The Athletic Hello and welcome back to And Colossally That's History, the podcast that re-appraisers motoracing history. I'm Richard Williams and I'm joined as ever by Matt Bishop. And Matt, I've been excited about this episode for a while because it's about one of my favourites. One of your favourites, yes, and one of mine, too, actually. That's right, in this episode we'll be looking at the life and career of the great Jim Clark. And we'll be asking in particular whether he's not only the greatest but also the quickest driver ever to have lived. That's rather a bold claim, I know. And of course it's impossible to prove. But over the course of this episode we hope we'll lift the lid, especially for those less familiar with Clark, younger listeners perhaps. On what made him such a rare and special talent? Indeed we will. And I'd like to start, if you'll indulge me, with a bit of personal recollection. Go ahead. Thank you, Matt. I first saw Jim Clark on Easter Monday in 1959 at Mallory Park in Leicestershire. He was 23 years old and he'd come down to the meeting from Scotland, a complete unknown outside the world of club racing. I was 12 and it was my first motor race. My dad had decided to take us for a bank holiday family outing. My mum, my sister, and me. Mallory was only about 25 miles from where we lived over the border in Nottinghamshire. And he drove us there in his blue 1936 Rover 14 Sportsman Saloon, a lovely car. Absolutely lovely car. Mallory was actually a former pony trotting track, but it was open for motorsport in 1956. It was only a mile and a quarter long, but it had some very interesting and quite challenging features. I was already extremely interested in cars and racing. My hero at the time was sterling moss, of course. And so to a degree was my dad. His dream car was an Aston Martin DB3. Not the sort of thing he was ever likely to afford on the income of a country pass, which is what he was. More's the pity. Yeah, all the country pass, it should have. More's the pity he couldn't afford it. Not more's the pity that he was a country pass. Absolutely. Clarified. Anyway, the key thing about that particular Easter Monday meeting was that the unknown young Scott won four races, three in a list of Jaguar and one in a Lotus Elite. There were two very different cars, of course, a big brutal sports car with a 3.4-liter engine and a nimble lightweight 1200cc coupe. Jim won the production car race in the Elite, and the other three wins came in the list. One was in a race for big sports cars, and then there was a heat and the final of the Formula Leibor event in which anyone could enter anything. And he found himself racing against old Formula One conorts, new Formula 2 coupers, a Jaguar D-type, an Aston DB3S, and a few Lotus 11 sports cars. Imagine what that field would cost you now if you were trying to buy it. Oh, extraordinary. Anyway, he was totally dominant all day, and it was extremely thrilling to watch him in particular, chucking the list through Devil's Elbow, which is a tricky downhill section of the circuit between the hairpin and the finishing straight. My dad bought a program, and he and I filled in all the results. I've still got it, actually, and I'm waving it at you now. I see it. And I remember telling my dad that night, with all the absolute certainty, a 12-year-old can muster, that Jim Clark, although we'd never heard of him, would be World Champion one day. Those are absolutely wonderful memories, Richard, and very prescient of you to pick out Jim Clark. Oh, so early. But I always did have a knife at talent. Yes, there you are. And I envy you being there that day. I mean, golden memories. Yeah. Anyway, those golden memories of yours remind me of a formative Jim Clark experience for my friend Peter Windsor, whose name regular listeners might recognize from our last episode about Williams' 1986 season. And Frank Williams is excellent. Anyway, in 1986, the year of that accident, Peter was the Williams Formula One teams comms and PR man. But he was, and is also a journalist, a very fine one, actually. And he's probably the biggest Jim Clark fan there's ever been. Peter is an Englishman, born in England in 1952, sorry, Peter, but it's true. But his family emigrated to Australia when he was very young, about four, I think, about four years old. The Windsor's lived in Sydney, and Peter's father took him to watch motor racing at Warwick Farm a few times. Warwick Farm is in Sydney's southwestern suburbs. And in 1965, 12-year-old Peter saw Jim Clark win a Tasman series race there in a Lotus 32 B. If you ask Peter about that race now, he can speak for an hour about it, or more. Without notes, and if you were to transcribe what he'd said, what you'd end up with would be an accurate, comprehensive and lyrical race report. Peter remembers everything about Clark. Absolutely everything. It's funny, isn't it? Can I say to incidents that, although Peter and I first saw Clark in different years, we were both 12 years old at the time when we were absolutely captivated. Isn't that interesting? Yes, he should be doing this podcast in seven-year-old. But anyway, then in early 1967, when Peter was 14, he went to Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney