HOME TEAM LOSES AS FERRARI FIRES WARNING SHOT

1960 SOLITUDE GP

6Held over a seven-mile public road circuit in Germany, the 1960 Solitude GP attracted 12 F1 drivers. There were two Ferraris, for Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips (the German's rearengined), works Lotuses for Innes Ireland and Jim Clark, Porsches for BRM’S F1 trio of Graham Hill, Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier, and John Surtees replacing the injured Stirling Moss in Rob Walker’s Porsche. Coopers were in the F1 hands of Jack Brabham, Olivier Gendebien, Maurice Trintignant and Masten Gregory. A fourth works Porsche was for Hans Herrmann, not of the ‘F1 clan’.

On this long and wet track, Clark took pole by 0.5s from von Trips and the Porsches, which were split by Jack Lewis – a Welsh farmer who was fastest Cooper driver!

Graham Hill led after a lap, chased hard by the other Porsches, von Trips, Ireland and Brabham. Clark was ninth, but led four laps later and pulled away. On lap 10 of 20, Clark's 12s lead was lost when the Lotus overheated and he pitted for water. Surtees had spun with gearchange trouble and was out.

That left Herrmann and von Trips battling for the lead but, with three laps left, the Ferrari asserted its authority. Von Trips (below) came home to win by 3.6s, providing a taste of what 1961 F1 would look like.

The Porsches of Bonnier, Hill and Gurney followed in a blanket finish but nearly 35s adrift of runner-up Herrmann, with the Ireland/phil Hill battle another half-minute back. Clark’s problem kept him out of the hunt, lapped in eighth.

Lewis and Brabham had retired, so the leading Cooper at the finish was Gregory’s Maserati-powered car in ninth. Cooper’s dominant days in F2 were over.

But Porsche, despite a huge effort on home ground, was beaten by the ‘new-age’ Ferrari and, morally, by Clark. “I’ve never had to drive so hard for fifth,” reckoned Gurney.