1965 USA Grand Prix

 1965 USA Grand Prix

Racing data
9th of 10 races of the 1965 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	VIII United States Grand Prix
Date:	October 3, 1965
Place:	Watkins Glen , USA
Course:	Watkins Glen International
Length:	415.8 km in 110 laps of 3.78 km
Weather:	Rain, windy, cold
Spectator:	~ 60000
Pole position
Driver:	Graham Hill	BRM
Time:	1: 11.25 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Graham Hill (Round 105)	BRM
Time:	1: 11.90 min
Podium
First:	Graham Hill	BRM
Second:	Dan Gurney	Brabham-Climax
Third:	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Climax

The 1965 US Grand Prix took place on October 3, 1965 at Watkins Glen International near Watkins Glen and was the ninth race of the 1965 World Automobile Championship .

Reports

background

Bob Bondurant's debut race

Third victory in a row at Graham Hill's US Grand Prix

A week before the US Grand Prix, John Surtees had a serious accident while training for a CanAm race on Lola , Canada . After losing a bike, he went off the track and was seriously injured. Since Surtees was canceled for the rest of the season, Ferrari only drove with Lorenzo Bandini , who took over Surtees' car. Ferrari also entered the race as the North American Racing Team and registered two vehicles for Pedro Rodríguez and Bob Bondurant . For Rodríguez it was the first race of the season, for Bondurant the debut in the automobile world championship . Bondurant drove his only race for Ferrari. He then moved to Reg Parnell Racing for the last race of the season . Even Lotus used three cars, an additional cockpit was Moisés Solana made available, who last played in 1964 a Grand Prix for Lotus. At Brabham , Jack Brabham returned after another hiatus and drove alongside Dan Gurney for the rest of the year . Denis Hulme did not become a new regular driver at Brabham until 1966 and did not contest any other races in the automobile world championship until then.

With Bruce McLaren , Innes Ireland , Jim Clark and Graham Hill four former winners took part in the race. Hill won in the previous two years. Lotus had previously been successful three times with the designers, BRM twice and Cooper once. In the drivers' championship, Clark was unassailable in front of Hill and his teammate Jackie Stewart . Hill and Stewart separated only one point and both were still fighting for the runner-up world championship. In the constructors' championship, Lotus was unattainable ahead of BRM, which in turn had an 18-point lead over Ferrari due to the cancellation of the results.

training

The first training session took place on Friday and lasted four hours. Ireland did not attend the training session due to a flu illness. The track was wet, so that the drivers were initially more than ten seconds slower than the best times of the previous year. After an hour, the track slowly dried up and the drivers continuously improved their respective best times. At that point, Hill and Stewart were the fastest drivers in the field. BRM then used the time to test new tires, which brought a time improvement of half a second. Other teams, on the other hand, had to struggle with technical defects. Both Cooper had to be repaired, Clark's Lotus and Gurney's Brabham were constantly losing oil and Brabham had transmission problems. An hour before the end of the training session there was another rain shower, but it quickly subsided. After the track had dried again, Hill improved his fastest time and was in first place ahead of Clark and Stewart.

Before the second training session, filming took place in which Stewart was filmed onboard and several other vehicles overtook a camera truck. Training continued immediately after this filming was finished and many drivers went out onto the track right from the start. Ireland's health was still impaired, so he only drove a few laps. Clark and Hill, who had agreed on all pole positions among themselves in 1965 , also dueled in this training session and undercutting each other several times. The respective vehicles were modified and adapted in between to enable Clark and Hill to make further improvements.

Hill narrowly prevailed against Clark and secured his fourth pole position of the season. Clark was a tenth of a second behind in second place and only five hundredths of a second ahead of Richie Ginther on Honda . Mike Spence qualified in fourth place ahead of Bandini, Stewart and Brabham. The first ten were completed by Gurney, McLaren and Joakim Bonnier . Bonnier was again the fastest driver with a customer vehicle. Ronnie Bucknum , Jochen Rindt and the two drivers of the North American Racing Team qualified in the back field.

run

Clark and Hill were tied at the start and went into the first corner side by side. Hill then prevailed and led the race. Stewart went off the track in a duel with Ginther and hit a curb, which slightly damaged his suspension. However, this did not have a negative effect on the driving characteristics of his car, so that he continued the race in third place ahead of Ginther. Behind them a field of pursuers consisting of Bandini, Spence, Brabham and Gurney formed. Ginther fell back to 14th after a driving mistake. On the second lap, Clark took the lead when Hill got too far out in the corner in front of the pit lane and Clark used this to overtake.

