The 1963 championship was a ten-race series, with the best six scores counting towards the title. Jim Clark and Lotus had been beaten into second place in both the Drivers' and the Constructors' championship in 1962, and there had been a lot of activity since. Both Porsche and Bowmaker-Yeoman decided to withdraw; Porsche's withdrawal left Dan Gurney free to drive for the Brabham team, and the end of Bowmaker-Yeoman meant that John Surtees was open to offers. He joined Ferrari.
It was a period of change for Ferrari. Engineer Carlo Chiti left at the end of the 1962 season and set up his own team, ATS, and several Ferrari people went with him, including drivers Phil Hill and Giancarlo Baghetti. It wasn't successful; the V-8 cars the team put out were poor and neither Hill nor Baghetti took a single point in the 1963 series. The new team lasted a year.
"Seven wins out often for Clark"
On the track Clark came first in seven of the ten races, and looking at the three races he failed to win shows how his domination could have been even greater. One was the opening race at Monaco, where he was leading from Graham Hill, then spun off with a seized gearbox. Hill went on to win, the first of what would be five Monaco successes in a row. On the other two occasions where Clark missed out he was similarly unlucky. He was hampered by a misfiring engine at the Nurburgring but managed to finish second, behind Surtees. Clark's misfortune helped Surtees to a breakthrough first championship victory, and gave Ferrari its first success since Monza two years earlier. At Watkins Glen Clark lost a lap and a half in the pits with battery trouble, yet still managed to finish third. Graham Hill took the race from his team-mate Ritchie Ginther.
"The Flying Scot"
After Monaco, Clark recorded four straight wins: Spa, Zandvoort, Reims and Silverstone. The Dutch race possibly best epitomised the level of Clark's performance. He was fastest in practice, led the race from start to finish — lapping the entire field in the process — and became the first man to lap the Zandvoort circuit at over loomph. He secured the title with three races still to go. Among the others, Surtees could consider himself rather unlucky. Apart from his win in Germany, he had got a fourth place at Monaco, third at Zandvoort and second at Silverstone — where he passed Hill on the last lap, the 1962 champion running out of fuel desperately close to the finish. However, Surtees failed to finish in any of the last four races, and had to be content with fourth place in the championship, on 22 points.
"Best of his era"
Hill also had his share of bad luck. He finished in just six races, the two victories at Monaco and Watkins Glen, plus three third places and a fourth in Mexico. BRM introduced their own monocoque design during the season, hoping to emulate the brilliant success of the Lotus 25, but the new car handled badly and Hill was forced to revert to the old model. He ended the year on 29 points, 25 behind Clark's maximum points haul of 54. This was only the second time in the history of the event that such a feat had been achieved, and when Ascari recorded his maximum in 1952, it was the best four finishes out of eight. Clark was well on his way to his reputation as the greatest racing driver of his era.
1963 Drivers Championship
1. Jim Clark - 54
2. Graham Hill - 33
3. Ritchie Ginther - 29
1963 Constructors Title
1. Lotus - 54
2. BRM - 36
3. Brabham - 28