to watch Clark's plane take off and begin its flight back to the UK after the last race of that year's Tasman series. And after the passengers had all boarded, Peter hung around, watching the plane out of the window. Soon, to his surprise, he saw it stop taxying away, then begin to taxi back to the gate. He waited and sure enough, after a while, the passengers began to walk out of the plane and back into the airport. The flight had been delayed. Peter approached Clark for an autograph nervously, and the great man said, "Planes been delayed, son, come and have a cup of coffee." So Peter was thrilled, of course, and he asked Clark all sorts of questions, you know, the kind of detailed racing questions that an avid 14-year-old fan would ask of his hero. And Peter says that Clark answered the more, patiently and attentively. And then, of course, it was time for him to rebord his flight. And Peter has worshipped Clark ever since. Well, no wonder. No wonder. I mean, it's a nice story. And I could tell you 100 stories about Peter's devotion to his hero. He really should write a book about him, and I hope he does. Anyway, I won't tell you 100 stories, but I will tell you two more very short stories about Peter and Jimmy, as he always calls him, as though he were a much-missed uncle. And the first story is that I remember, about 25 years ago, Peter bought himself a Porsche Boxster. He's very proud of it, very nice car. And it was pale blue. And I said to him when I saw it, nice color, nice pale blue. He replied, "Powder blue." Not pale blue, "Powder blue." The same shade as Jimmy's Dunlop overalls at Warwick Farm in 1965. That's pure beta. And the second story is that Peter always calls me "Matti." Not Matt, which no one else does. And I often wondered why. Then I worked it out. It's because Jim Clark had four sisters. Betty, Isabelle, Susan, and Mattie. And that's pure beta too. Sentimental old thing. Doesn't Peter actually own one of Jim's Lotus Road cars? He does. Yes indeed he does. He owns Clark's 1967 Ilan, Lotus Ilan S3 fixed head coupé to be precise. Yellow, absolutely lovely car. Well, that's a proper fan for you, no question. No question. So I guess we should start to explain why James Clark, Jim to the outside world, and Jimi to his friends, and Peter Windsor, inspired such a devoted following in the first place. And actually, had his parents caught their way, he might never have been a famous racing driver at all. He was born in 1936 into a farming family, first in five, and then when he was four, they took over the Eddington mains farm near Dunes in Berwickshire, in the beautiful Scottish borders. 1200 acres of land, mostly for grazing sheep and cattle. Indeed, and young Jimi started driving the tractor on the farm as soon as his feet could reach the pedals at the age of ten. For six pence an hour, by the way, he loved it. He couldn't get enough of it. Six old pence, that's the thing. Two and a half P, it is actually. So six old pence an hour. A tanner we used to call him, didn't we? We did. He loved it. He couldn't get enough of it, and he was always hankering to get behind the wheel of that tractor. And it certainly wasn't for the tanner, it wasn't for the money. It was because he loved the feeling of controlling a vehicle, even at ten. Yep. He was the youngest of five children and the only boy. And he was sent away to school, first to perhaps school in Edinburgh, and then to La Ressa.
school in Musselborough, one of Scotland's best schools. And there, according to one of his biographers, Eric Dimock, the days began with a cold bath and a run and ended with a Bible reading. Not luxury. No. He wasn't very interested in formal education, although he enjoyed sport at the school, the rugby, cricket, tennis and hockey. And in the school holidays, his father took him to the local livestock sales and grain markets on the assumption clearly that one day he take over the running of the farm, being the only boy. Exactly. So when he didn't show much interest in academic learning, his father took him out of school at 16 and he began working on the farm at first as a shepherd. But, and this is a pretty decisive but, his father always had interesting cars, including a pre-war Alvis speed 12. And Jim had started buying motoring magazines when he was still at school. And then, his oldest sister's new husband turned out to have an old three-litre Bentley of the sort that won at the more in the 1920s. And sometime in the early 50s, Jim was taken down to Brands Hatch to watch his first motor race and he remembered coming away with an autographed photo of sterling moss. That's interesting. And actually, occasionally, young Jimmy used to jump into his dad's Alvis and take it for a spin around the farm. He started doing that when he was 10 years old as well, again, because at last he could reach the pedals. But he could only reach the pedals by sliding forward on the seat, which meant that his head dipped below the window line. So every now and then, in order to do that, he'd have to slide back up the seat to have a look at where he was going. And neighbors were sometimes shocked to see an apparently empty Alvis running around the farm, as though driven by an