The drivers then brake for a wide-ish hairpin called Cocobana Corner. The track then flattens out onto Beach Straight, Butts Bend, and onto the esses. The esses consist of a fairly fast right and two slow lefts, which are followed by a fast-accelerating right onto the back straight. The two slow lefts are taken as one long carve, although they look like two corners on the map. The back straight rises to the Beacon Bend hairpin and onto the main one. The pit lane lies back from the track. It has its own approach road, which starts just after the hairpin. The entry list is the best international one ever obtained for a South African race. The Drivers’ Championship is still wide open. Lotus has three cars for Clark and Taylor. Coming from England, the new monocoque No. 5 arrives just in time for the race. It is the car that Clark will eventually drive. The Monocoque No. 4 is a training car that has a Lucas fuel-injection V8 Climax. The Lucas pump is fitted beside the gearbox and out in the open. It has an aluminum shield that keeps the heat away from the engine and gearbox. The Lucas injector pump is fed by two Bendix fuel pumps. However, a third Bendix has been added after the Durban weekend. The goal is to try to stop the misfiring at maximum speed and power. Taylor is at the wheel of the third car, the monocoque No. 2, that first appeared at Rouen this year in its original trim. B.R.M. has three cars for Graham Hill and Ginther. Hill’s first car arrives in East London on the same ship as the Lotus. This car is a lighter version of the 1962 design with only slight alterations. The front of the car is slightly wider. Larger wishbones are needed while the front discs are noticeably thicker. The front wheels are the bolt-on type instead of the knock-on ones. The body is made out of a thinner gauge of light alloy sheeting and a little weight that pares off the gearbox. Tony Rudd, B.R.M. Team Manager, says that the weight-saving should be about 40 lb. According to the Club’s weighbridge, the cars are only 5 lb lighter. The spare car was used by Hill throughout the year. The only difference is that three large vents are cut in the bonnet top, behind the radiator, to let out the hot air.
The B.R.M. team finds that the car was badly damaged during the Johannesburg race due to the altitude. In addition, the water inside it was 10 degrees lower than normal. The third car, which will be driven by Ginther, has large air vents as well. The American driver drove that car during the US Grand Prix. B. Johnstone enters a fourth B.R.M. He is, however, unable to use it thanks to an engine issue that occurred during last week’s Durban race. Furthermore, the team’s spare engines cannot be released until after the last practice session, in case they are needed. The car belongs to Jack Lewis, and it was used earlier this year. It is a 1961 chassis with a works V6 engine. Johnstone is forced to start from the back of the grid, given that he is unable to set any practice times. Bowmaker/Lola has two cars for Surtees and Salvadori. The latter is at the wheel of the car that has a 6-speed Colotti gearbox. The second car has been fitted with a 5-speed box. The Cooper Team brings two cars for McLaren and Maggs. McLaren’s Climax V8 engine is equipped with Lucas fuel injection. In addition, the car has a new and larger radiator in order to improve the cooling. The plan view of this radiator resembles a flat-bottomed V. The sides of it are the water radiators, whilst the flat portion is the oil radiator. The nose is opened out in order to cover this larger radiator. It makes for a very ugly car. Unfortunately, it keeps overheating. Thus, the old nose and radiator are fitted for this race. Maggs’ car is the one that he raced with earlier this year. Jack Brabham’s blue and gold Brabham car remains unaltered for the upcoming weekend. Innes Ireland has the pale green UDT-Laystall Lotus-Climax with the 5-speed Colotti box. G de Beaufort, coming from outside Europe, drives the 4-cylinder Porsche. The car is the ex-Filippinetti vehicle that the Dutch driver had hired for Mexico and finally purchased. It is equipped with the disc brakes and the 6-speed gearbox that come from his old car. Unfortunately, there is no time to respray the car. Therefore, it is painted in Italian red instead of Dutch orange. Li Pieterse is one of the local drivers who will drive a Lotus 21 with a 4-cylinder Mk II Climax engine. This is last year’s work car. It is also the one with which Clark gained the lap record in 1961. J. Love enters in the 1961 works Cooper with a Mk II 4-cylinder Climax engine. NA Lederle is at the wheel of a Lotus 21 with a Mk. II 4-cylinder Climax engine and a 6-speed Colotti gearbox. The last two cars to enter this race are both powered by lined-up Alfa Romeo Giuliena engines. The first one has been fitted on LD Serrurier’s LDS Alfa. This car is built in South Africa and is based on a 1960 Cooper design. The other car is a 1960 Cooper that is now called a Cooper-Alfa. It will be driven by M Harris. G. Hocking, at the wheel of the RRC Walker’s dark blue V8 Lotus-Climax, unfortunately killed himself during the Durban race a week ago. Eye-witnesses say that he was going too fast when entering a very tricky corner.
