Dan Gurney won the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on June 18, 1967, driving an Eagle built by his own team. He started second, chased down Jackie Stewart’s BRM with a new lap record, and took the lead on lap 21 of 28. It turned out to be the Eagle’s one and only Grand Prix victory.
The timing made it even bigger. A week earlier, Gurney had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with A.J. Foyt. So in the space of two weekends, an American driver had won the world’s most famous endurance race and then a Grand Prix in a car of his own design.
Spa was the right stage for it. SPEED SPORT recalls that the daunting road circuit carried the label of the fastest track in Europe. A win there demanded speed and nerve in equal measure.
The Eagle behind the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix win
Gurney’s team, All American Racers, came out of a push from Goodyear and Carroll Shelby to design and build cars for Indianapolis. According to SPEED SPORT’s account of the race, the Formula 1 Eagle was an Indy-car-based design “of his own design and construction.” That is the car the headline refers to: an Eagle that Gurney’s own operation designed and built.
The engine came from England. SPEED SPORT describes it as a three-liter V12 with four valves per cylinder, designed by Aubrey Woods and built in Rye. In the results it appears as the Weslake V12, and the chassis that won at Spa carried the type name T1G.
Practice showed the car had pace. Jim Clark put his new Lotus 49 on pole, while Gurney and Graham Hill joined him on the front row, according to the Motor Sport magazine race report. Clark’s best practice lap was 3 minutes 28.1 seconds, or about 151 mph. Meanwhile, Stewart’s BRM qualified only sixth.
Clark’s lead and Stewart’s struggle
The 28-lap race started at 3:30 in the afternoon. Clark took off in front, and by lap 10 he led Stewart by 21 seconds, according to Motor Sport’s July 1967 report. Then trouble struck the Lotus. On lap 12 its Cosworth V8 ran on seven cylinders because a spark plug had broken apart.
The misfire cost Clark his lead. Later, a second plug failed and his clutch stopped working properly. As a result, he was left with only third and fifth gears and finished a lap down in sixth.
That handed the lead to Stewart. However, the BRM had its own problem. The link between the gear lever and the gearbox selector failed. Motor Sport says Stewart had to hold the lever in place with one hand and steer with the other, at Spa of all places.
The lap record that caught Stewart
Gurney now had a target. At the end of lap 14, he sat 14 seconds behind Stewart. Then he started taking about four seconds a lap out of the BRM, according to Motor Sport. During that chase he set a new lap record at Spa. SPEED SPORT puts the record lap at 148.590 mph.
The gap closed fast. On lap 21 the two cars ran side by side past the pits. Gurney then took the lead on the climb toward Burnenville. “I got back by Stewart and went all the way,” he said later, as SPEED SPORT quotes him.
After that, Gurney pulled clear. The official times listed on OldRacingCars.com show him finishing in 1 hour 40 minutes 49.4 seconds. Stewart came home second, 63 seconds behind. Ferrari’s Chris Amon was third, and Jochen Rindt took fourth in a Cooper-Maserati.
Why the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix still stands out
SPEED SPORT calls it the first time an American driver had won a Grand Prix in an American-built car since Jimmy Murphy. The same account calls the win the first, and still the only, time an American driver won in Formula 1 in a car of his own design and construction. In other words, Gurney did something no American has repeated.
The result also capped a remarkable run for the tire supplier. Motor Sport notes that Goodyear-shod cars had won at Indianapolis, Le Mans and Spa on consecutive weekends. Gurney, of course, had shared the Le Mans win the weekend before Spa.
The Eagle-Weslake T1G that won at Spa was chassis number 104, according to OldRacingCars.com. GrandPrix.com notes that the Belgian race would be the Eagle’s one and only Grand Prix victory. It came on June 18, 1967, by 63 seconds over Jackie Stewart.
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