invisible ghost, because of course, young Jimmy was invisible to the onlookers when he was in the slid forward to reach the pedals position. The benefits of growing up on a farm, I think, well, you can get away with that. Yes. Yes. Near the farm, there was a circuit called Windfield on an old aerodrome. And it was so near that Jim could cycle over. And he used to go over to watch the Ecuria cost team test the jaguars that they were racing at Le Mans. And in 1953, he also went to Charter Hall, another Scottish airfield circuit, to see Nino Farina, the first world champion in 1950, compete in the Thinwall special Ferrari. That's the thing to have seen in it. In the Thinwall. Yep. Yeah. So he was getting hooked, not unsurprisingly. And the more so after he passed his driving test at 17, and he was given his father's son beam tour, but quite a sporty car with only 12,000 miles on the clock, which is doubted, replaced with a rover. And Jim had made friends with a local garage owner, called Jock McBain, who helped him straight away as a teenager, enter various local competitions at driving tests and rallies and even autocros. But he was still training as a shepherd, and his parents weren't at all keen on his racing activities. His dad was an elder in the local Presbyterian church, and he was pretty straight-laced. They'd banned him from owning a motorbike, although, of course, they didn't discourage his interest in tractors. No. And it was actually at a meeting of the local branch of the Young Farmers Club that he met another important figure in his career. This was a chap called Ian Scott Watson, who was involved with Jock McBain in a team called Border Revers, Border Raiders, that means, a kind of rival to a Curia Coss. He and Jim started competing in rallies together. But one day in 1956, they went up to an actual race meeting at Cremond in Aberdeenshire, yet another old airfield. I should actually mention that Peter Windsor once bought an ex Ian Scott Watson loader Salan as well on the basis that Jim he had once driven it. Sorry. Gobsmacked. Anyway, when they went up to Cremond, they were in Scott Watson's DKW, an unusual German saloon. I don't know if you remember them. With a three cylinder two-stroke engine and front wheel drive. They both practiced in the car, and they discovered that Jim, who'd never race before, was three seconds a lap quicker. I mean, that's of serious margin, obviously. It sure is. And he came last in the race, but that was only because he didn't want to bend his power's car, and he was so inexperienced. But later in the year, he did win a race in it, back at Winfield, and then two more in the Sunbeam tour. But the following year, Scott Watson swat the DKW for a Porsche that belonged to the band leader and racing driver, Billy Cotton. Remember him? Yes. And Jim used it to take a couple more wins. When Border Revers acquired a D-Type Jag, as well as the Porsche, Jim's career really started to take off. In 1958, he took part in 42 races at 17 meetings, winning 20 of them, and people were starting to take notice. They were. And I think we should mention a significant race here, which took place during the boxing day meeting at Brands Hatch in 1958, the year you were talking about. When driving a lotus elite for the first time, Clark, 21 years old at the time, finished second to Lotus Boss, Colin Chapman, the man who'd later launch him to Superstardom, and that was in a 10 lap GT race. And while having a pee before the race, Clark overheard Chapman and Mike Costin, who was also in an elite, talking about flipping a coin to decide which of them would win the race. But actually it was Clark, who was leading when a back marker spun in front of him, allowing Chapman to snatch the win. It's a good point to dwell on just for a second, because people tend to think of Chapman only as one of the most iconic team bosses of the 1960s and 1970s, in Formula One. And of course he was that, absolutely he was that, but he was also a very, very good driver, perhaps, good enough to do well in Formula One, inside the cars as well as outside them if he decided to go down that route. But anyway, Richard, do you think Chapman recognized Clark's talent straight away that boxing day at Brands Hatch in 1958? Yes, although actually he'd already noticed him a couple of months earlier at an informal test session at Brands, when Jim did a few laps in the front engine, Lotus 16 single-seater. That very beautiful front engine color looked a bit like a miniature van war. But Chapman definitely wrote Clark's name down for future reference after the boxing day meeting, and he underlined it when Jim carried on winning in 1959 with both the elite and the listed jag. With you watching? With me, watching, yep, yep. And in June of that year, 59, Clark went to Le Mans for the first time, teamed up with John Whitmore in an elite entered by border reavers, but supervised by Chapman. Whitmore was also a farmer from Essex, and to go back to that day at Mallory in 1959, the first thing I saw on arriving at the circuit were bits of pale blue fiberglass fly into the air. Whitmore and Clark, in their two elites, had got tangled up during the morning practice session, and Whitmore came off