Jim Clark

[Luke36]

Probabilmente il 1965 fu la sua migliore annata !

Nel filmato le vittorie di Nà¼rburgring, Indianapolis e Spa-Francorchamps.

[Luke36]

La prima vittoria di Jim a Spa - 1962. Il vecchio Spa era incredibile ! Fantastico vedere ed ascoltare la descrizione del tracciato. Che flemma

[duvel]

Watkins Glen 1967

Christchurch 1968

Warwick Farm 1968, con Hill

[Andrea Gardenal]

Un classico esempio di "maledizione" che colpisce un pilota su un determinato tracciato.

1961: Alla sua prima partecipazione a Montecarlo, Clark ottiene la prima fila, con un tempo di soli 5 decimi più alto rispetto a quello del poleman Moss. Parte bene, al primo giro è secondo, ma un problema alla pompa della benzina lo costringe a una lunghissima sosta ai box: perde una decina di giri per le riparazioni e riparte ultimo: porterà  comunque a termine la gara, con 11 giri di ritardo dal primo, Stirling Moss, in decima posizione.

1962: In qualifica Clark fa segnare il nuovo record del tracciato di Montecarlo in 1'35"4, abbassando di quasi un secondo il record di Moss che risaliva al 1960. Al via parte male, e viene risucchiato in sesta posizione, mentre Gurney, Ginther e Trintignant vengono coinvolti in un incidente. Clark supera Bandini, Phil Hill, Jack Brabham e Bruce McLaren, portandosi in seconda posizione, dietro al leader Graham Hill, dopo soli 28 giri e cominciando a recuperare secondi su di lui. Al 56° giro però, quando ormai era negli scarichi della BRM del suo avversario, la frizione cedette e fu costretto al ritiro. Paradossalmente anche Hill fu costretto al ritiro, a soli 8 giri dal termine per il cedimento del motore. L'unica soddisfazione per Clark fu quella del giro più veloce della gara.

1963: Nuova pole e nuovo record della pista per Jim Clark, che abbassa di un altro secondo il record da lui stesso stabilito l'anno prima, girando in 1'34"3. Ancora una volta, però, Clark parte male, e al termine del primo giro è solo terzo, dietro alle 2 BRM di Hill e Ginther. Al 18° giro riesce a portarsi in testa, dopo aver superato i suoi 2 avversari, e comincia una cavalcata trionfale, destinata però ad interrompersi al 79° dei 100 giri previsti per la rottura del cambio. Graham Hill eredita così la vittoria sul circuito del Principato, la prima delle 5 da lui ottenute in carriera.

1964: Come negli ultimi 2 anni, Clark ottiene ancora una volta la pole e il record della pista, girando in 1'34"0 (tempo battuto per un decimo in gara da Graham Hill). Questa volta Jim parte bene e riesce a portarsi subito al comando, ma fin dai primi giri di gara la barra antirollio posteriore della sua Lotus ha cominciato a strisciare lungo la pista, trattenuta solo da un sottile cavo, che rischiava di spezzarsi da un momento all'altro. Temendo una squalifica, al 37° giro Colin Chapman chiama al box il suo pilota, dove viene strappato il pezzo penzolante: Jim riparte in terza posizione, dietro a Gurney e Graham Hill. Al 62° giro guadagna la seconda posizione per il ritiro di Gurney, fermato da problemi al cambio, ma Hill è ormai irraggiungibile, anche in virtù del problema tecnico alla sua Lotus. A 4 giri dalla fine la beffa finale, col ritiro causato da un guasto al motore. Jim viene comunque classificato al quarto posto. Sarà  il suo unico arrivo a punti nella gara monegasca.

1966: Impegnato nella 500 Miglia, Clark salta la gara del 1965. Si arriva così al 1966, e ad una nuova pole, la quarta nel Principato: è una pole speciale: per la prima volta un pilota riesce a percorrere un giro a Montecarlo in un tempo inferiore a 1'30", in particolare 1'29"9. Il record della pista era detenuto da Graham Hill, che l'anno prima in gara aveva girato in 1'31"7. In gara Bandini riuscirà  a scendere fino a 1'29"8. La partenza è ancora una volta sfortunata per Clark: problemi al cambio, infatti, lo relegano in 16^ e ultima posizione. Jim però non si perde d'animo: dopo 8 giri ha già  passato Ginther, Bonnier, Bondurant, Ligier, Siffert, McLaren, Spence e Brabham e, approfittando anche del ritiro di Anderson, riesce a risalire fino in 7^ posizione. Al 15° passaggio è addirittura 5°, dopo i problemi che hanno rallentato Hulme (albero di trasmissione) e Surtees (differenziale), che era al comando, costringendoli al ritiro. Al 37° giro lo scozzese riesce a issarsi in quarta posizione, sorpassando Rindt: davanti a lui ci sono solo Stewart, Bandini e Graham Hill. Al 61° giro l'ennesima beffa: il cedimento di una sospensione costringe Clark al ritiro.

