50 years ago

[Rob]

Using World Champion Phil Hill as a guide, for the first half of the 1962 season he was on the pace in the race if not in qualifying. Phil ran second to Graham for much of the race in The Netherlands, even leading for one lap. At Monaco he matched Bruce for most of race and finished second. In Belgium he finished third, while Willy Mairesse battled with the leading Lotuses.

Industrial problems in Italy kept Ferrari away from France and the single car for Phil in Britain was a halfhearted effort. Phil was third on the first lap in Germany but dropped back in the rain. He had a rotten race in Italy, however Willy showed the pace of the V6, finishing fourth after lying third at the start of the last lap. Ferrari missed America and South Africa so that's as far as the stats go.

So what about Stirling in a Rob Walker Ferrari? By all rights he could have done better than Phil in the first half of the year, but probably not as well as Graham or Jim. The Ferrari's reliability was good and Stirling in 1961 was at his peak but I can't see him sticking to the V6 for the whole year, possibly running the Sharknose and a V8 Lotus 24 in practice and usually racing the Lotus.
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It's F1, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Michael Clark]

No argument Rob - now what would have been interesting is:

If SCM had run the navy blue Ferrari in 1962 and finished behind Hill and Clark in the championship, what would he have done in 1963?

It is generally reckoned he would have never left Rob Walker, just as no one ever believed Clark would drive for anyone but Lotus. As an aside, I was interested to see in the latest MotorSport that Joanne Villeneuve says Gilles would have left Ferrari at the end of 1982.

So what for Stirling in 1963? Another blue Ferrari, a Brabham - be it blue or green, or something else...

Kind of academic really...sadly.

[Rob]

1963 - So many options (in the order they finished in the 1962 Constructors' Championship).

BRM P57; It was done before with the 25 in 1959.

Lotus 24 - Climax or BRM; But superior 25 is unattainable.

Cooper T60/T66 - Climax; Jo Bonnier raced these for Rob Walker.

Lola Mk 4A - Climax; John Surtees showed the potential in 1962.

Porsche 804; After his success with Mercedes in 1955, the F2 Cooper - Borgward in 1959 and the F2 Porsche 718/2 in 1960, Stirling might have considered that German reliability was the key, and the Factory had no use for the cars.

Ferrari 156; Unlikely as eight cylinder 158 not ready until 1964.

Brabham BT7 - Climax; A bit of an unknown quantity.

BRP - BRM; Stirling had often raced with BRP in the past.

ATS 100; Did not live up to the hype.

I really don't think he would have beaten Jim in any of these.

In the end Stirling could well have had one of each.
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It's F1, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Gary]

I believe the Moss would have raced the 156 in 1963 and that he would have done very well in it. Perhaps he wouldn't have beaten Clark in the Lotus 25; Team Lotus had one of its reliable years in 1963 and Coventry Climax were giving the team its best engines.

The 156 of that year was hugely developed over the bendy old Sharknose iteration and the Dino engine had fuel injection by then giving it around about the same power as the contemporary Climax.

Stirling was and remains very positive about the notion of having a Ferrari fettled by the Walker equipe; he felt they could have extracted more from the chassis than the chaps in the brown overalls. Keep in mind, too, that the deal with The Old Man provided for a broad range of requests from RRC Walker. Ferrari liked his cars to win. He wasn't too particular about the colour they were painted in or who did the winning.

I think Stirling would have driven the Walker Ferrari again in 1964; that was the year Surtees won his championship in a Ferrari don't forget. But 1965... depends, IMO, how well the flat 12 was going compared to the 32 valve Climax cars. Unless Ferrari was delivering, I believe Rob Walker may have done a deal with Black Jack. In fact, post-Moss, RRC Walker did run Brabhams in 64 and 65. If Ferrari hadn't been delivering, Brabham is a name Moss and Walker could have beaten Ferrari around the head with.

Clark in a Lotus 33 with the 32 valve flat crank Climax vs Moss in a similarly engined BT11... now there's a tasty prospect!

[qml]

8th July 1962
Dan Gurney took his and Porsche's first world championship victory at the French Grand Prix.
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Dream.... Wake.... Reality....

[Gary]

Thank you qml. A wonderful win to recall. It was, of course, somewhat inherited but oh how Dan deserved it. Oh how he deserved many more wins than the record shows. Is there a finer gentleman to have graced our sport over the years?

A few years ago, Porsche brought the French GP winning 804 to Adelaide for the Classic Adelaide rally and I had a chance to view it close up. A surprisingly neat and compact car but by 1962 we had a new benchmark in neatness and compactness, the Lotus 25.

[Gary]

Nearly 12 months on and... back to Daniel Sexton. 82 today, 13 April. A great guy and, apparently, the only one to 'worry' Jimmy!

[D-Type]

A far nicer anniversary than 7th April.
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The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know.