Stewart pitted on the fourth lap of the race to have a defective cable on the accelerator pedal repaired. When he got back on the track it started to rain and due to the slight suspension damage his BRM was too unstable under these new conditions, so Stewart later gave up the race. Gurney passed Brabham and caught up with Bandini and Spence. While the rain was getting heavier, Hill managed to take the lead again and hold it for six laps. Ireland parked his Lotus on the ninth lap due to illness that had caused it to go off the track twice before. Two laps later, McLaren retired due to lack of oil pressure and Clark retired on the same lap. Before the race, Lotus had tried to repair the engine on Clark's car with spare parts from Gurney's broken engine, which the Brabham no longer needed after training. However, this repaired engine only lasted for the first eleven laps.

After Clark was eliminated, Hill led the field safely, his lead over the new runner-up Gurney was more than 14 seconds. Behind them, Bandini was third, ahead of Brabham. Bonnier, Rodriguez, Siffert and Bondurant fought for fifth place. Rindt and Attwood spun off the track and fell back into the lower midfield. In the following laps, Brabham first overtook Bandini and then his teammate Gurney, who countered a short time later and improved again to second place. This order then remained unchanged for a long time, only Rindt overtook several competitors and came up to fifth.

On lap 37 the rain got heavier and Hill got off the track. As a result, he lost a large part of his lead. With the Goodyear tires giving them an advantage of two seconds in the rain, Gurney and Brabham quickly closed the gap to Hill. Gurney then tried to attack Hill, but also came off the track, making Brabham past him. This was followed by a duel for first place, in which Brabham was briefly ahead of Hill, but then he also made a driving mistake and, like his two competitors before, he got onto the grass. Hill thus secured first place, while Gurney again overtook Brabham. As the rain subsided and the track dried up again, the BRM was again the fastest car in the leading group and Hill continuously increased his lead over Gurney. He also drove the fastest race lap on lap 105. In the back field Bucknum retired with an empty battery, he was still classified in 13th place, although he was pushed by his mechanics during the pit stop. According to the regulations, this would have been a reason for disqualification. Bonnier and Attwood also pitted for repairs and then continued the race.

Hill won his second race of the season and third in a row at the US Grand Prix. For BRM it was the third and final win of the season. Neither Hill nor BRM won another US Grand Prix. It wasn't until 1988 that Ayrton Senna also achieved three victories in a row in this race, and McLaren succeeded again in 1990 with the constructors . Gurney was second, twelve seconds behind Brabham. In the battle for the remaining points, Rindt was fourth before his gearbox caused problems. He then lost two places and fell behind Bandini and Rodríguez. Ginther finished seventh ahead of Bonnier, Bondurant and Attwood.

In the drivers' standings, Hill was 14 points behind Clark after the Grand Prix. Gurney improved to fourth ahead of Surtees with second place. In the constructors' championship the positions did not change, BRM had more points than Lotus, who were already established as world champions. In third place, Ferrari was two points ahead of Brabham.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	02	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari 1512	Ferrari 1.5 B12	D.
Owen Racing Organization	03	Graham Hill	BRM P261	BRM 1.5 V8	D.
	04th	Jackie Stewart
Team Lotus	05	Jim Clark	Lotus 33	Climax 1.5 V8	D.
	06th	Jim Clark	Lotus 25
		Mike Spence	Lotus 33
	18th	Mike Spence	Lotus 25
		Moisés Solana
Brabham Racing Organization	07th	Jack Brabham	Brabham BT11	Climax 1.5 V8	G
	08th	Dan Gurney
Cooper Car Company	09	Bruce McLaren	Cooper T77	Climax 1.5 V8	D.
	10	Jochen Rindt
Honda R&D Co.	11	Richie Ginther	Honda RA272	Honda 1.5 V12	G
	12	Ronnie Bucknum
North American Racing Team	14th	Pedro Rodríguez	Ferrari 1512	Ferrari 1.5 B12	D.
	24	Bob Bondurant	Ferrari 158	Ferrari 1.5 V8
Rob Walker Racing Team	15th	Joakim Bonnier	Brabham BT7	Climax 1.5 V8	D.
	16	Joseph Siffert	Brabham BT11	BRM 1.5 V8
Reg Parnell Racing	21st	Richard Attwood	Lotus 25	BRM 1.5 V8	D.
	22nd	Innes Ireland

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Jim Clark and Mike Spence drove both the Lotus 33 with the number 6 and the Lotus 25 with the number 6 in the training sessions. Mike Spence then drove the Lotus 33 in the race.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Moisés Solana drove the Lotus with the number 18 in the practice sessions and in the race.