1967: L'ultima partecipazione di Clark a Montecarlo non si apre certo nel migliore dei modi: le qualifiche vanno male, e Clark è solo 5°, in terza fila, a 1"2 dal poleman Brabham. Per l'ennesima Clark si trova costretto a compiere una rimonta da fondo gruppo: al secondo giro, infatti, scivola sull'olio lasciato dal motore Repco della vettura di Brabham alla chicane del porto (la stessa macchia che ha tradito anche il povero Bandini pochi secondi prima), perdendo parecchio tempo per raddrizzare la macchina. Clark si trova così in 13^ posizione dopo due soli giri, ma in una dozzina di passaggi riesce a risalire fino alla quinta posizione: supera Courage, Rodriguez, Spence, Amon e Graham Hill (suo compagno di squadra), e approfitta dei ritiri di Gurney, Stewart e Rindt. Al 29° giro supera Surtees, che ha grossi problemi al suo motore Honda, e si porta in quarta posizione. Ma al 42° giro cede un ammortizzatore della sua Lotus, costringendolo per l'ennesima volta al ritiro, nel giorno della tragedia di Bandini. Questo sarà  l'ultimo GP di Monaco per Jim Clark: undici mesi dopo morirà  a Hockenheim, al volante di una Lotus di Formula 2.

[sundance76]

Aggiungerei che nel '64, con la menomazione della barra posteriore staccata, Clark fa il giro più veloce fino a quel momento della gara.

E nel '66, se non ricordo male, aveva un motore 2000 contro i 3000 della Ferrari, della Brabham-Repco, della Cooper-Maserati e della BRM.

Se il circuito può aiutare un risultato del genere, va detto che Clark ripeterà  l'exploit anche al GP d'Olanda a Zandvoort: pole position con motore 2000 e riuscirà  a stare in testa alla gara fino a un problema di surriscaldamento al motore...

[Luke36]

Perfetto Andre92 !!! Si Sun, Clark aveva un 2000 nel '66.

[Luke36]

by Murray Walker

[Luke36]

Alla fine dello scorso anno, la BBC ha creato una rubrica, curata da esperti del settore (in particolare Murray Walker e Andrew Benson), per redigere una sorta di classifica dei più grandi piloti del passato. Non serve stare qui a dire se la classifica rispecchi o meno la verità  (che nessuno avrà  mai), ma a me è piaciuto il taglio che è stato dato per ogni singolo pilota. Molto ma molto ben fatto. Posto quello su Clark. Enjoy.

Formula 1's greatest drivers. Number 3: Jim Clark

This year, BBC Sport is profiling 20 of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time. The BBC F1 team were asked to provide their own personal top 20s, which were combined to produce a BBC list. Veteran commentator Murray Walker provides his own reflections in a video of their career highlights, and chief F1 writer Andrew Benson profiles the driver. This week, number three - Jim Clark

Jim Clark hated Spa. Even in its truncated modern form, the Belgian Grand Prix track is an extreme examination of man and machine, but back in Clark's era it was something else again.

At nine miles, it was more than twice its current length, with an average speed even in the early '60s of more than 130mph.

Then as now, it included some of the most testing corners on the planet. Eau Rouge was a far greater challenge than it is in the modern era, when the cars take it flat out, downforce ruling all.

But even Eau Rouge paled compared to the Masta Kink - a left-right between houses, flat-out at 160mph for only the very brave and very skilled.

It wasn't that Clark could not handle Spa; far from it. He was the greatest driver of his era by far. But he thought it dangerous in the extreme.

In the 1960 race, only Clark's second grand prix, Stirling Moss - whose mantle as the best of his time Clark would soon inherit - was badly injured in a crash in qualifying at the fast Burnenville right-hander.

Jim Clark factfile

Born: 4 March 1936 in Fife, Scotland

Died: 7 April 1968 aged 32

Races: 73

Wins: 25

First race: 1960 Dutch Grand Prix

First win: 1962 Belgian Grand Prix

Last win: 1968 South African Grand Prix

Last race: 1968 South African Grand Prix

In the grand prix the next day, Clark very nearly ran over the beheaded body of Chris Bristow, killed in a crash at the same corner. Later in the race, Clark's team-mate Alan Stacey was killed at Malmedy.

These memories never left Clark, but a sense of his skill and commitment can be seen in the fact that he never let it affect his driving. Despite his aversion to the place, he won at Spa four times on the trot from 1962-5.