T Settember would be able to drive an Emeryson car. However, he fails to turn up to the event. S. Van der Vyver is supposed to drive the Lotus-Climax V8. However, he badly damaged it at the Durban race. He is thus unable to get it repaired in time. SA Tingle is supposed to drive Hocking’s own car. He instead decides to run in one of the supporting races rather than in the main event. The first practice is on Wednesday’s Boxing Day. The sun is brilliant. There is also a strong and warm wind. It leads people to speak about Boxing Day in Brands Hatch. The first cars to go out on track are the two B.R.M.s. Hill is in his old car, and Ginther is in his one. Hill completes his first lap, followed by Clark’s fuel-injection car. Salvadori, Serrurier, and Surtees follow in quick succession. Some drivers are learning the circuit for the first time. Others, such as Jimmy Clark, are just remembering it. Clark is soon in his injection car. He is complaining of fluffing on the straight. This proves that the extra Bendix pump, fitted in the hope of curing this issue, is not necessary. Ginther sets a 1'36"4 whilst Hill comes back to the pits to change over to his new lightweight car. The American driver complains that the dead engine stiffened so much that he cut it up instead of letting it seize up on him. He immediately goes out on track with the old car. He soon sets a 1'33"4, which is the best time set so far. All is not well down at Lotus. Clark coasts back to the pits with a dead engine after a few laps. Something starts to seize up. He is not sure whether it is the engine or the gearbox. The Lucas injection pump is being bled on the fuel-injection car every few laps in order to try to stop the misfiring. The mechanics eventually cut and lengthen the fuel pipes so that they are across the car. The team then asks Clark to look for air bubbles at maximum speed down the straight. According to him, this move is a little dodgy. Maggs is slowly circulating out on track with his Cooper. He is not getting below the 1'39"7 mark. He is 1 sec slower than Serrurier’s Alfa-engined car. Harris manages to get down to 1'40"2 before encountering an issue with the bearings. The mechanics wheel the car away to repair the problem. A number of cars fail to turn up for the first session for various reasons. McLaren’s and Taylor’s cars are not ready for practice while the rest of the drivers do not arrive in East London on time. The next practice session is also in the afternoon.
