In the 75 years of the Formula 1 World Championship, an exclusive club of only five American drivers have won the Grand Prix, two of whom have gone on to win an F1 world title. We look at all five in the new RACER, issue 336. Here we explore the case of one of racing’s true icons.
And stretcher
Grand Prix starts: 86 (1959–1970)
Grand Prix wins: 4
Best finish in Formula 1 World Championship: 4th in 1961, 1965
Daniel Sexton Gurney had 26 Grand Prix starts to his name by the time he signed with Brabham for the 1963 Formula 1 season. He’d driven the aging Ferrari 246 Dino to a pair of podium finishes in 1959, then the woefully unreliable BRM P48 to just two places in ’60, and then spent two years with Porsche during his brief first venture into F1. He achieved a number of podium finishes in the 718 of 1961, before taking a win (at Rouen) and a pole and third place at the Nürburgring in the jewel-like 804 of ’62. Gurney was fast, courageous and technically astute – everything Jack Brabham wanted for the team he had founded just two years earlier.
Until 1963, Brabham’s choice of teammate was justified: when Gurney’s Brabham-Climax BT7 reached the finish, he scored well, and Dan achieved three podiums and finished fifth in the championship. The following year Gurney was brilliant in an updated BT7. He never qualified lower than fifth place and therefore spent the season with Jim Clark, John Surtees and Graham Hill. But DNFs destroyed his title aspirations. There was a broken gearbox during the second run in Monaco, the broken steering wheel at Zandvoort and running out of fuel on the penultimate lap at Spa after dominating the weekend.
Then everything turned out well (again) in Rouen. Gurney was beaten to pole by Clark and had to sit behind him for 30 laps, but when the leading Lotus suffered a burnt piston, Dan the Man took over and came home the winner. Clark had benefited from Gurney’s setback at Spa, so this felt like karma righting a wrong. And Brabham, who had finished third, couldn’t have been prouder to see his brand become a Grand Prix winner. But then Gurney’s fortunes returned to type: ignition problems during the second race at Brands Hatch, overheating at the Nürburgring, a suspension break while leading at Zeltweg, alternator failure while battling for the lead at Monza, faltering oil pressure while second at Watkins Glen… It became ridiculous.
At the final in Mexico City, Clark led almost all the way, chased by Gurney, but the Lotus had an oil leak and the engine seized with two laps to go. So Dan came home a winner at the expense of his good friend, but the pair could also sympathize with each other: Jimmy had led eight Grands Prix, Dan seven, and yet they only finished third and sixth respectively in the points table at the end of the year.
Lotus would return to action in 1965, and the 33 model left the technically less advanced Brabham BT11 in its wake, but Gurney made the most of it, finishing on the podium in the last five GPs and fourth in the championship. Yet nothing could match the joy of scoring Brabham’s first win at Rouen in ’64. And Gurney would take all the lessons he learned with the team and move on…
Bigger picture
Brabham’s move to expand its All American Racers into Formula 1, like Anglo American Racers, was very Dan Gurney. A brave adventure with an excellent car, the Eagle, which in its earliest incarnation was saddled with a 2.8-litre Climax, but was then blessed and cursed by the powerful yet complicated 3-litre Weslake V12.
Gurney won at Spa-Francorchamps, but the outgoing Brabham probably cost him two world championships, as he was faster than Jack Brabham and his own replacement, Denny Hulme, who won the 1966 and ’67 titles respectively.
The F1 Eagles faltered in ’68, so AAR ran a privateer McLaren for the last three GPs. After taking a year off to concentrate on AAR’s ’69 Indy car campaign, Gurney briefly returned to F1 in mid-1970 to fill in for the tragically deceased Bruce McLaren, but the allure of F1 had faded. Gurney had completely transformed into a constructor and team owner on this side of the Atlantic.
Read the story of all five American Formula 1 winners in the new issue of RACER magazine, out this week. Whatever your passions for motorsports and performance cars, you can choose how you enjoy the RACER experience with RACER magazine, the RACER+ App and RACER All Access. Whether you like to browse pages or stream exclusive features, we have the perfect plan for you. CLICK HERE and subscribe now for the ultimate motorsports fan experience.
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