Among those victories was one that counts among his very best - and therefore, because of Clark's stature, among the greatest drives of all time.

Starting the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix only eighth in horrendously wet conditions, Clark quickly moved to the front. By the end of the race, only Jack Brabham had managed to stay on the same lap - and he was nearly five minutes behind.

In 1967, the Lotus 49, its powerful Cosworth engine in a league of its own, was the fastest car. But it was far from easy to drive. Yet at the German Grand Prix that year Clark was on pole by nine seconds.

Performances like that left no doubt in the minds of Clark's rivals about his status. He was out on his own, and they knew it.

"Jimmy was a demi-God," says Jean-Pierre Beltoise. "He was the best driver among us at that time."

Jackie Stewart, remembering a string of races in which he finished second to Clark, says: "We became known as Batman and Robin. And there was no doubt who was Batman and who was Robin."

It is worth taking a little time to appreciate the statistics of Clark's career.

His tally of 25 victories was a record at the time. It has since been surpassed by several other drivers, but none in so few races. Clark's came in just 72 starts, a win ratio surpassed only by Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Likewise, his tally of 33 pole positions was recently passed by Red Bull's Sebsatian Vettel, with only Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna ahead. But in percentage terms, Clark is ahead of them all. He was on pole for 45.2% of his races - only Fangio, on 55.8%, did better.

Those numbers give a sense of how Clark towered over his era, a period when he made many grands prix mind-numbingly boring, so completely did he and his Lotus dominate them. Yes, the Lotus was often the best car, but Clark's supremacy was not in doubt.

His two titles in 1963 and 1965 were exercises in crushing superiority, and he would have won in 1964 and 1967 as well had it not been for the notoriously poor reliability of Lotus's cars.

And if it had not been for Clark, Lotus may well not have won as many races as they did. Alongside his speed, Clark also had a rare ability to drive around problems. His smooth style took so little out of the car, a crucial skill with machinery as fragile as his.

The son of a farmer in the Scottish borders, Clark was a humble, quietly spoken man. But he had a dry wit, and he was well aware of the level of his ability.

A favourite anecdote is of a time Stewart was telling of a terrifying moment he had had when his throttle stuck open at Monza's Curva Grande - now just a bend in a straight and easily flat out; then a properly challenging high-speed corner.

Stewart related to his audience how he had somehow just made it around. There was a chorus of appreciation. Then, with immaculate timing, Clark said: "Are you saying, Jackie, that you normally lift off there?"

Clark's status among his fellow drivers was such that his death hit them particularly hard. The late 1960s was an era when driver fatalities were commonplace, but Clark was so good no-one thought it could happen to him.

It did, though. He won the first grand prix of 1968, in South Africa, but there was a four-and-a-half-month break between it and the next race in Spain. As was common in those days, Clark filled it by competing in other races.

That is how he ended up driving in a Formula Two race at a wet Hockenheim on 7 April 1968.

The Lotus, on Firestone tyres that were poor in the rain, was uncompetitive, and unusually for him Clark was neither a front-runner nor making ground on those who were.

Then something went wrong at the fast Ostkurve. There were no barriers and Clark's car plunged at full speed into the trees, where he was killed instantly.

For the other drivers, it was more than a shock.

"As well as the grief, there was another dimension altogether," said the New Zealander Chris Amon, who was behind Clark when he had his fatal crash, although he did not see it. "If it could happen to him, what chance did the rest of us have? I think we all felt that. It seemed that we'd lost our leader."

For Stewart, the pain was worse than for most. Even today, when he speaks about it, the anger and sense of monumental loss is barely disguised.

"Jim Clark died almost certainly because of a vehicle failure of some kind," Stewart told the BBC programme, 'Grand Prix, The Killer Years'. "There was no barrier, no fencing in front of a forest. And Jim Clark died violently in a forest, being hit by young trees and big trees alike, and his car was almost totally destroyed. And Jimmy died. It just was inconceivable."

Stewart had by then already started his campaign for increased safety in F1, and the death of his friend underlined to him just what an important task it was.

In the most tragic of circumstances, then, Clark helped define the future of the sport, as well as bestriding like a colossus part of its past.

Modificato January 13, 2013 at 11:58 da Luke36

[Luke36]

Posto questo articolo, ricchissimo di testimonianze su Jim Clark. Davvero molto interessante per capire meglio la personalità  di Clark.

The life of Jim Clark

Taken from the April 1993 issue of Motor Sport

By David Tremayne

The hamlets of Chirnside and Duns nestle into the mellow countryside of Scotland’s Border region, mere miles from the northernmost boundary of England. The homesteads have name such as Mill Farm, West Fouldron, New Mains. Or Jim Clark’s Edington Mains.

