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1965 United States Grand Prix, Watkins Glen

3rd October 1965

The beautiful autumnal Watkins Glen was the setting for the penultimate round of the 1965 championship, and indeed the 1.5 litre Formula. The popular American track was a favourite of Graham Hill, and although the Englishman's title chances were long gone, he was still battling with Stewart for second in the rankings and he had a score to settle for Monza.

The Entry

18 cars were entered for the race, including three by Lotus and Ferrari. The Hethel team sent along Clark and Spence as usual, with the third car going to Moises Solana, who would also race at his home Mexican Grand Prix for the team. Ferrari would have had four entries, but John Surtees had been injured in a sportscar race at Toronto. Bandini was entered in one of the flat-12s with a second as a spare, while Pedro Rodriguez and Bob Bondurant were both entered under the NART banner, although they were handled by the same mechanics as Bandini's car. The Mexican was driving a flat-12 machine, the American a V8. BRM, Honda and Cooper had the same teams as at Monza, but Brabham had slimmed down to two cars, with their eponymous owner to drive alongside Gurney. The Walker and Parnell teams, both unchanged since Monza, completed the entry.

Friday

Ireland missed the session with a bad bout of 'flu, while Bandini and BRM set the early practice pace. Gurney ran for the day in Brabham's car, his own suffering engine problems, while Bucknum had cylinder and mixture problems in his Honda, and neither of the Coopers were running cleanly. Stewart was again making progress, but it was no longer astonishing as everyone was quite expecting the Scot to rattle a few cages each race by now. Most drivers misjudged the ratios for the Watkins Glen circuit and spent mmuch of the session trying to find the right ones. An hour in, rain started to fall, effectively ending the competition for faster times.

Saturday

The day was dominated by the tense battle for pole between Clark and Hill. The Englishman initially set the pace at 1:11.85, then shaved it down to 1:11.76, at which point Clark went out and lapped in 1:11.63. Spence briefly stirred up the battle as Clark towed him to 1:11.5, while Hill then came out and blasted round in 1:11.25. Clark then switched to Spence's car when his own engine began to misfire. He recorded 1:11.16, but as this was done in Spence's car it did not count towards the grid, although he did land the cash prize for fastest practice time. Ireland practiced early on, but was still not well.

Official Practice Times

#	Driver	Friday	Saturday
2	Bandini	1:13.05	1:11.73
3	Hill	1:12.50	1:11.25
4	Stewart	1:12.80	1:11.76
5	Clark	1:12.70	1:11.35
6	Spence	1:14.25	1:11.50
7	Brabham	1:13.20	1:12.20
8	Gurney	1:13.50	1:12.25
9	McLaren	1:15.40	1:12.45
10	Rindt	1:14.85	1:12.90
11	Ginther	1:14.35	1:14.35
12	Bucknum	1:14.20	1:12.30
14	Rodriguez	1:14.90	1:13.00
15	Bonnier	1:13.20	1:12.45
16	Siffert	1:13.70	1:12.50
18	Solana	1:20.70	1:13.70
21	Attwood	1:15.40	1:13.70
22	Ireland	NR	1:15.00
24	Bondurant	1:15.10	1:12.90
2T*	Bandini	NR	1:12.05
2	Rodriguez	NR	1:13.45
3T*	Hill	1:13.20	NR
6	Clark	1:13.40	1:11.16
11	Bucknum	NR	1:12.70
11T*	Bucknum	NR	1:15.10
11T*	Ginther	1:14.20	1:12.05
12	Ginther	NR	1:11.40
18	Clark	NR	1:31.10
18	Spence	1:24.50	1:12.75
22	Attwood	1:18.30	1:15.20

Starting Grid

	Hill		Clark
		Ginther		Spence
	Bandini		Stewart
		Brabham		Gurney
	McLaren		Bonnier
		Siffert		Bucknum
	Rindt		Bondurant
		Rodriguez		Attwood
	Solana		Ireland

 

So after the battle in qualifying, Hill emerged on top with Clark alongside him. The narrow startline straight at Watkins Glen meant that a "two-by-two" grid was adopted. Ginther and Sepnce both did well in third and fourth respectively, with Bandini doing a good job of flying the flag for Ferrari, lining up fifth ahead of Stewart. The Brabham team filled row 4 after various oiling problems in practice, while McLaren and Bonnier rounded out the top 10.