worse. In fact his car had to go home on a trailer. But as he told me many years later, he'd already noticed Jim's talent, quote, "He was a second or so quicker than me, and I thought this chap's good." They became very good friends. To the extent that Clark was soon being invited to use Whitmore's Mayfair flat, just off Park Lane, as a regular Pierre Daterre in London. And they'd have done very well together at the Mall if they hadn't had trouble with the starter motor. It kept overheating, and they had to change it at every stop. So after spending a total of two and a half hours in the pits, they were only able to finish 10th. But Chapman was impressed, nevertheless, and for 1960, he offered Jim a seat in his Formula Junior team, driving one of the new Lotus 18s. The first rear-engine Lotus, with a lightweight chassis, suitable for Formula 1, as well as Formula 2 and Formula Junior. He mentioned that today. And Jim, when his first two races in the car, Goodwood at Olden Park, and he was on his way. To get him into his Formula 1 team, Chapman had to beat Aston Martin, who were in their second unsuccessful season in F1. Their team manager, the veteran Redge Parnell, had made Jim an offer, which he was on the brink of accepting when Chapman came along and Gazzumped Aston. Jim had driven Aston's front-engine, Grand Prix car, and he enjoyed it very much. It was a very powerful car, he liked that feeling. But when he tried the Lotus 18, he knew that he was being given a chance to step into the future. Interesting car that DBR4 wasn't there for you. And because probably about three years too late, it would have been in '55, it might have been as good as of 250F. Exactly, which is what it looked like, also. Absolutely. It was a lovely car, it would have been useful, it was just years too late. Exactly. Chapman and Clark became very close, and it would be the partnership, the defined Clark's career, and provided Chapman with the driver who could best exploit his brilliant and very innovative designs. And before Clark, he'd had Graham Hill, Cliff Allison, Alan Stacey, John Cirties, and Inners Island, all of them seriously good. But none of them quite blessed with the genius that Chapman spotted in Jim. Something about Clark's touch at the wheel suited the delicacy of the Lotus single-seaters. He was quite small, only five foot seven, and lightly built, and that helped. He could handle big and brutal cars, but giving him one. of Chapman's lotuses in the 60s was like handing Yohudi menu in a Stradivarius violin. Yeah, that's a very nice analogy. And if I may say, you say that they became very close Clark and Chapman and they did. And according to some of the lotus guise at the time, they were almost inseparable. I mean, for many years, and this is extraordinary, I think now, to modern ears, but for many years, they used to share a twin room in the hotels they stayed in for Formula One Grand Prix. I'm just imagine that. Just imagine Fred Vassa and Lewis Hamilton sharing a twin room at the Monaco Grand Prix. Can you imagine that? Okay, it was a different era, and money was tighter in Formula One than it is now, but you'd still think that Chapman and Clark could stretch to a room each. But no, they often didn't. I think they like to talk about racing together well into the night. It's funny, you know, in all sorts of sports room sharing was common like rugby teams go, you know, on the lines. Cricket, football teams, they often, I guess, to say money, but also a bit of camaraderie. Yes, yes. Someone actually once described Chapman as Clark's Fengali, and there's probably a bit of truth in that. Jim was still dealing with parental disapproval, but Colin persuaded him to devote all his energy to the sport and let someone else take care of the farm. When Clark's autobiography was published in 1964, which was soon after his first world championship, Chapman provided a foreword, and here's what he wrote, quote, "The only trait of Scottish character which comes through with Jimmy is a certain doerness and a very strong determination to succeed. He's very intelligent, quick to learn, and he has a very good memory for things he wishes to remember. He only needs to be told something once, and he learns it," unquote. A bit of master and pupil there then, and there were very different characters, a modest fellow from a rural background who found it very difficult to make decisions out of the cockpit, teamed with a sophisticated risk-taking extrovert, to geniuses in their contrasting ways, and you have to say how well the chemistry worked. Yeah, Clark's inability to make decisions was legendary. When he went into a cafe, apparently, in order to breakfast, and the waiter or waitress asked him whether he wanted tea or coffee with it, he'd apparently reply "Tee, no coffee, no maybe tea, yes tea." No, make that coffee. He used to drive his mates mad. And on his way from London to his home in Scotland, which journey he'd driven dozens of times, probably hundreds of times actually, there was apparently a fork in the road quite near his home in Scotland, with an orchard in the gap formed by the fork. On not one, not two, but three separate occasions, he went straight on into the orchard, because