The weather is overcast. It starts to rain at the end of the session. All drivers except for Harris are present. The Alfa engine is being rebuilt as we speak. Practice will start 20 minutes early. As the cars are going out on track, with Surtees leading the pack, it is discovered that the drivers are required to follow a camera car. Hill quickly pulls into the pits after one lap whilst the rest continue with the filming. Graham will surely remember his incident with a camera back at the Nürburgring. This filming with the producers, directors, and cameramen is rather spoiling the racing atmosphere of the practice session. After all, racing is a serious business, and there is no need to turn it into a film studio. However, the club has sold the rights to it. The film company is thus getting its money’s worth. After a while, the practice session can properly start. McLaren leads the way. Clark, Hill, Taylor, and Lederle are in hot pursuit. The rest follows very quickly in order to get as much track time as possible before the rain comes. Ginther is scrubbing tires to start with. Hill is lapping fast at the wheel of the T car. It is not long before he breaks the old lap record of 1'33"0. The track is more slippery compared to yesterday. After a few laps, Taylor spins violently coming out of the esses. He then spins at the hairpin onto the next lap. De Beaufort also spins at the same time as an act of sympathy. The Lola cars are doing a lot of laps in the meantime. That is before Surtees comes into the pits with a broken gear selector. He can only use three gears due to the malfunction. Ginther is sitting in his car in the pits when an electrical fault suddenly sparks and smoke starts to pour from behind. Ginther leaps out, and an extinguisher soon has the fire under control. Innes Ireland is having trouble with his clutch and is unable to jump out of 3rd gear. Due to the brilliance of the sun, Innes’s screen is blackened over. It is thus impossible to see through the Perspex. McLaren’s Cooper is overheating. The engine is losing a considerable quantity of water. The cause of it is a flake that cracked the water pump. Maggs’ car is going very well so far whilst McLaren’s mechanics sort out the heating issues. He then does a couple of laps with Maggs’ car. The Lotus cars are having slight brake snatch. Despite this, Clark, in the fuel-injection car, is the first driver to get under the 1'30"0 mark. Brabham is lapping fairly fast and seems to be having a trouble-free ride. Lederle is the fastest of the local entries with a time of 1'36"0. Love is 0.4 sec slower than him. Practice ends under rainy conditions. The cars are thus taken to the various garages in order to allow the mechanics to sort out either minor or major troubles.
The last practice session is at 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning. The marshals are thus able to go to work in the usual way. The morning is sunny, cool, and there is very little wind. The lap times are expected to be faster than before. Salvadori, who has done all the practice that he wanted, is the only absent driver. Every driver goes out on track a few minutes into the session. This shows how the crosswind on the straight was slowing them down during the previous sessions. Hill does a few laps in the car before the oil pressure drops. The mechanics drain the engine, and aluminum particles are found in the oil. Taylor pushes the Lotus car in with a partially seized engine. As a result, he takes out the fuel-injection car in which Clark has previously set the fastest time of 1'28"9 whilst he did the third fastest time of 1'30"9. Hill’s car is still in the pits as the mechanics are sorting out the issue with the oil pressure. He thus goes out on track with his old car and sets a 1'30"2 lap time. McLaren is still having heating issues. It is therefore decided to put back the old radiator and nose before the race. Surtees is having his first proper practice without having any mechanical troubles and lowers his time to a 1'31"5. Harris is again in trouble with his Alfa engine. A roughness is starting to affect it again. Pieterse has the top break off the rear damper. Releasing the spring, it flies up onto the top wishbone. Hill is out on track again with the new car. He, however, does one flying lap at a time since the engine is still not right. Even so, after several of these short outings, he eventually gets down to 1'29"6. It is only 3 tenths slower than Clark’s time in his race car. As practice draws to a close, Surtees comes in to the pits with no brakes. The balance pipe on the right-hand rear brake is split and is letting out the brake fluid. A swap of engines is taking place down at the B.R.M. garage at the end of the free-practice session. Hill’s engine is put into the new car. Johnstone has Ginther’s engine. Ginther’s car has been fitted with an engine that has been flown out. The radiator on Ginther’s car is larger than Hill’s one and therefore is running cooler. The American gives his teammate his radiator in order to give him a better chance on race day. Lotus decides to not use the injection car as it is not running satisfactorily. This means that neither Clark nor Taylor could count the fast times that they had made with this car. Harris goes away in order to rebuild his Alfa engine again.
