South African GP 1963

DECEMBER 28, 1963

South African GP, 1963

Two months after the Mexican GP, the final round of the World Championship took place in South Africa. It was interesting only in that it gave World Champion Jim Clark the opportunity to set a new record for the number of wins in a season. The opposition to Team Lotus came from Ferrari, Brabham, BRM and Cooper and Rob Walker took Jo Bonnier along in a private Cooper. The rest of the field was made up of enthusiastic locals who every year provided the F1 teams with a market for their old machinery. Clark qualified on pole position with the Brabhams of Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney alongside. The second row was shared by the Ferraris of John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini and then came Graham Hill and Ritchie Ginther in their BRMs and Trevor Taylor in the second Lotus.

At the start of the race Brabham took the advantage off the line but Clark and Surtees quickly pushed him back to third position, while Taylor made a good start to run fourth ahead of Gurney, Brabham and the rest. The two Brabham drivers quickly overtook the Lotus and began to look for a way of overtaking Surtees. By the time they had done that Clark was seven seconds ahead. The challenge from Brabham faded when Brabham began to lose power and dropped back and was overtaken by Surtees and Hill (Taylor having spun off and dropped down the field). Surtees retired later with an engine problem, which elevated Graham Hill to third at the finish. Ginther would have been fourth but he suffered a transmission problem, while Brabham spun in the closing laps and had to retire. This meant that Bruce McLaren ended up fourth in his Cooper-Climax with Bandini fifth and Bonnier sixth, although he was two laps behind.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Jim Clark Lotus-Climax 25 85 2h10m36.900s  
Dan Gurney Brabham-Climax BT7 85 2h11m43.700s  
Graham Hill BRM P57 84  
10 Bruce McLaren Cooper-Climax T66 84  
Lorenzo Bandini Ferrari 156 84  
12 Jo Bonnier Cooper-Climax T66 83  11 
11 Tony Maggs Cooper-Climax T66 82  10 
Trevor Taylor Lotus-Climax 25 81  
19 John Love Cooper-Climax T55 80  13 
10 14 Carel Godin de Beaufort Porsche 718 79  20 
11 16 Doug Serrurier LDS-Alfa Romeo MK 2 78  18 
12 23 Trevor Blokdyk Cooper-Maserati T51 77  19 
13r Jack Brabham Brabham-Climax BT7 70 Accident 
14 21 Brausch Niemann Lotus-Ford 22 66  15 
18 Peter de Klerk Alfa Special-Alfa Romeo  53 Gearbox 16 
22 David Prophet Brabham-Ford BT6 49 Engine 14 
Richie Ginther BRM P57 43 Mechanical 
John Surtees Ferrari 156 43 Engine 
Ernest Pieterse Lotus-Climax 21 Engine 12 
20 Sam Tingle LDS-Alfa Romeo MK 1 Mechanical 17 
ns 15 Paddy Driver Lotus-BRM 24  Accident 21