1963 United States Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 8 of 10 in the 1963 Formula One season | |||
 |
|||
| Date | October 6, 1963 | ||
| Official name | VI United States Grand Prix | ||
| Location |
Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course Watkins Glen, New York |
||
| Course | Permanent road course | ||
| Course length | 3.701 km (2.30 mi) | ||
| Distance | 110 laps, 407.11 km (252.97 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | BRM | ||
| Time | 1:13.4 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Jim Clark
|
Lotus-Climax | |
| Time | 1:14.5 on lap 50 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First |
|
BRM | |
| Second | BRM | ||
| Third |
|
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 the eighth round of the 1963 Formula One season. 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.
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.
...
Wikipedia