The 13th Syracuse Grand Prix was a motor race, run to Formula One rules, held on 12 April 1964 at Syracuse Circuit, Sicily. The race was run over 40 laps of the circuit, reduced from the original race distance of 56 laps due to bad weather, after lobbying from Jo Bonnier on behalf of the GPDA. The race was won easily by British driver John Surtees in a Ferrari 158.
Jo Siffert was injured in a crash during the practice sessions, in which he rolled his Lotus 24.
During the race, Peter Arundell's Lotus developed gearbox trouble, and he swapped cars with Mike Spence. Arundell took the healthy Lotus to third place after a close fight with Lorenzo Bandini, while Spence retired the other one soon after the swap.
Results Pos Driver Entrant Constructor Time/Retired Grid 1 John Surtees SEFAC Ferrari Ferrari 1.19:51.8 2 2 Lorenzo Bandini SEFAC Ferrari Ferrari + 37.3 1 3 Mike Spence / Peter Arundell Team Lotus Lotus-Climax + 37.4 13 4 Jo Bonnier Rob Walker Racing Team Cooper-Climax + 1:09.2 6 5 Chris Amon Reg Parnell Racing Lotus-BRM + 1:19.4 4 6 Masten Gregory Scuderia Centro Sud BRM 39 laps 12 7 Mike Hailwood Reg Parnell Racing Lotus-BRM 39 laps 3 8 Ian Raby Ian Raby (Racing) Brabham-BRM 36 laps 7 9 Jackie Epstein Epstein-Eyre Racing Team BRM 33 laps 14 Ret Jean-Claude Rudaz Fabre Urbain Cooper-Climax Suspension 10 Ret Giancarlo Baghetti Scuderia Centro Sud BRM Electrics 15 Ret Peter Arundell / Mike Spence Team Lotus Lotus-Climax Gearbox 11 Ret André Pilette Equipe Scirocco Belge Scirocco-Climax Gear linkage 8 Ret Peter Revson Revson Racing (America) Lotus-BRM Accident 9 DNS Jo Siffert Siffert Racing Team Lotus-BRM Practice accident (5) DNQ André Wicky André Wicky Lotus-BRM - WD Carel Godin de Beaufort Ecurie Maarsbergen Porsche - WD Bob Anderson DW Racing Enterprises Brabham-Climax Car not delivered -
The first session practice times for Arundell and Spence were disallowed as punishment for missing scrutineering. The first session was dry, and the second was wet, so their times in the wet resulted in their low grid positions.
References "The Grand Prix Who's Who", Steve Small, 1995. "The Formula One Record Book", John Thompson, 1974. Race results at www.silhouet.com