This was the haven from which the reluctant racer sallied forth on his forays to the far reaches of the motorsport world – to Zandvoort, Warwick Farm, Surfers Paradise, Mexico City, Indianapolis, Milwaukee. It was the anchor which kept his feet so firmly on the ground. The region that he loved, wherein lived the people that he loved most. The area from which his calling tore him as he indulged his love for the sport at which he was such a consummate master.

Early this month the townsfolk of Duns and Chirnside paid their tribute to their greatest son, in ceremonies to mark the 25^th anniversary of his passing at Hockenheim on April 7 1968.

Once again the conversations turned, as they so often do here, to the brilliance of his star, and the comparisons with Jim Clark and those who went before and who have come since were as inevitable as they were enjoyable. Through it all he stands as he did in life, as a Colossus of the sport whose name will forever be remembered with fondness, not just for what he did, but for what he was. Indeed, the more the sport ‘progresses’ the more Clark’s example continues to shine. To many he remains the greatest racing driver of all time, not just because of his strike rate of 25 Grand Prix victories in only 72 attempts, nor even his Indianapolis 500 success, but because he remained an unspoiled gentleman throughout, the true sporting hero.

Peter Windsor first met Clark in Australia during the Tasman series, as he helped out Geoff Sykes running Warwick Farm. Since then his artistry with a pen or typewriter brought acclaim as a journalist on the international Grand Prix circuit, before he moved into the management side with Williams and, currently, in CART racing. For Windsor Jim Clark was everything. Without question the greatest of all time. The ultimate hero.

“Even now,†he says, “I can’t imagine just how good Jimmy was.†And suddenly you conjure up mental images of what he might have done with a Lotus 72 in 1970. Or 1972 or ’73… Of how many more races he might have won.

“When I was a kid at school,†says Peter, “Jimmy Clark was my life. I addressed envelopes, that sort of thing, for Geoff. Jimmy came out for the 1965 Tasman series and through Geoff I found out what flight he was on from South Africa and I rang Qantas and got the list of passengers – Mr J Clark, Mr P Rodriguez, Mr J Stewart! – and went to meet them at the airport.

“In 1968, after Longford, where Piers Courage won, Jimmy was due to fly back to London and I went to see him off. The plane taxied off and then stopped. Everyone else left, but I hung around to see it take off, and it didn’t. I forget what was wrong but they came back in, and there I was, alone with Jim Clark! We had coffee together and talked for about half an hour. About all sorts of things, although funnily enough I felt like I already knew so much about him I had nothing so say.

“I asked him all sorts of minutiae, like why did he use a dark blue peak on his helmet in Mexico in 1966, instead of the usual white one, and he told me he’d broken the white one the race before and Buco only made dark blue peaks. After a while he had to go, and that was the last time I saw him. Four months later he was killed.â€

Windsor looked after a bank account Clark had opened in Sydney, another indication of the trust Jimmy would place in the people he liked. Later, the journalist would acquire Ian Scott-Watson’s old Lotus Elan when he finally came to England, and he became a regular visitor at Duns.

Today he will talk for hours about his hero, as convinced as ever of his place in history. “Jimmy was my whole life,†says an arch-enthusiast. “I was physically ill when he was killed. It took me a long, long time to get over it.â€

But what made Jim Clark so special? Talk to any of the myriad motorsport people who were closely associated with him, and the same fact emerges. Yes, he won 25 times in his 72 GP starts, started from pole position a record 33 times and set fastest lap in 28 races. The records he set have only recently been beaten. Yes, he scored that Indianapolis 500 victory in 1965, and should have won it in 1963, ’64 and ’66 too. Yet it was not simply that he possessed an innate skill behind the wheel that elevated him to at least an equal standing with the greatest racing drivers of history. Far beyond that he exuded charm and manners that reflected his upbringing. Many thought him shy, but reserved was a better adjective. It was only when he felt relaxed with people that he felt comfortable, when he would really open up. Fundamentally his enormous talent bemused him, and although he unquestionably liked to show off in a car, he never stooped to posturing or boastfulness. Though he won races around the globe, came to meet the glittering and the famous, his feet remained firmly on the ground, his heart in the farmland of the Border region.

Graham Gauld, Clark’s biographer, knew him better than most. “I remember Water Hayes telling me, the day after he won Indianapolis, Jimmy was invited to Ford in Detroit and was taken up to the top floor, the directors’ dining room, and Walter said here was this little guy and he walked in there with some of the most powerful men in America. Henry Ford II, all these people. And in 10 minutes he had them all eating out of his hand. Just by being ordinary! He had no airs and graces about who he talked to.