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Graham Hill	BRM	1: 11.25	190.99 km / h	01
02	Jim Clark	Lotus Climax	1: 11.35	190.72 km / h	02
03	Richie Ginther	Honda	1: 11.40	190.59 km / h	03
04th	Mike Spence	Lotus Climax	1: 11.50	190.32 km / h	04th
05	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari	1: 11.73	189.71 km / h	05
06th	Jackie Stewart	BRM	1: 11.76	189.63 km / h	06th
07th	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Climax	1: 12.20	188.48 km / h	07th
08th	Dan Gurney	Brabham-Climax	1: 12.25	188.35 km / h	08th
09	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax	1: 12.45	187.83 km / h	09
10	Joakim Bonnier	Brabham-Climax	1: 12.45	187.83 km / h	10
11	Joseph Siffert	Brabham-BRM	1: 12.5	187.70 km / h	11
12	Ronnie Bucknum	Honda	1: 12.7	187.18 km / h	12
13	Jochen Rindt	Cooper-Climax	1: 12.9	186.67 km / h	13
14th	Bob Bondurant	Ferrari	1: 12.9	186.67 km / h	14th
15th	Pedro Rodríguez	Ferrari	1: 13.0	186.41 km / h	15th
16	Richard Attwood	Lotus BRM	1: 13.7	184.64 km / h	16
17th	Moisés Solana	Lotus Climax	1: 13.7	184.64 km / h	17th
18th	Innes Ireland	Lotus BRM	1: 15.0	181.44 km / h	18th

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Graham Hill	BRM	110	0	2: 20: 36.1	01	1: 11.90
02	Dan Gurney	Brabham-Climax	110	0	+ 12.5	08th
03	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Climax	110	0	+ 57.5	07th
04th	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari	109	0	+ 1 lap	05
05	Pedro Rodríguez	Ferrari	109	0	+ 1 lap	15th
06th	Jochen Rindt	Cooper-Climax	108	0	+ 2 rounds	13
07th	Richie Ginther	Honda	108	0	+ 2 rounds	03
08th	Joakim Bonnier	Brabham-Climax	107	1	+ 3 rounds	10
09	Bob Bondurant	Ferrari	106	0	+ 4 rounds	14th
10	Richard Attwood	Lotus BRM	101	1	+ 9 rounds	16
11	Joseph Siffert	Brabham-BRM	99	0	+ 11 rounds	11
12	Moisés Solana	Lotus Climax	95	0	+ 15 rounds	17th
13	Ronnie Bucknum	Honda	92	1	+ 18 rounds	12
-	Jackie Stewart	BRM	12	1	DNF	06th		suspension
-	Jim Clark	Lotus Climax	11	0	DNF	02		Engine failure
-	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax	11	0	DNF	09		oil pressure
-	Innes Ireland	Lotus BRM	09	0	DNF	18th		physical exhaustion / flu
-	Mike Spence	Lotus Climax	09	0	DNF	04th		Engine failure

World Cup stands after the race

The first six of the race got 9, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 points. Only the six best results from ten races counted. In the constructors' championship, only the points of the best placed driver on a team counted.

Driver ranking

Item driver constructor Points 01  Jim Clark Lotus Climax 54 02  Graham Hill BRM 40 (47) 03  Jackie Stewart BRM 33 (34) 04th  Dan Gurney Brabham-Climax 19th 05  John Surtees Ferrari 17th 06th  Lorenzo Bandini Ferrari 13 07th  Bruce McLaren Cooper-Climax 10 08th  Jack Brabham Brabham-Climax 9

Item driver constructor Points 09  Mike Spence Lotus Climax 6th 10  Denis Hulme Brabham-Climax 5 11  Jochen Rindt Cooper-Climax 4th 12  Pedro Rodríguez Ferrari 2 13  Joseph Siffert Brabham-BRM 2 14th  Richie Ginther Honda 2 15th  Richard Attwood Lotus BRM 1

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  Lotus Climax 54 02  BRM 45 (61) 03  Ferrari 26 (27) 04th  Brabham-Climax 24 (25) 05  Cooper-Climax 14th 06th  Brabham-BRM 2 07th  Honda 2 08th  Lotus BRM 1

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Mosport, Ont., Sept. 24 - Pinned under Car" (www.documentingreality.com on October 5, 2015)

Web links

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com
• Grand Prix Results: United States GP, 1965 at grandprix.com
• Hill completes Watkins Glen hat-trick at espn.co.uk
• Grand Prix of the United States - Hat-trick for Hill at motorsportmagazine.com