This time he is having to grind and reface both the crankshaft and the flywheel. Surtees’ Lola has the spare engine given that his own is running rough. Race day is sunny. A strong wind blows across the straight. 90.000 spectators are turning up on track during the night. All the best parking places round the circuit are gone by midnight. It is also reported that 30.000 people camp the night at the circuit. The crowds swarm onto the circuit as the cars are bought out in front of the pits. They then leave just enough room for the cars to go through. The drivers do an honor lap with an MG. A crowd of Africans pats them on the back. According to the drivers, their touch is not soft whatsoever. The cars are wheeled onto the grid in pairs as 3 o’clock approaches. The two contenders for the World Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships are at the front. Bruce Johnstone, with no practice times set, is at the back. The flag drops at 3 o’clock precisely, and the South African Grand Prix is under way. Clark has a brilliant start with smooth acceleration and no wheelspin. Next to him, Graham Hill lets in the clutch, spins his wheels, and takes off in a cloud of rubber smoke. The field vanishes from sight in their grid order down to Cocobana Corner. Pieterse’s Lotus car refuses to start. The mechanics are frantically working on it in front of the pits. At the end of the first lap, Clark leads by almost 1 sec from Hill. Their lap times are 1'40"0 and 1'40"9, respectively. Maggs, Surtees, and McLaren jockeying for position behind the leading duo. Ginther is 6th ahead of Ireland and Brabham, who are very close together. The rest is stringing out behind in the following order: Lederle, Love, Taylor, Serrurier, Harris, Salvadori, Johnstone, and de Beaufort. Pieterse, who was supposed to start the race from 17th position, is still in the pits. The mechanics are fitting a new battery, given the other one is flat. On lap 2, Clark extends his lead by another second. Clark’s time is 1'31"1. It is 1.5 seconds faster than Hill’s time of 1'32"6. Taylor overtakes Lederle and Love for 9th place, behind Ireland and Brabham. De Beaufort drives past Johnstone for 15th place. He gives a nonchalant wave to his rival as he does so. On lap 3, the leader sets the fastest lap of the race in 1'31"0. Hill’s time is 1'32"3. Clark is now 3 seconds ahead of Hill. At this point of the race, the two leaders are easing their race pace to 1'33"0 and 1'34"0, respectively, due to the gusty wind on the main straight. Salvadori, who had a bad start, firstly overtakes Harris for 13th position.
The Lola driver is now up to 12th after three laps. Taylor is right on Brabham’s tail. Both of them are pressing Ireland’s Lotus very hard. Innes, though, is not moving over for them and makes them work hard to get past. The group, who is fighting for 3rd position, is trying very hard to catch back to the leaders. The drivers in it are passing the pits in a close bunch. Maggs leads this pack. On the 4th lap, McLaren passed Surtees by using his teammate’s slipstream. The dice for 7th place is getting fierce. The cars are trying to corner as well as storm down the straight three abreast. Eventually Brabham sweeps past Ireland’s pale green car after eight laps. Taylor also does the same on the next lap. The trio then sweeps past Ginther, whose B.R.M. sounded rough, on lap 10. The pecking order is still the same. Clark is a second per lap faster than Hill. On lap 10, the gap between the two drivers is 10 seconds. In the meantime, there is a big scrap going on for 3rd place. McLaren drives past Surtees on lap 4. The battle is not yet over. Halfway through the 10th lap, the Lola driver fights back and retakes the position from McLaren. Onto the next lap, the Brit powers past Maggs for 3rd position. Salvadori moves up to 12th on lap 5 after overtaking Lederle. On lap 7, he forces Salvadori to get past Love’s Cooper for 11th place. As the leaders complete the lap, Pieterse finally gets his Lotus up and running, and he is able to rejoin the field. On lap 9, Johnstone comes into the pits. He complains of a flat tire. The B.R.M. driver then finds out that his own mechanics have connected two terminals of the Lucas ignition round the wrong way. This will be a hopelessly long pit stop for him. The driver rejoins the race after the terminals are reversed. Taylor’s 7th place is short-lived. On lap 12, his car stops given that he is unable to engage any gears. The field begins to spread out ever so slightly. Surtees is still hanging on to 3rd place closely pressed by McLaren. Salvadori is continuing his steady progress through the field. The two Alfa-engined cars are now 12th and 13th respectively. At the end of the 16th lap, Serrurier makes a pit stop in order to take on water given that the car radiator is leaking. On the 19th lap, McLaren makes a big effort to overtake Surtees for 3rd position. The Lola is now sandwiched between the two works Coopers. The sound of Ginther’s B.R.M. engine is rougher than ever. He in fact spins on two different occasions, once in the hairpin and once in the Esses, due to misfiring and poor pick-up. On lap 23, he dives into the pits to have a change of oiled-up plugs.
