Japan Grand Prix
JAPAN GRAND PRIX
W. B. SWIM
ONE OUT OF four. That’s all you would have gotten right if you’d based your guesses for the winners of the four classes at the Japan Grand Prix races on this year’s World Championships, which were already decided. In the World Championships, Honda won the 350cc and 125cc classes, Yamaha took the 250cc for their first Classic Events win and Suzuki grabbed the 50cc for the third year in a row. Only the 350cc class ran to form at the JGP, however, with Yamaha losing the 250cc race to Honda, Suzuki winning the 125cc event from Honda and Honda copping the tiddler class without competition, as Suzuki did not race.
With 10 of the 15 entries scratched, including the Suzuki team, only 5 Hondas lined up on the grid for the 50cc event, four factory riders and one Japanese private entry on a production single (he dropped out in the 9th lap, far behind the others). The only question for race fans was whether Luigi Taveri, last year’s winner, would repeat. He did not, giving way to Honda’s new factory rider Ralph Bryans by 4/10th of a second.
The 125cc race got off to a good start and at the end of lap one it was Anderson, Taveri, Yoshimi Katayama (Suzuki), Frank Perris (Suzuki), Phil Read (Yamaha) and Ralph Bryans (Honda) in that order. Suzuki’s Degner got a poor start and was buried around 9th or 10th. in the pack, and Honda’s Jim Redman was well back also. Bryans, who had gunned up to second place in front of Taveri and Perris by the third time around, was pushing so hard he got in trouble on a rough corner on lap four and dropped it, injuring his left ankle and withdrawing from the race. This let Degner get on the leader board for the first time, in sixth slot. Redman had pulled into the pits and quit with a misfiring engine in the 4th lap. Laps six through nine saw Anderson pulling away from the field on his new watercooled Suzuki Twin, with Katayama (Suzuki) in 2nd followed by Read (Yamaha), Taveri (Honda) and Degner (Suzuki). Read moved up to 2nd for laps 10 and 11, developed a sick engine and dropped to 5th the next lap, then pulled into the pits on lap 13. Degner passed Taveri and Katayama to take 2nd that lap behind Anderson, who was well in front. Two laps later, however, Anderson’s machine began misfiring and he dropped to 4th after leading for 14 laps from the start. A change of plugs at the pits left him a lap behind. Degner was now in front of Taveri, followed by Katayama, Teisuke Tanaka (Honda), Hironori Matsushima (Yamaha) and Akiyasu Motohashi (Yamaha), who had moved up when the leaders dropped out. And that’s the way the race finished its last six laps.
The 250cc race saw three-rider factory
teams fielded by Honda and Yamaha plus Mike Hailwood’s MZ and a Yamaha production racer ridden by an Indonesian. Fans were looking for a battle between World Champ Phil Read’s Yamaha and Jim Redman’s new Honda Six, as well as keeping an eye out for Hailwood on the East German MZ, which was known to be slower than the field. Fans were interested in seeing if the master, Hailwood, could sufficiently outride the opposition to make it a race.
Redman outgunned the others at the start but Read and Hailwood were right on his tail and not far behind at the end of lap one. Fourth was Isamu Kasuya (Honda), 5th was Luigi Taveri (Honda) riding his third race of the day and Hiroshi Hasegawa (Yamaha) was 6th. Redman’s swift six-cylinder job shortly showed it had too much speed for the opposition, and each lap he pulled away more and more from Read’s Yamaha. The MZ, which hadn’t turned very good times in practice and did not seem to be putting out maximum performance, just couldn’t stand up to the pace despite Hailwood’s brilliant corner work, and he dropped to 4th in the second lap, 5th the next time around, down to 6th in lap four, back to 5th for two laps and then settled down in 6th spot behind Redman (Honda), Read (Yamaha), Kasuya (Honda), Hasegawa (Yamaha) and Taveri (Honda).
Read slowed his Yamaha with front brake trouble in lap 19 and dropped to 3rd behind Kasuya for two laps, then to 5th in lap 21, when his engine quit and he pushed into the pits and retired. This shoved everyone but leader Redman up a notch, and that’s the way they finished.
Spectators began leaving in droves during the middle of the 250cc race and by the start of the day’s 350cc event half had headed home, as a glance at the starting line-up showed that only three Honda factory Fours, Mike Hailwood’s 251cc MZ, a private Japanese entry on a Honda production racer and an Indonesian on a Norton Manx would start.
Redman and Hailwood had identical practice times, and fans knew the race would be between them. It was, but it was hardly a race. Hailwood got away to a brilliant start and held the lead over Redman for the first two laps. At the end of the 3rd round, however, Redman’s faster machine passed the MZ in front of the grandstand. This was the only time any machine passed any other during the whole 25-lap race. Redman little by little built up a lead over Hailwood until he was 30 seconds in front at the finish. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place machines started that way from the grid.
