German Grand Prix - August 1 1965

We went along to Nurburgring with three cars and only three engines, expecting that if things went as they always seemed to go then we would only be running two cars in the race. But for once we did not run into engine troubles during practice. and so at last we were a full three-car team. There were no real problems during the training sessions. except that our cars weren't fast enough. I am sure that if Dan could have had the 32-valver in his car he would have been noticeably quicker. Denny and I didn't try to extract the last ounce of performance out of our cars during practice, because we wanted to conserve the engines for the race. You can't afford to take any chances when there is no spare engine in the paddock! We did very little practice, only just what was necessary to make sure that the cars weren't bottoming on the bumps, to carry out fuel consumption tests, and to get the tyres right. We concentrated more on this than worrying about our positions on the grid.

The boys were certainly going like the wind during practice. After all. Jim Clark cut a quarter of a minute off the official lap record in last year's race. and even on a circuit over 14 miles round that's quite something. I noticed that the circuit had been resurfaced at one or two points, and I reckon it could have made three or four seconds difference, but to get under 8 1/2 minutes was going some.

Being in the cockpit instead of standing in front of the pits made a nice change for me. I wasn't, of course. able to see how Dan was going. but a look through our timing sheets afterwards showed that he was having a real old go to catch Graham Hill in the last three or four laps, and in fact his last lap was only about 2 seconds under Clark's record. With 191 horsepower in the back of his car that was quite a per­formance. and I think he did very well to come in third.

My car went fairly well in the race. except that towards the end I had a terrible vibration through the steering wheel. At the time I didn't know whether a balance weight had fallen off or a shock absorber was failing. It made it seem as though some­thing was going wrong with the steering, though in fact this wasn't the case. Nurburgring isn't exactly the sort of circuit where you want to have this sort of worry! The engine in my car was certainly no flier. but at least it was running as well at the end as it had been at the start.

I realised with a lap or two to go that I had no hope of catching Jochen Rindt and taking fourth place. Lorenzo Bandini, in the V8 Ferrari, was behind me. but didn't worry me at any time; if he had started to put on more pressure towards the end I am sure I could have kept him at bay, though with the steering in the state it was I'm sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it!

There was one little incident during the race that put me back behind Rindt's Cooper. I caught up Rindt and Mike Spence. and suddenly I spotted that Spence's half-shaft was beginning to revolve round out of centre. It started to look very, very dangerous, and I was expecting to see his half-shaft come out and hit me in the face if I wasn't careful. He started slowing down a little bit, but I couldn't get up too close to him for fear that the shaft would come off and perhaps carry the suspension with it, which would have been very unpleasant. This went on for at least two laps, before eventually [ took a chance and got up along­side him and managed to point to him that something was wrong with his car. He stopped the Lotus with the half-shaft just about ready to fly out of it. By the time this happened Rindt had gone well ahead, so far ahead that I knew I couldn't catch him before the end of the race. Mike was pleased I'd managed to tell him about his shaft: he said he thought something was wrong with his car but he wasn't certain.

Denny unfortunately had to retire when his fuel tank punctured. The fuel ran out along the tray and got under his back wheel, and he stopped at the pits to see if there was anything wrong with his suspension. What had happened was that the seat had come out of position-presumably when the car went over one of the big bumps-and one of the fixing pins had gone into the tank.

There's now a little more time to think about the next Formula 1 race, which is the Italian GP at Monza in September. We will be running two cars there, with Dan and Denny doing the driving while I look after the team from the pits. There are no signs of a 16-cylinder Climax coming along for us at Monza, though Lotus might have one there.