The Race

It was bitterly cold as the cars set off, Clark and Hill side by side as they moved onto the back of the ciruit. At the end of the first lap the BRM driver led, with Clark second and Stewart third despite early contact with Ginther. There was a small gap, then a tight bunch consisting of Bandini, Spence, Brabham and Gurney. Another short gap followed until Ginther, Bonnier, McLaren, Siffert, Bondurant, Rindt, Rodriguez, Ireland, Solana and Attwood then another gap back to Bucknum, whose engine sounded very ill. Ginther sooned dropped from eighth to fourteenth when he ran off at the top of the circuit. On lap 2 Clark got by Hill when the BRM driver ran wide at the exit of Club House before the pits. Stewart pulled in with a throttle problem. Gurney had passed Brabham and was now pressuring the Bandini/Spence scrap. On lap 4 the rain began to fall.

Hill passed Clark on lap 5 and led for the next six tours. Both Spence (engine) and Ireland (a recurrence of 'flu) had retired by this stage. Suddenly Clark was gone with a broken piston, leaving Hill 14s clear of Dan Gurney, who was beginning to assert superiority over Bandini and Brabham. A gap followed until the fifth-place fight between Bonnier, Rodriguez, Siffert and Bondurant, with Rindt in ninth after a brace of spins. Jack Brabham then passed Bandini and Gurney inside a couple of laps, while Rodriguez got by Bonnier. On lap 19 Gurney came back at Brabham and moved back into second position. On the wet rack Rindt was tearing back through the field and now passed Bondurant and Bonnier on successive laps, and began to gain on Rodriguez, passing the Ferrari on lap 45.

The cold winds on the wet track were making parts of it very slippery, and Hill skidded off on the Front Straight, regaining the track some 200 metres further on, and losing 11 of the 15 seconds lead he had over Gurney. The American then caught him quickly, but had a moment in his excitement and Brabham got past into second before he could recover. The Australian stayed with Hill for a few laps, and then swooped, passing when Hill was baulked by Attwood, only to run off the track and drop back to third once more. Gurney was a match for the BRM on the wet track, but as it began to dry Hill pulled away once more.

Bandini, who had dropped to fifth after a pit-stop, caught and passed Rindt on lap 65, the Cooper driver suffering from gearbox ailments, and Rodriguez passed the Austrian on lap 103. Graham Hill took his third successive victory at Watkins Glen, with Gurney and Brabham the only other drivers on the lead lap. Bandini was a distant fourth, with Pedro Rodriguez fifth in another Ferrari and Rindt holding onto sixth in the end. There wehere 13 finishers in all.

Pos	Driver	Car-Engine	Time/Retirement	Laps
1.	Graham Hill	BRM	2h 20m 36.1s	110
2.	Dan Gurney	Brabham-Climax	+ 12.5s	110
3.	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Climax	+ 57.5s	110
4.	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari	+ 1 lap	109
5.	Pedro Rodriguez	Ferrari	+ 1 lap	109
6.	Jochen Rindt	Cooper-Climax	+ 2 laps	108
7.	Richie Ginther	Honda	+ 2 laps	108
8.	Jo Bonnier	Brabham-Climax	+ 3 laps	107
9.	Bob Bondurant	Ferrari	+ 4 laps	106
10.	Richard Attwood	Lotus-BRM	+ 7 laps	103
11.	Jo Siffert	Brabham-BRM	+ 11 laps	99
12.	Moises Solana	Lotus-Climax	+ 15 laps	95
13.	Ronnie Bucknum	Honda	+ 18 laps	92
R	Jackie Stewart	BRM	Accident damage	12
R	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax	Oil pressure	11
R	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax	Piston	11
R	Innes Ireland	Lotus-BRM	Illness	9
R	Mike Spence	Lotus-Climax	Engine	9

Driver's Championship Standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1.	Jim Clark	54
2.	Graham Hill	40 [47]
3.	Jackie Stewart	33 [34]
4.	Dan Gurney	17
5.	John Surtees	17
6.	Lorenzo Bandini	13
7.	Bruce McLaren	10
8.	Jack Brabham	9
9.	Mike Spence	6
10.	Denny Hulme	5
11.	Jochen Rindt	4
12=	Richie Ginther	2
12=	Pedro Rodriguez	2
12=	Jo Siffert	2
15.	Richard Attwood	1

Constructor's Championship Standings

Pos	Constructor	Points
1.	Lotus-Climax	54
2.	BRM	42
3.	Brabham-Climax	31
4.	Ferrari	27
5.	Cooper-Climax	14
6=	Brabham-BRM	2
6=	Honda	2
8.	Lotus-BRM	1