“J McNeil Brown, a mad character who in the 1956 rally season had me off the road six times as a passenger, left Glasgow and went to America as a stockbroker. And at an American GP he was walking through the paddock and a hand slapped him and voice said, ‘Hello Neil, what the hell are you doing here?’ He said ‘You could have knocked me over with a feather, because here was Jim Clark, the now great Jim Clark, and I wouldn’t have gone to interrupt him, and yet he comes up and claps me on the shoulder.’â€

Clark never lost touch with his friends who had been there in the beginning. He drew strength from those who had been there long before fame overtook him. Gauld concurs with that view.

“Take the first book we did. I should never have written that! He phoned me just after the Mexican Grand Prix and said, ‘I’ve got to write a book. Will you write it for me?’ I said, ‘Don’t be silly. I’m only seeing you about twice a year now. Get so and so to write it, he goes to all the Grands Prix.’ And he’d say, ‘Oh, I don’t trust him. You do it.’ And that was it.

“One of the biggest regrets of my life was that we never wrote the third book. That would have been one of the greatest motor racing books. Originally it was to be done in 1967, but it was the usual cannae make up my mind thing with Jimmy. Leave it just now and I’ll come back to you. And then it was definitely going to be done in 1968. The only thing we had was the title: The First Ten Years Are The Hardest. It was going to be from 1958 to ’68. It wasn’t going to talk about races – and then next we went to so and so. It was going to talk about driving technique, how he thought through things. For example, 1961 season, French Grand Prix at Reims. Trying to keep up with the BRMs. He was having to slipstream like mad, and all this sort of thing. But it was the way he used his brain.â€

Sally Stokes, who was Jimmy’s girlfriend from his first championship year until they parted and she married racer Ed Swart in 1967, still fondly remembers his gentle nature.

“He never really sold himself like Jackie did. His character was totally different. He was just a quieter, more reserved character. He was a gentleman on the track. He cared for the safety of other people.

“Jimmy could cut off, he really could. There were somehow two totally different parts of his life, the driving and the rest of it. His total concentration; I suppose that went into the nail-biting. He’d bite them right down, but otherwise he didn’t show much sign of nerves. When he was out of the car he wasn’t visibly different to anyone else. This is just my own theory, but he went back to his indecisions as soon as he stepped out. As soon as he sat in a car again he was the total master and he never even thought about decisions. He drove with his head and the seat of his pants. Some said he wasn’t all that good as a test driver because he adapted so well to any faults to get the best out of the car.â€

Some suggest that Clark’s only weakness was that he couldn’t take pressure when he wasn’t leading, that he could only really cope when he was out front dictating the pace. At best, they usually point to the 1965 Race of Champions when he crashed under pressure from Dan Gurney to illustrate the former. To this day the American refuses to take any pleasure in the incident, continually playing it down. “Hell, it was the sort of mistake any of us could have made in those circumstances.â€

He looked pretty good in the Tasman Australian GP at Sandown Park in 1968, when he had Chris Amon’s Ferrari on his tail from beginning to end…

Gauld: “I don’t think Jimmy had any weaknesses. He had this amazing capacity to adjust. I think that was maybe his greatest secret. I would never say that was a weakness.

“In qualifying sessions they would often send him out and then bring him in shortly afterwards because they never knew if there was anything wrong with the car. All of a sudden a lap time would go slower, and then all of a sudden it would go faster again. Jimmy had adjusted his driving to whatever problem had arisen.â€

“That’s absolutely right,†confirms former Lotus mechanic Dick Scammell, now Racing Director at Cosworth. At Monaco in 1964 Clark clipped a straw bale on the opening lap and broke the rear anti-roll bar when he was leading. “His lap times went back up a little while he sorted it out,†recalls Dick, “but then he went back to his old times. Of course, we weren’t sure what the problem was, and I was detailed to go down to the hairpin to see if I could see any obvious damage. Well, the second time Jimmy came round after I’d arrived there, he’d picked me out and gave me the thumbs up! He could adjust himself not only to the changed car condition but also to that sort of change, within a lap! He carried on as if nothing had happened.â€

Dave ‘Beaky Sims, now an integral part of Toyota offshoot TOM’s GB but a Lotus mechanic in the ‘60s, has no doubt that that adaptability was a major asset.

