The Italian Gp

THE ITALIAN GP

CARLO PERELLI

MISERABLY WET and cold last year, suffocatingly hot this year, the Italian GP was held, as usual, on the classic 3.5-mile Monza autodrome. The move to have it run on the longer track (including the high-speed banking) was turned down a few days before the event under riders' protests, because of the bad surface conditions in the bends, causing "thrilling" and dangerous road holding problems.

With only a few riders, the 50cc race nevertheless provided interest, since An scheidt (Suzuki twin) had a bad start, but was soon dashing along to catch first teammate Anderson and then Honda men Bryans and Taveri. The German rider won at fabulous speeds (the 1962 records set the last time the 50cc class competed at Monz~i were improved by nearly 10 mph) and is now tying with Taveri for the world championship crown.

Beaten in the "tiddlers," Taveri and Bry ans shone in the 1 25. riding five-cylinder Hondas. and improving the Suzuki 1964 records by nearly 6 mph. This year Su zuki were not competing in this class. The challenge from the two-stroke field came from other Japanese quarters, i.e.. Yama ha, fielding Read and Ivy on the twin cylinder models. Read had a very quick start and succeeded in keeping in front of Taveri and Bryans for a short time. Soon.

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he had to give them first and second and later was also overtaken by his teammate.

Perhaps more interesting to watch was the terrific privateers’ fight between Molloy, Carruthers, Scheimann, Visenzi. Molloy was on a Bultaco, the others on Honda CR93 twins. It lasted practically all the race long. In the closing stages, Molloy suffered ignition trouble and dropped back to 11th place, while Scheimann beat Carruthers and Visenzi at the finish. But they were all overtaken by Williams on the EMC two-stroke single, who was last away, but then stormed through the whole field to finish fifth.

In 250cc class practicing, Hailwood and Stuart Graham had put up fantastic lap speeds of 115 mph, with their jet-noisy Honda-sixes. All the others, in the absence of the Yamaha four-cylinders of Ivy and Read, were much slower. So it was a pleasant surprise to see Canadian Mike Duff, riding the “old” Yamaha air-cooled twin (fitted with American double disc front brake), staying in the company of Hailwood and Graham and even passing them. But it wasn’t to last. He called at the pits to change plugs, dropping back to 12th place. About the same time Graham also had to call it a day, since a broken spring in the selector prevented him from changing gear regularly and after failing to make repairs, retired.

Hailwood thus won in the most comfortable way, without need to hurry. Although he broke the lap record (even without reaching his practice times) he didn’t do so for the distance.

For the other positions there were practically no close fights; Rosner, finishing second on the MZ two-stroke twin, was the only one not to be lapped by the winner and after Pasolini’s (H-D Aermacchi) retirement with a disintegrated engine, Alberto Pagani came up third on another Harley-Davidson Aermacchi.

With Hailwood deserting the 350 class, preferring to reserve himself for the 250 and 500, Agostini on the MV “three” had only some slight opposition in the beginning stages by Silvio Grassetti on his private Bianchi twin. Then his old engine, although well cured, developed crankshaft troubles. With terrific vibrations and rpm drop, Grassetti had to slow down, letting Pasolini and Pagani (both on H-Ds) pass him into second and third place. Although he wasn’t pressed, Agostini won at record speeds. This class title, however, had already been clinched by Hailwood, and that’s the other reason why Mike didn’t ride. But he was very anxious to ride in the 500 class, because he still could catch this title, in spite of the slight points advantage by Agostini (34 to 30), thus succeeding in the fabulous performance to do the “hat trick,” winning three world titles in the same year.

But in practice, although putting up the new record lap at 123.88 mph in 1:43.6 against Agostini’s 1:44.4, Hailwood blew up both his training and racing Honda fours. Saturday night, the Japanese mechanics had to build a bike with the best pieces of the two they had, and on Sunday Mike had to ride a model not thoroughly tested. He was first away, while Agostini, not enjoying quite so dashing a start on his 420cc MV was slightly behind. Soon the Italian champion closed the gap and for seven laps there was a terrific fight.

Mike made fastest lap, only fractionally slower than in training. Soon after, his engine blew up. Agostini was left alone, with the world crown easily at hand, and the huge crowd went wild with excitement. He finished triumphantly, two laps ahead of all the others, taking back to Italy the 500cc crown which had been conquered only twice by Italian riders (in 1952 by Masetti, and in 1957 by Liberati both riding Güeras).

A fine show came from the Paton twin ridden by Stevens, which stayed in second place practically to the end (in spite of a pit stop to adjust a broken battery cable). He was ultimately stopped by a broken clutch. The English rider pushed in, but couldn’t avoid being overtaken by Williams’ Surtees-frame Matchless, tuned by Tom Arter, and Findlay (McIntyre Matchless), both riding extremely well. After Stevens, German Scheimann (Norton) again beat his rival to the line, this time his countryman Lenz (Matchless), while Lee (Matchless) did a similar trick to Marzowski (also Matchless).

Remo Venturi turned up for practice on a revamped Güera four with seven speeds and a new fairing. Beautiful looking thing that it was, it produced rather mediocre practice times, so Venturi did not start. ■