1963 United States Grand Prix

1963 United States Grand Prix
Race details
Date	October 6, 1963
Official name	VI Grand Prix of the United States
Location	Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course Watkins Glen, New York
Course	Permanent road course
Course length	3.701 km (2.30 miles)
Distance	110 laps, 407.11 km (252.97 miles)
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Graham Hill	BRM
Time	1:13.4
Fastest lap
Driver	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax
Time	1:14.5 on lap 50
Podium
First	Graham Hill	BRM
Second	Richie Ginther	BRM
Third	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax

The 1963 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on October 6, 1963, at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York. It was race 8 of 10 in both the 1963 World Championship of Drivers and the 1963 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. The 110-lap race was won by BRM driver Graham Hill after he started from pole position. His teammate Richie Ginther finished second and Lotus driver Jim Clark came in third.

Summary

By the time the teams – including Ferrari for the first time at Watkins Glen – came to America, Jim Clark had wrapped up the Driver's Championship with five wins in seven races. At The Glen, however, the day belonged to Graham Hill and BRM, as Hill started from the pole and won by more than half a minute over American teammate Richie Ginther. Hill owed much of his success to Clark's dead battery on the dummy grid (used for the first time in F1), and the failure of John Surtees's Ferrari engine while leading with 30 laps to go.

In the first hour of qualifying on Friday, Clark's Lotus equalled his lap record of 1:15.0 from the previous year. Hill and Surtees were right on the Scot's pace, as well, and all three were soon under 1:14. At one point, Hill's BRM jumped out of gear on the back straight and left the track, skipping through the woods without hitting any trees, but at the end of the session, he was fastest at 1:13.4. Jack Brabham was glad just to be at the circuit, after he was unable to find a rental car or a taxi at the airport in Elmira, twenty miles (32 km) away, and ended up hitchhiking to the track with his baggage and racing gear!

On Saturday, Canadian Peter Broeker's Stebro (running a four-cylinder Ford with 110 horsepower (82 kW) compared to almost 200 for the Climax and BRM V8's) dumped oil all around the circuit. The session was stopped for 30 minutes to clean up, but conditions were never again good enough for anyone to better their Friday times, so the top six were Graham Hill, Clark, Surtees, Ginther, and the Brabhams of Sir Jack and Dan Gurney. In addition to Ginther and Gurney, the grid contained five other Americans – Masten Gregory, Phil Hill, Jim Hall, Hap Sharp and Rodger Ward – the most ever in a Formula One field, as well as Mexican Pedro Rodríguez, who was making his Formula One debut.

Race day was bright and clear with a record crowd of nearly 60,000. A dummy grid was used for the first time in a Championship Grand Prix, and when the field moved forward to the starting grid, Clark's Lotus remained still. At the flag, Hill led Ginther, Surtees, Gurney, Tony Maggs, Gregory and Brabham up the hill and through the Esses. The Lotus crew discovered that Clark's battery was dead, and by the time they replaced it, Broeker's Stebro, trailing the field, was already into his second lap.

Surtees made the first move, getting by Ginther to split the BRM's, and then, on lap seven, taking the lead from Hill. Gurney followed him and took second briefly, before surrendering the spot back to Hill. By lap 15, Clark was up into 14th place with his engine still not sounding entirely right.

Hill began pushing Surtees on lap 30. He got by to take the lead after shadowing for two laps, gave it back, took it again two laps later, and finally surrendered it again, settling into the Ferrari's slipstream. On lap 43, Gurney suddenly slowed and then retired from third place with fuel starvation and a chassis failure, moving Clark up to seventh.

After trailing Surtees closely for some time, Hill lost his tow when his anti-roll bar came loose and the BRM's handling changed abruptly. Fighting severe understeer, he began throwing the car into turns to slide the rear end around, flinging stones off the curbs and losing ground to the leading Ferrari. On lap 82, with no threat to his lead, Surtees's engine lost power, and he cruised into the pits to retire. "I was just hanging on to him," Hill said afterward. "He's a very tricky driver. He was gaining a half-second each lap on me until he went out. I think it was a good measure of the difference in our two cars." Suddenly in the lead again, with only Ginther on the same lap, Hill backed off and set his sights on bringing the car home.

The Englishman drove under the flag 34 seconds ahead of teammate Ginther, repeating BRM's season-opening sweep at Monaco. New World Champion Clark took the final podium spot when he overtook Brabham, whose engine had been misfiring for much of the race. It was Hill's first American win, but one that he would repeat in 1964 and 1965.

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Graham Hill	BRM	110	2:19:22.1	1	9
2	2	Richie Ginther	BRM	110	+ 34.3	4	6
3	8	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax	109	+ 1 lap	2	4
4	5	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Climax	108	+ 2 laps	5	3
5	24	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari	106	+ 4 laps	9	2
6	12	Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche	99	+ 11 laps	19	1
7	21	Peter Broeker	Stebro-Ford	88	+ 22 laps	21
8	11	Jo Bonnier	Cooper-Climax	85	+ 25 laps	12
9	23	John Surtees	Ferrari	82	Engine	3
10	16	Jim Hall	Lotus-BRM	76	Gearbox	16
11	3	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax	74	Fuel pump	11
Ret	14	Jo Siffert	Lotus-BRM	56	Gearbox	14
Ret	4	Tony Maggs	Cooper-Climax	44	Ignition	10
Ret	18	Rodger Ward	Lotus-BRM	44	Gearbox	17
Ret	6	Dan Gurney	Brabham-Climax	42	Chassis	6
Ret	10	Pedro Rodríguez	Lotus-Climax	36	Engine	13
Ret	9	Trevor Taylor	Lotus-Climax	24	Electrical	7
Ret	17	Masten Gregory	Lola-Climax	14	Engine	8
Ret	22	Hap Sharp	Lotus-BRM	6	Retirement	18
Ret	25	Phil Hill	ATS	4	Oil pump	15
Ret	26	Giancarlo Baghetti	ATS	0	Oil Pump	20
WD	7	Walt Hansgen	Lotus-Climax
WD	15	Innes Ireland	Lotus-BRM		Driver injured
WD	19	Ernie de Vos	Stebro-Ford		No car
Source:

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos	Driver	Points
	1	Jim Clark	51 (55)
	2	Richie Ginther	28 (30)
2	3	Graham Hill	22
1	4	John Surtees	22
1	5	Bruce McLaren	14
Source:

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos	Constructor	Points
	1	Lotus-Climax	51 (56)
	2	BRM	35 (37)
	3	Ferrari	24
	4	Cooper-Climax	21
	5	Brabham-Climax	18
Source:

• Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 6 results counted towards the Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

Further reading

• Doug Nye (1978). The United States Grand Prix and Grand Prize Races, 1908–1977. B. T. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-1263-1
• Dean Batchelor (January, 1964). "Grand Prix of the United States". Road & Track, 50–55.