“It was his greatest strength. He had an ability to adjust to any situation, even when he knew the car was wrong and there was no time to put it right. It was phenomenal. Once he’d got used to it, his speed was the same! It was unique. Mario Andretti was the only other driver I’ve worked with who could do that, but Jimmy definately had the edge.â€

Gauld again: “There is the other great thing about Jimmy, to continue our theme about him and cars. He did not have a technical mind. Certainly, when he was helping out Ian Scott-Watson he was just polishing the cars. He didn’t have a technical mind. But, he could work things out and that’s why he was so good in underpowered cars. This is another mark of a real champion.â€

At Indy in 1965 Clark was working things out, and was sure that strongest rival AJ Foyt wouldn’t last, ‘because of the way he kept putting bigger fuel tanks in his Lotus. I knew the transmission was going to break on that thing…’

Sims also remembers his calmness, giving further insight into his make-up and development while clearly disagreeing with Gauld’s opinion about his technical knowledge. “He had this ability to interpret what the car was doing. That made it so much easier for Colin Chapman to engineer the car and put it right. Jimmy might come in and say that the front end was washing out, needed more grip, and then he’d say how best to do it. His technical ability and feel for what the car was doing were phenomenal. It was uncanny. Unique. And he knew when something was wrong. He’d feel a slight vibration in the rear and we’d pull the car about and find nothing. He’d insist something was still amiss and later we’d discover a wheel bearing was going, or something like that.â€

“His greatest character strength first of all as a person was that he had what one can call an ethos,†maintains Gauld. “That was the fact that a) he enjoyed his racing and wanted to find out as much as possible about it, and B) that he was willing to ask questions of people. He was never so big that he couldn’t learn from something, and of course that rolls over into his attitude towards cars. And one of his great strengths was that, unlike many other drivers, he could put his hand on his heart and say ‘I have done virtually every form of motorsport’. He had done driving tests, he had done sprints, he had done hillclimbs, he had done rallies, he had done autocrosses, you name it. The lot. And also, right up to the end, he still had this magical quality of seeing a car and wanting to drive it.

Such curiosity led him to try all manner of cars. Shortly before his death he had driven the turbine-powered Lotus 56 at Indianapolis, but a year earlier he had arrived back in Europe to tell his great friend Jabby Crombac of Sport Auto: ‘I have driven the car that is going to win at Indy,’ after sampling the STP Paxton turbine in which Parnelli Jones would come so close to victory. He jumped at the chance to drive a Bugatti Type 51, and then the Hon Patrick Lindsay was highly impressed when Jimmy tried his ERA at Rouen one year. He had grabbed the offer to drive it, and astonished Lindsay by lapping very little slower than he could within a handful of laps. The Englishman always maintained that was something very special, for Clark had never driven such a car before and was totally unfamiliar with its pre-selector gearbox.

The best indices of a man are frequently most obvious when he faces adversity rather than success. In triumph Jim Clark remained a gentleman; when the cards fell the other way his equanimity was unaffected.

Sims: “I never really saw him get mad. He could get uptight with the Old Man, and say, ‘Look, I told you you should have done this,’ then he’d go out and prove the old man wrong. He was a gentleman, and even when things were bad he didn’t get in a flap. So no one else ever did. That way we could get the job done. He was so approachable; out of his driving suit you’d never think he was connected with racing.â€

Towards the end of his life there were indications that Jim Clark was becoming more cosmopolitan, and also that he was beginning to emerge from the shadow of Colin Chapman.

“Jimmy was a highly introverted man,†recalls Jackie Stewart. “He ate his fingers, not just the nails but all the skin around them too. But living in Paris near the end changed his life quite a lot. He became more liberated, more worldly and rounded.

“Colin had protected Jimmy from everything. He could depend on Colin to do everything for him, to fix his racing cars, to do his travel, because Lotus did that. Jabby was his racing and Chapman link, but a guy called Michel Fanquel was another friend, a totally different animal. He opened the world to Jimmy. And suddenly Jimmy was not the border farmer depending on Colin.

“And you know, I saw it, the change. I mean, he was a different man. He was more independant, more vocal about what he wanted. And I think Colin was going to have more and more trouble with him.â€

Perhaps Enzo Ferrari saw a change too, even if he did misinterpret its signals. Gauld has his own thoughts after a recent conversation with journalist and former Ferrari team manager Franco Lini. “Well, here’s a thing I don’t think anyone else knows. I was with Franco last year and he came up with a interesting story. At the Mexican Grand Prix in 1967 an English journalist had said to him: ‘You know, Jim Clark isn’t wedded totally to Lotus.’ And Franco said to me, ‘I went straight away and phoned Enzo Ferrari. And Ferrari had replied: ‘Ah, I know that Jim Clark is in negotiation with Colin Chapman about his contract. Maybe he wants to use this to raise the stakes.’â€

That, of course, was totally against Clark’s style. It would no more have occurred to him to play one team against another than it would to have abandoned farming. He just wasn’t that sort of character.