he couldn't remember or he couldn't decide if the correct route home was the left fork or the right fork, and on the second occasion, he was in a Porsche driving very fast therefore. And for that reason, he went off into the orchard at very high speed. He didn't injure himself, but the Porsche was a right off. Well, as a fan of Porsche, that era that brings a tear to my eye. Yes, I must say. And it's a good job. He didn't do that at Spa, isn't it? Well, exactly, exactly. Anyway, back to our story, and Clark's progression, he beat John Surty's to the Formula Junior Championship in 1960. And Surty's was very quick at that time. He'd only just started racing on four wheels, but he was good at it already. And then Clark had a go at Formula 2, all of this is in notices of course, and then Chapman gave him his first Formula 1 outing. In the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix at Zanford, in a Lotus 18, the car you've described already, he qualified 11th and retired it with transmission trouble. Do you think he was ready for Formula 1 though, Richard? Well, it seems to me that Jim was always ready for whatever car he was put into in whatever environment. So yes. But his second Grand Prix, two weeks later, was such a harrowing experience that he afterwards he almost gave up motor racing for good. It was in Belgium at the daunting Spa-Franco-Schron circuit, which in those days was eight miles of sweeping public roads. He didn't actually like Spa anyway, because on his first visit there for a sports car race in 1958, the brilliant Archie Scott Brown had been killed in a Lister Jaguar. This time, the Grand Prix, two years later, sterling moss crashed heavily in practice and hurt himself when a drive shaft broke on his Lotus. Mike Taylor was taken to hospital when the steering column broke on his Lotus. Then the Cooper driver, Chris Bristo, was killed in a crash with a woolly merress as Ferrari during the race itself. And Alan Stacey, yet another ill-fated Lotus driver, was killed after he was hit in the face by a bird, which made him lose control and go off the track and his car, summissalted into a field and caught fire. Bristo's accident struck Jim particularly hard. He was first on the scene of the crash, and when he got back to the pits after the race, his car was spattered with blood. So of the five Lotus drivers entered, one was dead, two were badly injured in hospital. A fourth in his island had been badly shaken up by a spin and a crash, and only clock was left running in fifth place at the end. I was, he said, driving scared stiff pretty much all through the race. Dearly me look, I think I should say at this point, one of the unfortunate aspects of our podcast, and Colossalia, that's history, or Colossalia for short, as we call it, is that we have to talk about death so much. But it's because racing was so very, very very dangerous back in the day. Perhaps young Formula One fans have never, well certainly young Formula One fans have never had to cope with the shock of watching, or even merely hearing about, all reading about, as we did Richard, one of their heroes being killed in action. And thank God for that. But in the 1960s and 1970s, it was not at all uncommon. And yes, as you say, in the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, not one, but two drivers were killed. Chris Bristol on lap 20, and Alan Stacey on lap 25, imagine that, just one and then five laps later, another. Bristol was decapitated, and Stacey was burned to death, just awful, absolutely awful. Anyway, you say Clark almost gave up racing at that point, Richard. So what do you think made him carry on? Well here in his own words, here's how I explained it in his autobiography. When a thing like this happens, you vow that you'll never take part in a motor race again. You just want to get as far away from a car as possible. Then your mind begins to function again, and slowly every day things start to crowd their way back. I don't think I'm callous, but I have somewhat been blessed by a bad memory for such things. A day later, you feel a little better, three days later, and you're packing your bags for another race. You keep telling yourself that you must overcome emotion, but at their height, your emotions can wield great power over your body and your mind. You can make rash decisions, and you have to live with them until you regain your self-control. You don't initially realise where everyone in such a predicament should realise, no matter how you feel, you still have to come back to reality and the living world. It's quite a thoughtful couple of paragraphs that's extremely, I think he was a thoughtful guy. And he had an unusual temperament for a racing driver. He was a nail-biter. He worried a lot, obsessively, and he liked keeping himself to himself. He could be bruske, even rude, without sideers. He'd detested newspaper journalists, for instance. He couldn't see the point of them, although he had a bit more time for the specialists from the motoring magazines. So he'd have liked me better than you then, mate? No. I was a fan before you. You're the man from the Guardian. Anyway, he devoted page after page of his autobiography to the shortcomings of newspaper