This pit stop cost him five places. The car is running much better, though, and he quickly makes up two places on laps 27 and 28, respectively. Serrurier’s water leak is more serious than anticipated. The LDS Alfa dives into the pits for more water on lap 25. Surtees is overtaken by Maggs’ Cooper on the 27th lap. Onto the next lap, the Lola pulls into the pits with a metallic noise coming from the engine. Eric Broadley finds a broken tappet or valve, and so the car is wheeled away. Ginther’s B.R.M. is beginning to make progress. On the 32nd lap, he moves ahead of the Alfa-Cooper just before Harris retires. The cause of the retirement is the same one that had dogged him in practice. After that, there is no change in position or tempo for the next six laps. Serrurier makes yet another pit stop for water on lap 38. He is relegated to last position, even behind Pieterse’s Lotus, who is seven laps down on the leaders. Positions remain unaltered. Halfway through the race, Clark is leading Hill by 27.2 seconds, while Hill is a further 26.1 seconds ahead of McLaren. The lap times are round about the same. On the 41st lap, Clark laps in 1'32"7, Hill in 1'33"5, McLaren in 1'33"9, Maggs in 1'34"2, and Brabham in 1'33"5. On lap 46, Serrurier makes another routine stop. The race order remains unchanged for the next 10 or 12 laps. On lap 57, Salvadori, who was in 7th, pulls into the pits. The car is wheeled away after the mechanics discover a split fuel tank. Both Lola cars are now out of the race. At this point it looks as though Clark will complete the remaining laps to win the last Grand Prix of the year. However, on the 61st lap, blue smoke starts to pour from the rear of the Lotus car. He is still able to maintain his speed for two more laps despite the issue. He then pulls into the pits as the oil pressure surges in the corners on lap 64. Colin Chapman and Jim Endruweit look in all the obvious places to discover where the oil leak comes from. The mechanics then find a small hole in the crankcase hidden behind the heat shields that are in between the exhaust pipes and the back of the engine. They do not know what is missing from the hole at first. When they check the spare engine, they find that an approximately 2 in long bolt has fallen out in the jack shaft bearing. As a consequence, it is letting the oil spray out onto the exhaust. Further investigation shows that the locking washer has left a firm impression in the alloy on the spare engine crankcase.