“Franco was trying to point out that that was the sort of way Enzo Ferrari looked at it! And he said that Ferrari would never have believed him if he had told him that it was not in Jimmy’s character to have behaved that way.â€

Another great pointer to Jim Clark’s character was his decision in 1966 to do the RAC Rally, in which he shared a works Lotus Cortina with respected driver Brian Melia. “You know, the people who respected it most were the Swedes,†says Gauld. “The Swedish drivers, literally, had a little laugh to themselves because they had seen people like Graham Hill try. In fact, on that RAC Rally, I went for breakfast on the first halt with Jimmy and Brian at Bathgate. Naturally one of the first things I asked was how they got on, and Jimmy said: ‘Brian should have been driving the car on the first few stages, he’s far quicker than me. I’m getting used to it now’. Which I thought was a nice thing to say.

“The second thing I said to him, was ‘How about Graham Hill? And he said, ‘He’s just playing at it. What does he mean, by going on the RAC Rally, in a works Mini Cooper, and taking a bloody journalist? It’s obvious, isn’t it? If you’re going to do a thing like this you might as well do it professionally. That’s why I’ve got Brian with me’. He was totally dismissive of Graham’s attitude towards the rally. In other words Graham was using it purely for publicity and ‘I’ll show these Swedish buggers.’ Because British rally drivers in those days were not competitive with the Scandinavians.â€

In fact, Clark was highly competitive. He and Melia were rarely out of the top 10 stage times, and he was fastest on three, second fastest on seven, third on four and fourth on five. On the 40^th, in Loch Achray, he went off sideways and inflicted severe damage to the driver’s side of the car, then after repairs, they rolled on the 45^th, Glengap, and had to walk off stage when a ditch prevented further progress. “We tripped over the border,†he said laconically. And so they actually had!

“I remember the winner Bengt Soderstrom afterwards saying to me, ‘I never knew Jim Clark was as good as that’†recalled Gauld. “And I pointed out to him that he had been brought up on all these little link roads around here.

“If you look at the photographs of the mess he made of the Lotus Cortina, nobody would have got back into it, but he had carried on until he put it off the road again. And then, the point that is overlooked, once he did that they lent him a private car and he followed round helping the service crew. That has to make the guy a little different, because he had now been twice World Champion by that time – and an Indy winner.â€

The American classic, to me, was one of the best indices of his talent, for he was quick from the moment he first drove there in 1962 with the F1 Lotus 25 on the way back from the American GP at Watkins Glen. He was unimpressed with the mandatory rookie test, but did it nonetheless, staggering USAC observers by hitting the exact speeds required at each stage. “The only problem was when the car wobbled a bit exiting Turn Four one lap,†says Scammell. “They tried to make a fuss but Jimmy just said calmly, ‘Didn’t you see that rabbit that ran across the track? I didn’t want to hit it.’â€

The same turn would cause him to astound officialdom again in 1966, when he twice looped through 360 degree spins there without contacting the wall, and then promptly continued as if nothing had happened! On one, indeed, Jimmy was sufficiently composed to gesture to a passing Stewart as he motored along the infield prepared to rejoin. It was astounding presence of mind.

Clark hated all the ballyhoo of Indy, and the way complete strangers acted as if they knew him personally. “They’d say ‘Hiya Jimmy, nice to know ya,’†said Sally, “but he would say, ‘But they don’t know me, and they probably never will!’ Nevertheless, he liked the race. “Oh, he loved that all right,†said Sims. “He hated the hype but he loved racing there. And to the USAC people he was a demi-God. I worked in American racing for five years, and they still remember him fondly there.†Jimmy himself was honest enough to say of the Brickyard: ‘Every lap I was in the lead I could see dollar signs in front of my eyes!â€

As a driver he was the rare sort who did not need his entire range of mental faculties in order to drive fast. There was always something left over for emergencies. Gauld recalls a thought process Jimmy once explained to him which illustrated the point to perfection.

“It was when Innes was still being naughty about Jimmy. The Italian Grand Prix, Monza, 1964. Jimmy was in the lead, being harried by Dan Gurney in the Brabham. Really harried. They came up to lap Innes at the corner just at the end of the straight, and Jimmy did the usual, you know, stuck his nose in. And Innes wasn’t having that and boomf! he just cut right across. And Jimmy pulled back. He said, ‘I went round the rest of the lap thinking what I was going to do. I had Dan right behind me. The next time we came into the corner I just sat right back and watched Innes and waited until I saw him glance in his mirrors. As soon as he glanced in them I just lifted off, and of course Dan shot right past me and went for the inside, and Innes saw a nosecone coming up the inside. He thought it was me and chopped across again, but of course nobody does that to Dan Gurney. And while both of them were wobbling I went round the outside.’

