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1965 German Grand Prix, Zandvoort

1st August 1965

The teams arrived at the gargantuan Nordschleife circuit with Clark poised to take the World Championship. With 5 wins from 5 starts (he missed the Monte Carlo round), a sixth here would give him a 100% points record, with only six scores counting towards the title.

The Entry

Lotus and Brabham both expanded to three-car teams for the race. The Hethel team gave its extra car to local driver Gerhard Mitter, while Jack Brabham returned to his team's driving strength. The works Ferrari, BRM and Cooper teams were as at Zandvoort, but Ginther and Honda failed to show, the Zandvoort-based team decamping to Japan to perform vital work on the car. Rob Walker had his usual two cars, while Chris Amon replaced Ireland at Parnell. DW Enterprises had Hawkins back alongside Anderson, with Gardner and Raby also entered. Scuderia Centro-Sud completed the entry, with Gregory and Businello, the latter a last-minute replacement for the absent Lucien Bianchi.

Friday

The track had been recently resurfaced, so it was no surprise that times where quicker than the previous year. Four drivers were under this time, led by the amazing Stewart, again his first visit to the circuit in what was fast becoming a truly sensational debut year, while Attwood and Raby both spent all morning stopped out on the circuit. In the afternoon after a morning where he stumbled trying to find a set up, Clark shot out and promptly went nearly 8 seconds faster than Stewart, silencing any battle for pole. Stewart's hopes of a reply were dashed by electrical failure, while Bob Anderson span into the trees and badly damaged DW's Brabham.

Saturday

Stewart was the biggest mover in the second session, getting four seconds off his Friday morning time but only halving the gap between him and Clark as most of the fast drivers couldn't improve, although further down the grid Spence, Bandini and both Cooper drivers did find more speed.

Official Practice Times

#	Driver	Friday	Saturday
1	Clark	8:22.7	N/A
2	Spence	8:40.5	8:33.4
3	Mitter	8:44.9	8:40.4
4	Brabham	8:47.9	N/A
5	Gurney	8:29.0	N/A
6	Hulme	8:42.3	N/A
7	Surtees	8:27.8	N/A
8	Bandini	8:39.3	8:33.9
9	Hill	8:34.0	N/A
10	Stewart	8:30.5	8:26.1
11	McLaren	8:46.0	8:39.0
12	Rindt	8:49.0	8:37.5
16	Bonnier	8:37.9	N/A
17	Siffert	8:39.6	N/A
18	Anderson	8:47.4	NR
19	Amon	8:53.5	N/A
20	Attwood	8:57.7	N/A
21	Gardner	8:59.3	N/A
22	Hawkins	9:16.8	NR
23	Raby	9:45.2	9:17.8
24	Gregory	9:14.3	N/A
25	Businello	9:17.7	N/A

Starting Grid

	Clark		Stewart		Hill		Surtees
		Gurney		Spence		Bandini
	Rindt		Bonnier		McLaren		Siffert
		Mitter		Hulme		Brabham
	Amon		Attwood		Gardner		Gregory
		Hawkins

Clark seemed to have his title well in hand, with the BRM drivers again well matched behind him. Surtees began to get the hang of the 1512 and was hoping for a hat-trick of Nurburgring wins, with Gurney in fifth place. Spence put in a good performance to start sixth, with Bandini in the V8 Ferrari close behind. Rindt (his best grid position to date) and Bonnier rounded out the top 10.

The Race

A short shower of rain caused panic on the grid for a few moments, but everyone stuck to dry weather tyres as they lined up on the dummy grid. When the flag fell Clark got enormous traction from the concrete and was able to make an impeccable start, with Hill, Gurney and Stewart next up. Surtees was crawling around with no gears higher than third. Clark's intentions weren't in doubt as he set a new race record by the end of the first lap, from a standing start no less. Graham Hill was already three seconds back, but was working hard and not getting walked over, with Stewart having got past Gurney, and a small gap back to Bandini and Spence. By the end of the first tour Surtees managed to get to the pits, joining Attwood, who had a misfire. Gardner was already out with a broken gearbox

Clark set another record on his second lap, but Hill was keeping him in sight still, while Gurney had dropped back but repassed Stewart, who had slid off at Wippermann and badly bend his front suspension. The battle for fourth place was raging with intensity between Bandini, McLaren, Spence, Rindt, Siffert, Bonnier, Brabham and Hulme. Amon had been among this gaggle but he stopped to have an electrical problem rectified.

Spence fought his way to the front of the battle for fourth while behind him Bandini and Rindt were merrily banging wheels over sixth until the Ferrari driver locked up and was pushed off by the Austrian. Hulme dropped from this battle with steering trouble, the stop bringing attention to a leaking fuel tank and ending his race. Up front Clark began to break Hill's challenge, and after four laps was six seconds ahead of Hill. 11 seconds further back came Gurney, then a gap to Spence, who was still fighting it out with McLaren, Bonnier, Siffert and Rindt, then a small gap to Brabham and Mitter. There were only four other runners, these being Bandini, Gregory, Attwood and Surtees, the last nearly three laps down.

By now Clark was pulling out three seconds a lap over Hill and by now didn't even seem to be trying that hard. In an unrelated pair of incidents on the seventh lap, McLaren's gear linkage fell apart while Bonnier had the back end of his car snap away. The experienced Swede held it, but called into the pits to have a check on his suspension. Spence came to rest the next lap with no drive, meaning Siffert and Rindt were fighting it out for the place, with Brabham closing on both of them. Soon after this another car was gone, Mitter pulling up in a cloud of smoke after a water leak caused by excessive bottoming. When the same happened to Attwood's Parnell Lotus, Colin Chapman began to worry whether the same could happen to Clark's car. However, the Scot was just going faster and faster up front.

The same could not be said for John Surtees, who finally gave up when his gearbox broke, or the luckless Jo Siffert, who had mis-shifted over a bump and blown his engine, the likeable Swiss driver having won control of fourth place from Rindt. Gurney had been slowly sneaking up on Hill and was ready should the BRM driver make a mistake, Clark having a nice cushion for the last few laps. The Scot crossed the line with nearly 16 seconds in hand on Hill, with Gurney around five and a half further back, having been catching Hill at four seconds a lap for the last few tours. It was the Scot's first win at the Nurburgring, and gave him his second title with three rounds still to go, very early considering both the number of races and the scoring system. Rindt came a long way back, though never really troubled by Brabham, then Bandini, off colour since his spin, and Bonnier, also not quite as quick as before his moment. The only other finisher was a lapped Gregory.

Driver's Championship Standings

Constructor's Championship Standings