journalists. Yes, he did indeed. Outside the cockpit, he was terminally indecisive, as you say. I like the stories you told a few moments ago about the tea and the coffee and the fork in the road in Scotland. And here's what his pals, Sir John Whitmore, told me about him, remembering the times he put Jim up in his London flat. Quote, "He was so difficult because I'd say, 'Let's go out to eat.' Which restaurant do you want to go to?' And he'd always say, 'It's up to you.' I'd say, 'Shall we go to a movie?' And he'd say, 'Yes, but you choose.' He never made a decision until he got into a racing car. I'm surprised, as you said earlier. I'm surprised he remembered his way around the longer circuits, you know, nerve-agreing and the old spa. But clearly he did, because he won there often enough, particularly spa. Anyway, he did carry on racing after that absolutely awful baptism of fire at Spa in 1960, and he carried on racing extremely quickly too. So in 1961, now in a Lotus 21 rather than a Lotus 18, his first full season of Formula One, he begged his first podiums, finishing third at both Zanvort and Reims. And in that year, another grim incident happened that would cast a long shadow over him when he was in
involved in one of the worst accidents in Formula 1 history. In the penultimate round of the 1961 Formula 1 World Championship at Monza. Yeah, 1961 was the first season of the new one and a half-liter formula, which Ferrari dominated with their V6 engines, while the English team struggled to keep up. Monza was the penultimate race of the season, and the world title was up for grabs between the two top Ferrari drivers, Vovgang von Trips and Phil Hill. It was also, I remember very well, one of the few races broadcast live on the BBC in black and white, of course. Ferrari had five cars entered and clock knew that his only chance in an underpowered force of Inter Lotus climax was to get a good start and try to slipstream them around the circuit, which used the bank section that year, and of course had no chicanes in those days to hinder slipstreaming. He got his good start, but four Ferrari's had gone past him by the time he came towards the end of the second lap. The fourth of them was von Trips. Jim kept up with him as they came down the back straight to the parabolic at the last corner, and he intended to duck out of the slipstream and get past him again on the outside as they prepared to break. But as he did, he found the Ferrari moving across towards him. Here, again from his autobiography, is how he described what happened next. Everything happened at lightning speed. We touched wheels, and oddly enough, I had a split second in which to think about the accident before it actually happened. I thought, "God, he can't do this. I remember mentally trying to shout at him to look in his mirror and see me. I had the brakes on hard by now, and I just couldn't do anything, but he was braking hard too. My wheels started to lock, and I left black marks, but I was too close to the edge of the circuit, and I couldn't go on the grass. Because we were doing between 140 and 150 miles an hour at that time, and at that speed, you just can't go on the grass. As he came across, I just couldn't get out of the way. Taffy's car. To be clear, in case anyone listening doesn't know, Wolfgang von Tripp's nickname was Taffy. Yeah, it was indeed. So back to Clark, quote, "Taffy's car shot off the road and into a fence, which the crowd were leaning on, before bouncing back onto the circuit, leaving the driver lying on the grass. I remember jumping out of my car and running over with a marshal and trying to drag Taffy's car back off the track, but there was a race still on. But even then, I realised there was nothing I could do for Taffy, and I didn't really want to go over to where he lay." And 15 spectators were killed, along with von Tripp's. And of course, this being 1961 and things being very different in those days, the race carried on to its conclusion, with Phil Hill winning the World Championship. Extraordinary, to modern years. Yep. Fingers were pointed, and legal action was threatened. You know, 15 spectators have been killed. But it wasn't until a year later that Clark returned to Italy and was called in during practice for the 1962 Grand Prix at Monza for a three hour interview with the police. During which he made a statement. And it was still rumbling on a year later, and after returning from Monza in 1963, he gave a press conference in London. This is what he said. As far as I can see, they're just out to try and pin the blame on someone, and you know I'm the handiest person around. My conscience is completely clear on the question of whether it was my fault. Not that I'm saying it was anyone else's fault. He pointed out that of the two drivers involved, he was the only one left to give evidence. And of course in those days there wasn't any telemetry data or TV footage from multiple angles to be examined. There was just one bit of grainy black and white TV film shot from a long way away and completely inconclusive if you were looking for hard evidence. But I remember from watching on TV at home that day how shocking it was, and I remember feeling that it seemed quite