Brands Hatch England July 11th
The British Grand Prix has never had any particular home, and this year it was to hold the title of European Grand Prix so the R.A.C. not only decided to run it themselves, instead of delegating it to the B.R.D.C. or the B.A.R.C., but also chose Brands Hatch Stadium as the venue and enlisted the help of almost everyone in the British sporting world. Naturally the full length circuit was used so that it was new to the present day Grand Prix "circus," though Lotus had given a demonstration with their champion car at the end of last year and earlier this summer there had been some unofficial practice allowed, as well as another short session the night before the official practice for the Grand Prix began. There was to be the usual full supporting programme that invariably seems to turn a Grand Prix event into a "fiesta," but it was arranged that the F.1 cars should have the whole of the morning on Thursday and Friday for practice, which provided ample time for most people.
It was fine and dry when the Grand Prix cars started circulating at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning and there were two notable omissions, the first the fact that the Ferrari team had only one car, which Surtees was driving, and it was a V6-engined car as used earlier this season before the V8 was ready; the other absentee was the new experimental 4-w-d B.R.M. which Attwood should have been driving. This had developed a bit of trouble on test and was being modified, but was under way and being run at Snetterton before making its public appearance. Everyone else was out on the circuit except for Frank Gardner with his little F.2 Brabham fitted with a 1,500-c.c. Lotus-Cortina Ford engine. Team Lotus had two cars, with Clark using the Type 33 and Spence replacing Arundell on the modified Type 25, the Lotus number two driver still being in hospital following his F.2 crash at Reims. Following the collection of a piece of gravel down an intake pipe at Rouen the intakes were covered with gauze once again, and Clark's car had the high pressure fuel pump mounted on the outside of the right hand side of the cockpit, while Spence's car had it mounted on a bracket behind the ZF gearbox. The B.R.M. team had the same three cars as at Rouen, with Graham Hill putting his first choice on the earlier 1964 car, having the latest one as a spare. All three were using the earlier gearboxes, and they had the air intakes neatly parcelled in an open top box, thus keeping all hot air from the engine out of the intakes. The two Brabhams of Brabham and Gurney were unchanged from previous races, except that Gurney's engine no longer had the mixture control in the cockpit coupled to the injection unit, although the control remained there. Surtees was rather unhappily having to make use of the V6 Ferrari, and Bandini had nothing to drive, while the works Coopers of McLaren and Phil Hill had gauze covers over the top of the engines. After their disastrous Rouen meeting the B.R.P. team had got sorted out once again, with Ireland driving the latest "monocoque" car, now straightened out after its Silverstone crash in May. Taylor was using the car he had in France, the minor damage having been put right. Hailwood and Amon were driving the Parnell Lotus-B.R.M. V8 cars, and the team were looking after Revson's earlier Lotus-B.R.M. V8, while Bonnier had the choice of Rob Walker's two cars as usual. The Centro-Sud B.R.M.'s were back in the fold, for Maggs and Baghetti and the private owners, Siffert and Anderson had their 1964 Brabhams, the latter having new Hewland "friction-free" drive shafts at the rear, with flexible inboard universal joints allowing the use of shafts without sliding joints. Raby had his 1963 Brabham with B.R.M. V8 engine and Trintignant had his early B.R.M. V8, while John Taylor was driving Gerards neatly prepared F.3 Cooper with two o.h.c. Lotus-Ford engine and Hewland gearbox.
