Italian GP 1964

Italian GP, 1964

The Italian GP featured all the World Championship regulars and a variety of additional entries including a third Ferrari for Lodovico Scarfiotti. Phil Hill had disappeared from the Cooper team and had been replaced by Rhodesian driver John Love who had showed well with Ken Tyrrell (the Cooper team manager) in Formula Junior. Surtees was fastest in practice and lined up on the front row alongside Dan Gurney's Brabham and Graham Hill's BRM. Jim Clark shared the second row with Bruce McLaren's Cooper while the third row featured Jo Siffert in his privately-entered Brabham-BRM, Ferrari's Lorenzo Bandini (the winner of the previous race in Austria) and Mike Spence in the second Lotus.

At the start of the race McLaren took the lead from the second row with Gurney and Surtees chasing but Hill was left on the grid for the second consecutive race, this time with a clutch failure. Monza provided the usual exciting slipstreaming battle and McLaren was quickly pushed back to third behind Gurney and Surtees. The two managed to get slightly ahead and spent most of the afternoon switching places until Gurney dropped back in the closing stages with engine trouble. McLaren and Clark enjoyed a similar battle for third place until lap 27 when Clark retired with an engine failure. The battle for fifth place in the early laps was wild and it continued for most of the afternoon before Jack Brabham finally got ahead of the pack. By then Clark had gone and so Brabham was fourth but he went out on lap 59 with engine failure, leaving Bandini and Ginther to battle for what would be third place all the way to the line. Surtees won by over a minute with McLaren by himself in second while Bandini beat Ginther to the line by the smallest of margins, which was later judged to have been one tenth of a second.

Surtees's victory had put him into contention for the World Championship, four points behind Graham Hill and just two behind Jim Clark.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 2 John Surtees Ferrari 158 78 2h10m51.800s  1 
2 26 Bruce McLaren Cooper-Climax T73 78 2h11m57.800s  5 
3 4 Lorenzo Bandini Ferrari 158 77  7 
4 20 Richie Ginther BRM P261 77  9 
5 46 Innes Ireland BRP-BRM MK 2 77  13 
6 10 Mike Spence Lotus-Climax 33 77  8 
7 12 Jo Siffert Brabham-BRM BT11 77  6 
8 30 Giancarlo Baghetti BRM AP57 77  15 
9 6 Ludovico Scarfiotti Ferrari 156 77  16 
10 16 Dan Gurney Brabham-Climax BT7 75  2 
11 22 Bob Anderson Brabham-Climax BT11 75  14 
12 34 Jo Bonnier Brabham-Climax BT7 74  12 
13 38 Peter Revson Lotus-BRM 24 72  18 
14r 14 Jack Brabham Brabham-Climax BT11 59 Engine 11 
r 8 Jim Clark Lotus-Climax 25 27 Engine 4 
r 50 Mario Araujo de Cabral Derrington Francis-ATS (D-F) 24 Ignition 19 
r 48 Maurice Trintignant BRM P57 21 Fuel Injection 20 
r 28 Ronnie Bucknum Honda RA271 12 Brakes 10 
r 40 Mike Hailwood Lotus-BRM 25 4 Engine 17 
r 18 Graham Hill BRM P261 0 Clutch 3 
ns 60 Jean-Claude Rudaz Cooper-Climax T60  Engine 21 
nq 44 Trevor Taylor BRP-BRM MK 1   22 
nq 36 Giacomo Russo (geki) Brabham-BRM BT11   23 
nq 24 John Love Cooper-Climax T73   24 
nq 56 Ian Raby Brabham-BRM BT3   25