Talk:1965 German Grand Prix

Starting Grid/Practice Times

I wonder if there is a source which gives the practice times of Bob Anderson, Roberto Bussinello and Ian Raby? The current F1 website now disregards Bob Anderson in the "starting grid", and Posthumus' book suggests that his position was NOT left vacant on the grid. It would also be helpful to confirm his practice time. I'm also sceptical of Ian Raby being DNQ, as he crashed in practice, with Posthumus saying he "did not start", so if we wanted to give a full list of practice times it might be that he wouldn't be last, and could bump some others down. Bussinello almost certainly did fail to set a fast enough time, however. A7V2 (talk) 05:50, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Mike Lang's Grand Prix! Vol 1 lists the following beneath the starting grid layout:

• Non-starter: R. Anderson: 8 min 47.4
• Did not qualify: R Bussinello: 9 min 17.7; I. Raby: 9 min 17.8

The grid layout shows no vacant space left on the grid (and this book does show them if there were any). DH85868993 (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay so that would definitely slot Anderson in 15th. How would this normally be handled for the "grid" column in the Race section? And should this be included in the Starting Grid/Practice Times/Qualifying/Whatever this usually get's called? (I see a lot of "qualifying" but this isn't strictly accurate for most early races as they didn't have separate practice and qualifying sessions, but I suppose these days we would probably still call it that) A7V2 (talk) 13:16, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

The "grid" column in the Race section should reflect where drivers actually lined up on the grid, so Amon should have a "grid" value of "15", Attwood "16", etc. The "grid" column for Anderson should be left blank, as no spot was left for him on the grid. There's a similar situation for Fred Wacker in the 1953 Dutch Grand Prix (not exactly the same, because Wacker qualified last, so you wouldn't really be able to tell if they left a blank slot for him or not; I'll keep looking for a better example). Anderson's time should be included in the first table (which I suggest renaming it "Qualifying" for consistency with other races, even though, as you point out, that isn't strictly accurate) - that table is intended to be a list of practice/qualifying times, which may or may not match where drivers actually started on the grid. DH85868993 (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I changed the "grid" column of the race results as per above, but accidentally pressed enter while entering the edit description.... anyway, I'll leave the qualifying order to you as you've got the source. A7V2 (talk) 10:58, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Cool. I'll update the article within the next 24 hours or so. DH85868993 (talk) 21:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Updated. DH85868993 (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Number of laps completed by non-finishers

Posthumus disagrees with the F1 website on the number of laps completed by some non-finishers, namely Spence, Mitter, Attwood and Siffert, which have 1 fewer laps in the F1 website, and Amon, which is completely different. I'm not sure which is correct for the first 4, but there's no doubt that Amon completed more than 3 laps! He borrowed ignition "black boxes" (whatever that means!) from Hawkins' already retired car, and when that stopped working, from Spence's by then retired car. It is not unlikely though that if the 4 above were correct on the F1 site, that Amon completed 9 rather than 10 laps, but 3 is surely wrong. A7V2 (talk) 06:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Here's what various sources say regarding laps completed:

Driver	FORIX	Lang	formula1.com	ChicaneF1	grandprix.com	Posthumus
Spence	8	8	8	8	8	9
Mitter	8	8	8	8	8	9
Attwood	7	8	7	8	7	8
Siffert	9	9	9	9	9	10
Amon	3	3	3	3	3	10

Regarding Amon, Lang says "Spence, Mitter, Attwood and Siffert all retired in quick succession. ... After bringing up the rear with Surtees, Amon also retired despite having borrowed the transistor boxes from both Hawkins and Spence's cars subsequent to their retirements". I suspect this means that Amon retired on lap 10 of the race, but after having only completed 3 laps himself.

@A7V2: I've based the Posthumus figures on your comments above - can you please correct any I got wrong? DH85868993 (talk) 09:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I think I've worked out what happened (not for Amon, or Atwood I suppose), but this brings into question quite a few things... in Posthumus' book the laps of retirements is the lap they were ON, not how many they had completed, but this raises the problem of why all the other non-finishers (apart from Gardener as well, which is 0 laps in this article, lap 1 in my book) have the same NUMBER as in this article/on the F1 website. Also this raises some questions as to why the numbers all agree for the recently created 1960 German Grand Prix (which I used the book for) and the formula2.net (which I checked against), when formula2.net definitely says "laps" not "lap". And as for Amon... it could be that Clark was on lap 10 when Amon finally retired maybe? It definitely looks like he completed only 3 laps if so many sources agree. A7V2 (talk) 13:03, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Lang also list the lap drivers were on when they retired, I subtracted 1 when populating the table above. It's always difficult to know the exact reason for discrepancies between different sources, but it could be as simple as human error (e.g. "8" and "9" are right next to each other on the keyboard). Regarding the 1960 German Grand Prix situation, it could be that the original source used by formula2.net quoted "on lap" values, but whoever entered the data misinterpreted them as "laps" values. Regarding Amon, yes I think it's likely that he finally retired when Clark was on lap 10, but only actually completed 3 laps himself. DH85868993 (talk) 20:13, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

OK I reverted my edit of the laps completed, although I suppose Atwood is still questionable. A7V2 (talk) 10:56, 6 February 2019 (UTC)