 2000 cc; 175 km/h for cars from 2000 cc to 3000 cc and 180 km/h for cars over 3000 cc. The award of prizes is modified. Indeed, the awards for distance and fuel efficiency index are increased, while those for performance index are decreased. 1965 thus marks a new era of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: the organisers are willing to praise performance as a function of fuel consumption, rather than displacement. This has been their intention for several years. In 1964, two cars of the same weight, equipped with engines of different displacements, completed the test with a lower average speed and less consumption, and the smaller car came out on top in the performance index. It is certain, therefore, that a ranking that takes speed, weight and consumption into account is much fairer than one that only takes speed and engine capacity into account. By postponing the South African Grand Prix by just one week, the race becomes the first Championship Event of 1965, instead of the last event of 1964. This means that there will be no South African Grand Prix for 1964. 

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The race is held, as in previous years, over 85 laps, on the East London circuit, which is just outside the town, and lies along the side of the sea. The starting grid is the best up to the date, with sixteen drivers starting. Nine drivers are fighting for the last four remaining places. These nine are selected out of fourteen participants, which have to set a time under 1'37"0 in an informal practice, the day before official practice begins. However, these times do not determine the grid positions. Ferrari have two cars at their disposal for Surtees and Bandini. The former is driving a V8- engine car, while the Italian driver is equipped with a flat twelve-cylinder car. It is nice to see that the two cars are painted in the proper colour. Since Enzo Ferrari still does not have his own competition licence, Ferrari enrolled his cars under Dragoni’s name. In B.R.M. team, Graham Hill has a new teammate, the young Scot driver Jackie Stewart, who is driving his first Grande Epreuve. Three cars arrived from Bourne, the headquarter of B.R.M.. A new car for Stewart, which is basically the same as the car used by Hill in Mexico; a car for Hill, which remained unchanged since the Mexican race; plus, there is one of the old cars, as a spare in case of an accident. Chapman has two cars, for Clark and Spence. Clark’s car is now named 33B, and the exhaust pipes come through between the top and bottom wishbones. Both cars are just like the ones used in Mexico. Brabhams has two cars, one for constructor-driver Jack Brabham and one for his No. 1 driver, Gurney: the two vehicles are exactly the same. Gurney has a brand-new car, which is practically the same as Brabham’s. The two drivers have different opinions about which tyres they are to use. Gurney prefers Goodyear tyres, whilst Brabham is aiming for Dunlops tyres, which are proved to be faster. So, when the two cars are out on track for the first practice session, they are, in fact, using different tyres. John Cooper’s No 2 driver is new to F1 racing, just like Stewart, the new B.R.M.’s driver. It is only the second Grand Prix for Jochen Rindt, the first was in Zeltweg, where he drove Rob Walker’s spare car. McLaren is still Cooper’s No 1 driver, and both cars have undergone very little changes. By using rear wheel castings on the front, Cooper has widened the front track by 3 inches, which helps with stability. Rob Walker’s racing team will now be taking part to the races with two cars everywhere, with Bonnier driving the Brabham-Climax and Siffert driving the Brabham-B.R.M., both cars painted in the Walker dark blue. 

 

