Talk:1963 French Grand Prix

Graham Hill Disqualification

I'm curious to know why Graham Hill was skipped in the points, not excluded. According to David Hodges' book "The French Grand Prix" (and mentioned in this article), the French GP regulations stated the penalty for push starting is a one minute penalty, whereas the Commission Sportive Internationale (who organised the World Championship) penalty is disqualification. Why then were points allocated based on finishing positions, and THEN exclude Hill, not exclude Hill then allocated points? On the official F1 website there is just the same info as here, presented without explanation, so I wonder if any other references score this race differently? A7V2 (talk) 03:58, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

grandprix.com gives Hill's race time as "2h13m08.200s" (= 2 minutes 13.9 behind Clark, rather than 1 minute 13.9 behind Clark, as it says in this article) and says "The race itself began in chaotic fashion as the local officials decided on their own version of the F1 rules and so Graham Hill, who had stalled on the grid, was allowed to start from his usual position rather than at the back of the field. ... This put G Hill into second but the BRM was in difficulties with a slipping clutch and on the penultimate lap Maggs passed him to take second place. It was later decided that Hill should be allowed to keep his position but he was not given the points because of his push-start.". DH85868993 (talk) 04:38, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

The current version of the official F1 website also shows Hill as being 2 minutes 13.9 behind Clark, as opposed to the archived version (which is used as the reference in the article), which shows him as 1 minutes 13.9 behind. DH85868993 (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed the time discrepancy. The times shown with Hill +1:13.9 is how he finished, without including the time penalty. David Hodge also lists the time as 2h13m08.2. In this book, and also an article on the motorsport magazine archive, it mentions that the starter/race director Raymond Roche say Hill with his arm up around a minute before the start, and decided that rather than have the other cars all need to go around him (as was official practice) he would allow the mechanics to push start, then push the car back onto the grid, but receive a 1 minute time penalty. The book also mentions that G Hill was disqualified according to the championship rules, which is why I was wondering why he wasn't skipped like any other disqualified car in a race (giving Brabham 4 points for 3rd etc).

An extra point is that both the book and the magazine article mention that Raymond Roche "for reasons known only to himself" actually started the race by waving a red flag, not a French flag, to which the drivers should have all switched their engines off, but all ignored! A7V2 (talk) 05:12, 8 January 2019 (UTC)