On the other hand, there is no such impression on Clark’s engine. This proves to the Lotus mechanics that no such locking washer has ever been fitted. The crowd is once again brought to their feet after this startling retirement. On lap 62, Serrurier is coming back to the pits for water. He retires two laps later due to a dry radiator. The last laps are slipping away. The B.R.M. mechanics are keeping their fingers firmly crossed. Hill is already the champion, but the team still wants to win a fourth consecutive World Championship. The crowds start to cheer and blow car horns as Hill crosses the line to win the race. It is a very popular victory. The two Coopers are right behind the B.R.M. cars. McLaren is leading Maggs by half a second. Brabham is a further 3.1 sec behind. These four are the only ones who are on the leading lap. Ireland is a lap down at the wheel of the UDT-Laystall Lotus. Lederle, the first South African entry, Ginther, and Love are four laps down. E Pieterse and de Beaufort are lapped five times, while Johnstone’s B.R.M. is six laps down. De Beaufort pushes his car for the last mile when the electrics to the fuel pump pack up. In the confusion that follows, he crosses the line unnoticed. The Porsche finishes the race 1.2 laps down on the winner, given that it is not allowed to push a car over the line. The scoring in the timekeeper’s box is a little confusing. As the drivers are doing the post-race interviews, the club has not officially given any placings after the first six drivers. The last five places are worked out by using an accurate lap chart. The average speed of the race is 150.586 kph. The fastest lap goes to Jimmy Clark with a speed of 155.060 kph. Graham Hill has one of the largest garlands of flowers ever put round a racing driver’s neck in the meantime. During his honorary lap, he unfortunately runs over the leg of a fifteen-year-old boy who steps in front of him to try and take a photograph. The rain that is building up out over the Indian Ocean starts to pour down as the race finishes. This does not dampen the enthusiasm of these sun-tanned spectators. Some of them have driven a thousand miles to watch the race and are now returning home. One spectator that we found came all the way from Nairobi. It was an 8.000-mile round trip. The fight was over, and the rainbow helmet went to Graham Hill, who thus wrote his name in the golden book after Phil Hill.
On few occasions has the World Championship reserved for drivers had such an uncertain ending as in the last race held in South Africa. Englishman Graham Hill was seriously threatened by Jim Clark in winning the world title, despite the fact that he led the standings by a fair margin of points. But the second dominant reason was also the duel between B.R.M. and Lotus, which arrived in South Africa with modified cars compared to the models that had competed during the season. In fact, Colin Chapman had prepared a couple of Lotus cars with fuel-injected engines, while B.R.M. had prepared Formula 1 single-seaters with a six-speed gearbox, a new type of suspension, and retouches to the transmission, as well as an increase in power and a reduction of about twenty kilos. The race proved Graham Hill right, and he won, while Clark was forced to retire after having tried, with a desperate race conduct, to secure the rainbow helmet. Clark's Lotus, which remained in the lead for over two-thirds of the exciting competition, highlighted its exceptional acceleration, lightness, and maneuverability but was less able to hold its own against the rival car B.R.M. In fact, apart from the victories obtained in the Belgian, British and US Grand Prix and the fourth place in the German Grand Prix, in the other races of the season, Clark's Lotus was forced to retire. Graham Hill's B.R.M., on the other hand, showed a greater continuity of performance and results, winning at Zandvoort, at Nurburgring, and at Monza and placing in all the championship races, which would be an important progress compared to the model 25 of 1962. Also, the B.R.M. designers didn't make a mystery that in Bourne's workshops a new Formula 1 is already being studied with some innovations, such as the cooling system with new air intakes and small lateral radiators, the four-speed gearbox, and the suspensions that have already been tested with satisfaction in East London. Undoubtedly, the English are determined to maintain their supremacy in Formula 1 by studying new solutions and insisting on injection engines and the lightness of the cars. The South African Grand Prix was an excellent test bench. Lotus was able to test the innovation of fuel injection, the Coventry-Climax 8-cylinder V engines, and the new suspensions. It seems obvious that Colin Chapman was already at a good point in the design of the Lotus model 32 that should have, among other things, a new type of chassis and other innovations.
But for the moment we can only archive the 1962 World Championship with the well-deserved success of Graham Hill, who succeeded Phil Hill, to whom, with Ferrari, it was impossible to defend the title, obtaining second place in the Monaco Grand Prix and third in the Dutch and Belgian ones. The other placings of the Ferrari drivers were a fourth and fifth place of Baghetti, a third of Bandini, a fourth and a sixth of the poor Ricardo Rodrìguez, and a fourth of Mairesse. Now drivers and cars will meet in the spring at the first world test of the Monaco Grand Prix, where, in addition to Ferrari, which are announced with belligerent intentions, will be in contention the new Italian Formula 1 A.T.S., designed by Carlo Chili.