Bob Anderson’s Brabham-Climax is still working with carburettors, although he is changing it to a car with fuel injection as soon as he returns to England. Parnell has one car for Tony Maggs, the Lotus-B.R.M. which the team have been using since Zeltweg. Newcomers to Formula One racing, the Willment team have two cars, for Frank Gardner and Paul Hawkins respectively. The first team to be sure to take part to the new season is Brabham-B.R.M. Their car uses the ex-Walker chassis and a good B.R.M. engine provided from Siffert. The other car which is going to compete for one of the four vacant places is the F2 Brabham with twin cam Lotus-Ford engine, which the Willment team used last year. The last of the drivers to have a guaranteed place is John Love, this year’s South African champion, who is driving his 4-cylinder Cooper-Climax. Here are the other contenders for the South African Grand Prix. Three drivers fail to turn up, they are: Read (RE Alfa), Clapham (Cooper-Maserati), and Blignaught (Cooper-Climax). David Prophet is driving F2 Brabham-Ford. Otelle Nucci has two cars registered, one for Peter de Klerk and the other for Doug Serrurier. The former is driving the Alfa Special he drove last year, whilst Serrurier is to drive an LDS Climax, the engine is one of the old 4-cylinders. Ernie Pieterse has a Lotus-Climax 4-cylinder. Neville Lederle and Clive Puzey are also driving Lotus-Climax 4-cylinders. Sam Tingle has a LDS Alfa. Brausch Niemann is driving Ted Lanfear’s Lotus-Ford, this is not one of the Lotus with twin-cam engines. Trevor Blokdyk is to drive a Cooper-Ford, Jackie Pretorius is racing with a Lotus-Climax and Dave Charlton is racing with a Lotus-Ford. During the special pre-practice elimination trial Charlton, Pretorious and Puzey fail to achieve the minimum necessary to enter the race, which is, 1'37"0. First practice on Wednesday afternoon is taking place under a hot sun, with a fairly strong wind. The first driver to get out on track is Stewart, who is driving a B.R.M for the first time. Then comes Surtees in his V8 Ferrari, Gurney in his new Brabham equipped with Goodyear tyres and Clark, who had been the fastest in last year’s practice, with a time of 1'28"9 and an average speed of 58.696 km/h. B.R.M is equipped with Goodyear tyres on their spare car, and Hill uses this while his first car is being worked on. He completes several laps and then returns to the box to have the Goodyear tyres changed to Dunlop yellow-spot tyres. 

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In the meantime, he goes out again in the new car, but as soon as he passes the box, the engine blows up. Back at the garage, the mechanics found that a camshaft has sheared and when the sump drops down, it is found to contain a con-rod. As this is an engine specifically created for the car, this is no good. When the spare car is finally equipped with Dunlop tyres, Hill completes another series of laps. B.R.M. and he himself then get the proof that that the R6 yellow-spot tyres are up to 1 second per lap faster, over a 90 second lap, and with the introduction of the R7 tread, there may be a further improvement. This is the first time that a team has tested the two kinds of tyres on the same car, on the same day, under identical conditions. Spence is getting faster, but suddenly he starts to have difficulty in the hairpin. He spins three times in a very few laps. Jack Brabham is out late, as he decides to change Goodyear tyres and put Dunlop tyres, which delays his exit on the track. Bonnier (Brabharn-Climax) also gets on track late due to tyre change. Both Surtees and Clark are faster than 1'30"0 within the first hour. Surtees laps in 1'28"6 and Clark laps in 1'28"3. The organisers have forecasted, through a statement to the press, that there could be a 100-mile per hour lap, which means, a time of 1'27"6. The flat-twelve Ferrari, which arrives only in the morning of the practice, has six pipes per side going into one, which create an exhaust note that is a most painful sound to the ears. However, obviously it does not improve the performance, so they return to six pipes going into two by the next day. Clark is getting faster and faster, and it is not long before he laps under 1'28"0. At this point, it is noted that his dashboard registers around 12.000 rpm. However, this does not indicate that they have a new engine, it is only a faulty rev-counter. Brabham stops just beyond the box due to some trouble with the transistor, but he is out again in a very short time. Siffert and Maggs are both in the box to have the gear changed. The latter is practising on green-spot tyres for this session, and he changed to yellow-spots tyres for the second practice session. The Cooper team is having some trouble, too. Rindt’s gear ratios are not right, and he broke the rear shock-absorbers on his McLaren, although he is convinced that the wider track on the front of the car helps with the car’s handling. Anderson is also in trouble, a series of small things went wrong with his car, including the starter motor packing up. 