“Now that, to me, that’s using your head. And in that respect, no matter what people may say about him, I think that’s the way Prost thinks.†Indeed, of the current breed of superstar drivers, the French triple champion has always seemed to me the only absolute top-liner who drives the way Clark did, respecting his rivals, and giving them racing room. His driving, like Jimmy’s is majestic, unruffled. Deceptively fast, and totally devoid of the intimidatory tactics of Senna or Mansell. Prost doesn’t usually crash into his rivals, which is perhaps why the Bernie Ecclestones of the world regard him as boring, bad for television rating. Unlike Mansell and Senna he’s not a box office draw in that respect. It’s sad to think that if Jimmy Clark could come back, he might be regarded the same way.

Monza, of course, was also the scene earlier of his horrible accident with championship leader Wolfgang von Trips in 1961. Indirectly, it was to influence Jimmy’s thinking about the press, as well as thoroughly shaking him up.

When they touched von Trips’ Ferrari went tail-first up the bank and into the spectators, while Jimmy’s Lotus just spun. Fourteen spectators died, along with von Trips whose body was hurled on to the track. Clark knew instantly that the German count was dead.

“What worried him were the legal implications, because the police immediately impounded the car and he was really worried about all that. And then when he flew home he had this thing. He was very, very low about it and there was this carry-on with a Daily Express reporter and photographer who were at the farm when he got back.â€

Clark’s relationship with the media was generally cordial, however. He was an avid reader of all that was written about him, and a stickler for accuracy. During 1963, in the interest of the latter, he also initiated post-race conferences of the type we all now take for granted.

Sally Swart spoke on the phone with Jimmy shortly before the accident. “He was probably talking about retiring and I can’t remember what I was saying, but then he said, ‘Well, what if I died? What if I got killed on the track?’ And I was so surprised and so jolted, because he’d never even mentioned it before in all the years. And I was wondering if he actually thought about it and was considering retiring at the time.â€

When he was killed, the sport cried genuine tears. At Jimmy’s funeral his father told arch-rival Dan Gurney that he had been the only driver Jimmy truly feared. Gurney never forgot that remark, but typically kept it to himself for many years. Nobody ever paid another driver a higher compliment.

“It destroyed me, really, in terms of my self control,†says Dan. “I was drowned in tears. To hear that from someone whose son had been killed and wasn’t there anymore, it was more than I could cope with. For a long time I didn’t say anything about it because I felt it was a private thing and I didn’t want to utilise it to sort of glorify my driving ability or reputation, but it was certainly the biggest compliment I ever received.â€

In the aftermath of Jim Clark’s death all other drivers asked themselves one question: if it can happen to Jimmy, what chance have I got? Somebody asked team-mate Graham Hill, who would so bravely carry the torch for Gold Leaf Team Lotus in the dark months that followed, what he would miss most about Jim Clark. “I was quite touched by Graham’s answer,†said Sally Swart. “He said, ‘I’ll miss his smile.’ I thought that was awfully nice. Jimmy had a very little-boy smile, a kind of three-cornered big grin, and I thought that was very nice of a team-mate to say that. ‘I’ll miss his smile…’â€

[Luke36]

Goodwood. Jim mostra la tecnica del four-wheel-drift su Aston Zagato.

Modificato January 16, 2013 at 10:59 da Luke36

[Luke36]

Stessa tecnica ... applicata in gara su Lotus 49 - 1967.

[sundance76]

ERRORE!!!!!!!

[Kraven VanHelsing]

Strano che si siano dimenticati della vittoria in Sud Africa '68. Errore marchiano.

[mammamia]

a Kyalami mi pare abbia vinto nel 68 ......ù

e quel salamotto di Clive se la ride come sempre ......

[Andrea Gardenal]

a Kyalami mi pare abbia vinto nel 68 ......

Vittoria? Dominio! Pole, vittoria con 25" di vantaggio su Hill, giro veloce e tutta la gara in testa, ad eccezione del primo giro, quando Stewart era passato per primo sul traguardo. Penso che senza la tragedia di Hockenheim avremmo rivisto molte sltre volte un copione simile durante l'anno: il pilota migliore sulla macchina migliore col motore migliore.

[Luke36]

Indianapolis 500 - 1965

 

 

 

 

[Luke36]

 

 

[Luke36]

Avrebbe oggi 77 anni. Buon compleanno Jim.

[Luke36]

Mexico 1967 - Lotus 49

 

 

 

Watkins Glen 1967 - Piuttosto nota ma sempre un piacere rivederla ...... notate la posteriore dx ..... oltre che al balzo dello "scacchista".

 

 

 

Montecarlo 1963 - Lotus 25

 

[Luke36]

Spa 1965 - Lotus 33

 

 

 

Spa 1963

 

[61066]

[The Magic]

Happy Birthday Jim!!!!

[sundance76]

 

Tasman Cup?

[61066]

Tasman Cup?

 

si

 

[Luke36]

A

fter all, Jim Clark was the best of the best.

— Ayrton Senna —