April 7, 1968 – the bleakest of bleak days in a motorsport era darkened by hundreds of them. Jimmy Clark, the greatest driver of his time – maybe of any time – perished when, in circumstances surrounded by speculation rather than fact, his Formula 2 Lotus slid off the Hockenheim track at 140mph and struck a tree. The pretty car fractured in an ugly manner, right at the cockpit, and a million hearts were broken as the worst possible news emerged.
Yet in figurative terms, Jimmy Clark remains one of racing’s true immortals, and some of his records stand to this day. For example, eight times in a World Championship grand prix, he took pole, led every lap, set fastest lap and won. (His nearest challengers for this record are Michael Schumacher and Alberto Ascari who achieved the feat five times.) And still no one has spent as long as Clark heading the pack over a single season. His Lotus 25 led more than 71 percent of all laps in the 1963 season.
Jim Clark to be honored at Brickyard Invitational
Jimmy’s tally of 25 wins, 33 pole positions and 28 fastest laps from 72 world championship grands prix is awesome enough, but in an era where there was a plethora of non-championship F1 races – many of them containing grids almost as deep in quality as the points-paying events – Clark scored a further 19 wins!
So let’s celebrate a brilliant career with some of LAT’s finest images of Mr. James Clark.
ABOVE: The British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1965 was one of six wins for Clark in his second championship season. He missed one of the 10 races, Monaco, because he was over this side of the Atlantic, winning the Indianapolis 500.
BELOW: After wins in his own Sunbeam Mk III, and then a DKW and a Porsche 356 owned by his friend Ian Scott-Watson, Clark proved in 1958 that he could handle serious amounts of power in a seriously quick car, the Jaguar D-type. He scored 12 wins in this Border Reivers-entered car.
BOTTOM: Coming to the attention of Colin Chapman at Brands Hatch on Dec. 26, 1958. Here, in identical Lotus Elites, Clark leads his future team boss, who only got back in front after Jimmy was baulked by a spinning backmarker in the closing laps. Chapman was an excellent driver, so knew how good Clark must be to have worked him that hard. It was also Jimmy’s first visit to Brands Hatch.
(ABOVE) In a Lotus Elite again, this time finishing second in class in the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours. The following year, Clark would return, racing in the premier class, sharing an Aston Martin DBR1 with the ’59 winner, Roy Salvadori. They would finish third overall.
(BELOW) Jimmy’s open-wheel debut came in Formula Junior in December ’59. Here, in a front-engined Gemini, he battles Ian Burgess’s rear-engined Cooper.
(BOTTOM) And just a year later, Clark was a Team Lotus driver in Formula 1! He finished fifth in both his second and third grands prix, while here at Oporton in Portugal, he scored his first top-three finish in the Lotus 18.
(ABOVE) Even by 1961, Jimmy could drive anything fast. Here he demonstrates the limits of an Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato at Goodwood, on his way to fourth place.
(BELOW) Four non-championship F1 wins in ’61 and two in ’62 preceded this moment – Clark’s first world championship grand prix victory, at Spa in ’62. He’d go on to clinch two more to finish second in the title standings that year, and would also add three more non-points wins later that year. Truly, he had arrived.
(BOTTOM) Normally in the British Saloon Car series, Clark campaigned a Lotus Cortina (he won the title in 1964) but on this occasion, in August ’63 at Brands Hatch, he got his hands on a mighty Ford Galaxie. He started from the middle of the front row and won. That’s Jack Sears in the polesitting Galaxie, while Graham Hill, who’d finish second, is pedaling the Jaguar Mk II.
(ABOVE) 1963 – seven wins, seven poles from 10 races for Clark. Here at the championship finale at East London in South Africa, Jimmy has just lapped teammate Trevor Taylor. His closest opposition this race was the Brabham of Dan Gurney.
(BELOW) Clark suffered horrible luck at Monaco. Here in ’64, he set pole positon for the third consecutive year, but a broken anti-roll bar necessitated a pit stop. In the final laps, he dropped from second to fourth following engine failure.
(ABOVE) Winning the Indianapolis 500 on his third attempt in the gorgeous Lotus 38 turned Clark into a legend at the Speedway. Be sure to read Robin Miller’s touching tribute to Jimmy’s Indy adventures in the latest issue of RACER.
(BELOW) The French Grand Prix at the amazing Clermont-Ferrand circuit saw Clark race the Lotus 25 in a World Championship race for the final time. In all other GPs that season, he campaigned the faster Lotus 33, scoring five other wins and the title.
(ABOVE) Between them, Jackie Stewart, Clark and Graham Hill scored seven F1 World Championships and 66 Grand Prix wins. Here they’re pictured at Monaco in ’66, where Clark took pole and Stewart won.
(BELOW) Watkins Glen in ’66. Amazingly it was the reliable Repco engine of polesitter and new World Champion Jack Brabham which expired in the ’66 US Grand Prix, while the leaky and peaky H16 BRM engine in Clark’s Lotus 43 survived the full distance, allowing Jimmy to score his only win of the season. The Watkins Glen flag-waver looks as surprised as everyone else.
(BOTTOM) Had it not been for some new-engine bugs – and the Cosworth DFV’s later-than-intended arrival – Clark would have been 1967 World Champion in the mighty Lotus 49. Here he wins the British Grand Prix for the fifth and final time.
(ABOVE) The first race of the 1968 Formula 1 season, at Kyalami on New Year’s Day, was the last world championship event in which Team Lotus ran in its traditional green and yellow. Tragically, too, it was the last grand prix for Jimmy Clark. So it was fitting that he would sign off with pole position, fastest lap and victory – his 25th, breaking Juan Manuel Fangio’s 11-year-old record.
(BELOW) Clark in the Lotus 48 Formula 2 car at Hockenheim that fateful weekend…
(BOTTOM)…But we can remember him this way, too. The all-time great racer as a farmer at a sheep sale in the Scottish Border country in 1963, the year of his first World Championship.
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