 

Clark has a final attempt with his Lotus and sets a time of 1'27"6, which is just over the 100-mile per hour time the organisers were hoping for. The tailenders are thrashing around, some slower than others, and are baulking to a certain extent the faster cars. However, the Race Director has words with some of the offenders, and things seems to improve. Hawkins and Prophet are the fastest on the first day, and shall they manage to keep this result, there are only two places left for South African drivers. The second practice session is at 6am the next morning. Hopefully there is a chance to improve times, shall the wind stop, and the air get cooler. B.R.M. changes Hill’s broken engine and also the lightweight gearbox is changed to the older, heavier box. In fact, Graham has found that the intermediate ratios of this box work better in the turns, which is the reason why during the practice session he was faster in the training car than in the race car. Tony Maggs has the steering box on his Lotus-B.R.M. changed and he is also using yellow-spot tyres. The first drivers to go out on track are McLaren, Siffert, Brabbam, Hawkins and Bonnier, all lined up at the exit of the boxes some minutes before the track is opened for practice. Only Love and Pieterse do not go out at all, but Hawkins does not manage to set a valid time, as he returns to the box after one lap. The cold air gauze in a carburettor is stuck in and gets under a valve, and this ends his practice session for the morning. Clark manages to set a time of 1'30"0 in four laps, and in nine laps he is down to 1'28"5. The flat-twelve Ferrari is equipped with the 550’ front tyres, while the V8 is equipped with the usual 600’ tyres. Rindt (Cooper) has changed to yellow-spot tyres: his car has a widened front track too, just like McLaren’s. Siffert returns to the box after a few laps and replaces the high-pressure fuel pump. Hill too goes back to the box again with oil all over his gearbox, but this, fortunately, only comes from the catch tank overflowing. Stewart comes into the box after a short time, with ignition problems, and then the car refuses to start. The mechanics think this is something serious and lift a cam cover to see if another camshaft is broken, but it is not, and when eventually they do discover what is wrong, it turns out to be nothing more than a badly seated water cap, which when the car is moving, sprays the engine with water, and four of the plug leads are in short circuit. 

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Clark goes out for a short practice session, in which he manages to keep a constant pace, every flying lap is 1'27"0 point something, the quickest being 1'27"2, with a speed of 161.8.15 km/h. During these laps he seriously risks a collision with a local driver, who loses control at the hairpin and comes back onto the track still out of control. Jack Brabham is doing very well, and he sets a time of 1'28"3 before he switches to Goodyear tyres for a few laps; this does not really prove anything, though, as these tyres are new, and he does very few laps before practice ends. His teammate Gurney is preserving his tyres, although it is more and more evident that his times are affected by this. Before the end of the practice, his engine brakes, so the team decide to change it before the afternoon practice. Bandini suddenly slows down as he passes the boxes, then reverses and decides to go back to his box. Something is not quite right with the fuel ignition, but the mechanics can solve the problem soon. Anderson seems to have sorted out his problems and is doing quite well. Practice finishes at 8am and is starting again at 2:00 p.m., which only gives the teams six hours to work. B.R.M. decide to change Stewart’s gearbox on the spare car and return to the old box, because the intermediate ratios work better in East London. However, when the mechanics dismantle the gearbox, they find that the clutch is broken, so the car will not be ready for the start of the afternoon’s practice. This last session starts with a very bad weather, it does not rain, but it is windy. The wind blows the whole afternoon, so strong it has almost the force of a gale. This makes driving, but even seeing anything, very difficult. Cars go out reluctantly, and even when they do, they do not complete many laps. Both B.R.M.s improve their previous times. Clark does a few laps towards the end of practice, and he is 0.1 sec faster than any other car, so keeping the record for the fastest lap in each practice session. Gurney goes on track towards the end of practice, he has changed his engine, and improves his time slightly, but he is still just over one second slower than Brabham, which is the gap that B.R.M. had estimated the tyres would give. Spence does two laps, only to check whether it is all fine with the car, which is why he has no time in the practice table. Serrurier, Pieterse, Lederle, Nieman, Blokdyke are the slowest drivers over the three practice sessions, and therefore they are out of the race on New Year’s Day. The race day is calmer, the sky is overcast, but still very bright, and the track is dry. 

