1962 Italian Grand Prix

  1962 Italian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 7 of 9 in the 1962 Formula One season
Date	16 September 1962
Official name	XXXIII Gran Premio d'Italia
Location	Autodromo Nazionale Monza Monza, Italy
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	5.750 km (3.573 mi)
Distance	86 laps, 494.500 km (307.268 mi)
Weather	Dry, with rain later
Pole position
Driver	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax
Time	1:40.35
Fastest lap
Driver	Graham Hill	BRM
Time	1:42.30 on lap 3
Podium
First	Graham Hill	BRM
Second	Richie Ginther	BRM
Third	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax

The 1962 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Monza on 16 September 1962. It was the seventh race of the 1962 Formula One season. The 86-lap race was won by BRM driver Graham Hill after he started from second position. His teammate Richie Ginther finished second and Cooper driver Bruce McLaren came in third.

Race report

Jim Clark started on pole position, but the Lotus team still looked worried as the team had gone through all of their gearboxes over the weekend. Two crates of spare parts were flown down, but nonetheless Clark and Trevor Taylor started with no more spares available. After only two laps Clark pitted with the expected transmission trouble; he made it back onto the track for another ten laps but that was it.^[1] Teammate Taylor managed 25 laps before his race ended. Hill kept stretching his lead out and finished nearly a half minute before Richie Ginther in the other BRM. Ginther had been duelling with Surtees throughout the race, but on lap 38 Surtees slowed down and five laps later he retired with engine troubles.^[1] Behind these two, there was a race long three-way fight between Dan Gurney's Porsche and the Coopers of McLaren and Maggs. The cars swapped positions constantly, coming down the straight on the fiftieth lap three abreast. Maggs had to stop for more fuel, unlike McLaren whose car had been fitted with 170-litre (45 US gal) fuel tanks to enable him to run the entire distance. Meanwhile, Willy Mairesse in the new non-sharknose Ferrari 156 had caught up to the third-place contenders and brought Jo Bonnier and Giancarlo Baghetti with him.^[2]

Gurney's car was pressed to hard and he retired on the 66th lap with a broken rear differential. After this, the positions stabilized a bit, although not until after Baghetti had briefly led the pack to the appreciation of local fans.^[2] Bonnier's clutch began slipping and Baghetti also fell back. Mairesse took third on the eightieth lap, and built up a three-second lead over McLaren. Stirling Moss, who was watching from the speaker tower, began betting people that McLaren would take third and he was right: in the first curve of the last lap, McLaren passed Mairesse and he took third by only 0.4 seconds.^[2] Bonnier's clutch troubles allowed Baghetti to pass him for fifth place near the end of the race. Phil Hill had to suffer being lapped before half of the race was over, and had to make a long pit stop with engine troubles and finished twelfth. Rodríguez' Ferrari lost oil pressure, Innes Ireland had a good race until something snapped in the steering, and Masten Gregory's car was overheating and then only ran in fourth gear for the last laps. The fire extinguisher in Roy Salvadori's Bowmaker-Yeoman Lola exploded in his face during practice.^[2]

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	14	Graham Hill	BRM	86	2:29:08.4	2	9
2	12	Richie Ginther	BRM	86	+ 29.8	3	6
3	28	Bruce McLaren	Cooper-Climax	86	+ 57.8	4	4
4	8	Willy Mairesse	Ferrari	86	+ 58.2	10	3
5	2	Giancarlo Baghetti	Ferrari	86	+ 1:31.3	18	2
6	18	Jo Bonnier	Porsche	85	+ 1 Lap	9	1
7	30	Tony Maggs	Cooper-Climax	85	+ 1 Lap	12
8	6	Lorenzo Bandini	Ferrari	84	+ 2 Laps	17
9	24	Nino Vaccarella	Lotus-Climax	84	+ 2 Laps	14
10	32	Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche	81	+ 5 Laps	20
11	10	Phil Hill	Ferrari	81	+ 5 Laps	15
12	38	Masten Gregory	Lotus-BRM	77	+ 9 Laps	6
13	16	Dan Gurney	Porsche	66	Differential	7
14	4	Ricardo Rodriguez	Ferrari	63	Ignition	11
Ret	40	Innes Ireland	Lotus-Climax	45	Suspension	5
Ret	46	John Surtees	Lola-Climax	42	Engine	8
Ret	44	Roy Salvadori	Lola-Climax	41	Engine	13
Ret	22	Trevor Taylor	Lotus-Climax	25	Gearbox	16
Ret	48	Tony Settember	Emeryson-Climax	18	Engine	21
Ret	36	Maurice Trintignant	Lotus-Climax	17	Electrical	19
Ret	20	Jim Clark	Lotus-Climax	12	Gearbox	1
DNQ	60	Tony Shelly	Lotus-BRM
DNQ	56	Keith Greene	Gilby-BRM
DNQ	52	Gerry Ashmore	Lotus-Climax
DNQ	62	Ian Burgess	Cooper-Climax
DNQ	42	Jo Siffert	Lotus-BRM
DNQ	54	Ernesto Prinoth	Lotus-Climax
DNQ	50	Roberto Lippi	De Tomaso-O.S.C.A.
DNQ	26	Jay Chamberlain	Lotus-Climax
DNQ	34	Nasif Estéfano	De Tomaso
WD	58	Kurt Kuhnke	Lotus-Borgward		Car not ready
Source:[3]

Notes

• Final Formula One entry for Gerry Ashmore and Ricardo Rodríguez
• Last points for Giancarlo Baghetti in Formula One.

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Graham Hill 36 (37) 2 2 Bruce McLaren 22 1 3 Jim Clark 21 1 4 John Surtees 19 5 Phil Hill 14

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 BRM 37 (41) 2 Lotus-Climax 27 3 Cooper-Climax 25 (27) 4 Lola-Climax 19 1 5 Ferrari 18

• Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 5 results counted towards the Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

References

1. Björklund, Bengt, ed. (October 1962). "Skyfall över Tysklands GP" [Deluge on German GP]. Illustrerad Motor Sport (in Swedish). No. 10. Lerum, Sweden. p. 4.
2. Skyfall..., p. 5
3. "1962 Italian Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 2 December 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2015.