 

After some preliminary races for the South African Clubmen the cars are brought to the starting grid. Lotus had so little to do in the pre-race preparation, that the night before, the cars are ready in only two hours. Brabham are still on different tyres and Gurney has a new steering column, because the original one broke and they had to make another one from steel tubing. With ten minutes to go, the cars do a warm-up lap, again taking their positions on the starting grid, then with one minute to go, they move forward, and at 2:30 p.m. the checkered flag is waved, and the race begins. Clark starts brilliantly as usual, in the first 100 yards, he has already put a car’s length between him and the following driver. This is Spence, who was just behind him on the grid, and is now following him, so the two drivers are in the lead, as they drive out of sight. At the end of lap one, past the boxes, Clark and Spence are clear of the next cars, and already leading. Behind come Brabham, McLaren, Surtees and Hill, then Bonnier, Bandini, Stewart, Anderson, Maggs, Rindt, Gurney (Dan had not been in such a rear position in a long time), Gardner, Siffert, Hawkins, de Klerk, Love, Prophet, and lastly Tingle. On the next lap, the two Lotuses pull out a few more yards, while Surtees passes McLaren and gains P4, and two laps later he passes Brabham and is in P3. In the back positions, Maggs surpasses Anderson, while Gurney does his pit stop after four laps, dropping several positions, and he has some unknown electrical trouble, which the mechanics are unable to trace. After 45 minutes, the engine seems to work, but it is short-lived: the fault strikes again after eleven laps, and Gurney is forced to leave his car out on the circuit. Anderson also does his pit stop after only a few laps. He stops on lap 3 for a moment, does one more lap, then goes to the box to change the brake pipe of the rear brakes. This is replaced, the system is quickly bled, but to no avail, because the braking is still very uneven, and although he completes the race in last place, he spins several times and is obviously not very happy. By lap six, the two Lotuses are well ahead of the third driver, which is Surtees, while Brabham and Hill are chasing Ferrari and have no intention of letting them get away. Bandini passes Bonnier on lap six and the Walker car slows down on the following lap, comes into the box, goes out for two more laps, then comes into the box again.

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The tank strap has broken, letting the tank flap loose. This is soon repaired, and Bonnier goes out again, he is now in 18th place, but he begins the comeback. Sam Tingle (LDS Alfa) also does his pit stop. He comes in with low oil pressure which is, however, found to be only a faulty gauge, so he can continue his race. In the following 30 laps, the first nine places remain quite unchanged. Further back, Rindt (P13) runs into difficulty when a wire in the transistor breaks. This is repaired, but breaks again, and finally the car stops out on the circuit, when another wire breaks, leaving the car without any ignition. John Love has taken P13 when Rindt has stopped, but he has to stop too, out on the circuit, at Cocobana corner, with a broken half-shaft, after 20 laps. Bandini, who is P7 on lap 33, drops back one position to Stewart, then makes a pit stop because of electrical trouble. By the time this problem is partially solved, he is back in 14th place and well out of the race. On lap 34, Bonnier makes another pit stop, this time due to a clutch or gearbox trouble. He continues until lap 42, when he finally retires from the race due to this trouble. We are now halfway through the race and Clark has secured the lead. Spence comes next, 13sec behind, then 12sec behind him come Surtees, Brabham and Hill, each of them is about 1sec apart from each other. Next comes McLaren, who is 20sec behind Hill. However, these gaps are altered suddenly on the following lap, when Spence spins at Beacon Bend turn, as he had done three times during the practice sessions, so his gap to Surtees is now only 3sec. This has the same effect as showing the hare to the hound, and the Ferrari driver really puts on the pressure to make sure Spence doesn’t get away. On lap 44, Anderson comes into the box after spinning at Beacon Bend turn, and stays in for some time, then continues, although there is not much he can do to fix his brakes during the race. The race continues without many major changes in the ranking, until Brabham’s engine begins to misfire, and Hill moves up into fourth place on lap 53. Brabham continues for four laps, the misfiring getting worse, then he goes back to the boxes on lap 55. 

 

Here the mechanics find that the rectifier to the alternator is faulty, so a new battery is fitted, which gives the car enough power to complete the race. When the batteries begin to run down, the high-pressure fuel pump is the first component to be affected, and as the fuel pressure drops, the engine begins to misfire, which is what had been happening to the Brabham just before it stopped. On the same lap when Brabham goes to the box, Maggs stops too, to have his brakes repaired, then goes out again. Tingle comes in for his second pit-stop, this time for refuelling. Then Prophet is forced to stop, with oil all over the engine coming from a burst oil pipe. The mechanics change it and there is still enough oil in the car to continue. However, there is oil on the track, spilled all around Beacons Bend. As Spence is about to complete his 60th lap, in second place, he spins again on the same turn. Surtees then passes him on one side and Hill on the other one, and this change in the ranking lasts until the end. On lap 60, Gardner goes back to the box because the belt which drives the alternator is broken; so, instead of replacing it, he simply has a new battery fitted, which lasts until the end of the race. On lap 67, the flat-twelve Ferrari totally gives up and is out of the race due to an electrical problem. Except for Brabham passing Hawkins just before the end, there is no more drama, strictly speaking of the race. However, the end of the race proves to be quite interesting. The man with the chequered flag, who is obviously not very experienced, suddenly steps forward and flags to Clark one lap before the end. The Lotus driver has just received a message from his box telling him there was one more lap to go, and he therefore waves his arm furiously at the flagman, to indicate that he is wrong. After a short conflab among the senior officials, no-one else is flagged. Clark completes the lap at speed, but slows down at his box to receive instructions, when Chapman beckons him on to take the chequered flag for the second time. Fortunately, Clark is so far ahead of the other drivers that there is no chance of him being reproached due to impeding, but if he had been reproached, the officials would have had to sort out a big controversy. 

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Surtees and Hill cross the finish line about 30sec behind him, Spence being 20sec behind them, the only other driver not to be lapped. McLaren finishes one lap down, and Stewart gets one point in his first Grande Epreuve and his first race for B.R.M. The young Scot driver is to be congratulated on driving an intelligent first race, and these should not be the only points he will gather this year. A disappointing race in some ways: Clark was much too fast for the opposition. Gurney never really showed off the pace of the Goodyear tyres, on which he has set his hopes for 1965. The crowd once again did not see a classically battled race, and this year there have been no mechanical failures to increase the thrilling. The next race on January 1st, 1966, will be the first of the new Formula One. This will be a very interesting race from every point of view, as long as the FIA does not do anything foolish and removes it from the Championship calendar, because they feel no cars will be ready. The first cars will be ready before the end of this year, and which date better to start the season than the 1st of January? The Scot driver Jim Clark returned to victory in the South African Grand Prix, the first round of the Formula One World Drivers' Championship for the 1965 season. Clark, who drove the last season's Lotus, slightly modified, had already been the fastest in the practice session. He raced with his usual tactic: starting at the front and giving it all, without making many calculations. The car, this time, held up very well to the efforts, and for the rivals there was nothing to do. Clark also improved the lap record on the East London circuit, from 1'29"1 to 1'27"4, with an average speed of 161.461 km/h. In second place came the current World Champion, John Surtees, driving an 8-cylinder Ferrari; third came Graham Hill (B.R.M.), and fourth came Mike Spencer (the other Lotus driver), the winner's team-mate. 

 

The four drivers dominated the race from the start. The race ran smoothly, without any incident, despite a light rain that started during the last few kilometres. A curious episode occurred in the last lap: the race officials, due to a counting mix-up, lowered the flag one lap too early, i.e., when Clark had completed 84 laps, while the race was scheduled for 85 laps, on 331.134 kilometres. The Scottish driver continued at a moderate speed, believing he was going for a lap of honour. Fortunately, Clark had a more than considerable lead, so that he crossed the finish line, this time for real, with a 31-second advantage over the pursuing World Champion.  From the edge of the circuit, more than 50.000 fans watched the Grand Prix, many of whom had been camped for several days on the nearby beach overlooking the Indian Ocean. Every stage of the competition was followed with great enthusiasm. The winner Clark and the new World Champion Surtees were among the most applauded. The temperature was 23 °C, the humidity 70%, and a light breeze mitigated the heat: in the southern hemisphere it is now summer. Clark took advantage of his good starting position, which he assured by taking the best placing in practice, as mentioned before he started in the lead, and maintained control of the race throughout. In his wake struggled Spencer, followed by Surtees and Brabham. The leading four drivers maintained these positions until about twenty laps from the end, when Surtees caught up with Spencer, who then finished in fourth position behind Hill. But no one was ever able to bother Clark, who showed an impressive superiority and was in spectacular form. Now the world championship will pause for more than four months: the next appointment is in mid-May for the Monaco Grand Prix. There are eleven rounds in all for the 1965 title.


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