antipycal of Clark to get involved in an incident like that. He was already super quick, but always neat and tidy and scrupulously fair. Yeah, he was. So do you think Monza 1961 made him question his decision to race on? I mean again, again, a bit like Spar 1960. No, I don't think so. He was sure it wasn't his fault. And as we heard before, he'd worked out how to deal with the consequences of a dangerous sport. Yeah, I think you're probably right there. So anyway, yes, again, he did race on and less than a month later he was on the grid at Watkins Glen in the United States for the final race of the 1961 season. Erase in which team Lotus would score its first Formula 1 Grand Prix victory, or be it not with Clark at the wheel, that honor went instead to Clark's countryman, fellow Scott in his island, who drove his Lotus 21 to victory ahead of local hero Dan Gurney's Porsche. Of course, to be clear, Sterling Moss had already won Formula 1 Grand Prix in Lotus's, but not Works Lotus's, not Team Lotus Lotus's, but instead for Privateer Rob Walker's team. Yeah, Clark said of Ireland's victory. As a Scotsman and a teammate, I was naturally glad to see in his island win the American Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. And he was the first Scott ever to win a Grand A Probe. But unfortunately, it became a bit of feud when Jim took over as the team's number one for 1962, and Inners was dropped. Inners was a hard guy. He was five years older than Jim. He'd done his national service as a paratrooper. And in terms of being the life and so of the party, he was a very engaging social animal. He was excellent company at all times. And in that sense, he was everything Jim wasn't. But the news that there was no longer a place in the team for him was broken very undiplomatically by Chapman, and he never really got over it. No, he didn't. Absolutely, Chapman nailed his colors to the master. Jim Clark was going to be Lotus' number one driver for 1962 and thereafter. And let's be honest, that would prove to be a fantastic decision by Chapman. And that feels like a good time for our first break. Richard, you started today's episode by sharing your fabulous story of seeing Jim Clark race for the first time when you were just 12. So I was wondering whether you'd like to open part two with your recollections of seeing Clark race for a second time, because I know you saw him on a number of occasions, actually. Something I never did, I wish I had, because I was only five years old when he died in April 1968. Well, yeah, I saw Jimmy race again at Mallory on Whitmunday in 1962. That was a race called the International 2000 Guinness, a non-championship Formula One race in the days when there were lots of them to fill the gaps in the rather sparse, grown pre-calender. Yeah, and if I may interject briefly, that leads me to our first anorect fact of this colossally episode. Bum, bum, bum. Younger listeners may well not realise quite how many non-championship Formula One races there used to be back in the day. For example, in the year we're talking about 1962, there were only nine world championship status Formula One Grand Prix of which Clark won three, but there were no fewer than 20 non-championship Formula One races of which Clark won five anorect fact. Yeah, it was a good thing in a way, because it gave a lot more people the chance to see Formula One races in a less pressurised way. It did, it did. Wish they still had them. Anyway, Jimmy took pole position at Mallory on Whitmunday in 1962 in a Lotus 25 beautiful little car with the new Climax V8 engine. 51 seconds for the 1.3 mile circuit. And there were just two other cars with the Climax V8, John Cirti's Lola and Jack Brabham's private Lotus. Sadly for the crowd of around 40,000, the promised works Ferrari didn't turn up, but then we'd only played a pound ahead to get in. Just 20 Tanners. No, 40 Tanners. 40 Tanners. Let's not go though. No, no, no, no. Okay. You're a decimal person, I think. And Alas for fans like me, Clark retired with low oil pressure. Cirti's one, giving the very pretty Lola what would be its only victory with Brabham second and Graham Hill third in Rob Walker's four cylinder Lotus. Well, yeah, Clark might have missed out on that win that day at Mallory Park, but just six days later, he was victorious in a world championship status Formula One Grand Prix, no less. At the same spa circuit where he'd had such a difficult and well traumatising time in 1960, he won from 12th on the grid, taking the lead after 11 laps. And as we touched on earlier, spa has always been a driving challenge. I mean, it still is now, but it was even more so in the 1960s, you know, the old 8.8 mile 14.1 kilometer spa, I mean. You needed courage and finesse in equal measure, you know, which Clark had. And only the best of the best one there. And that win in 1962 was the first of four consecutive victories for Clark on, arguably Formula One's most daunting circuit spa. You know, fantastic stuff, especially
he didn't even like the places you've said. But why do you think he was quite so good at Spa Richard? In fact, and we're moving on to one of Racing's big questions here, what do you think made him so quick as a driver in general? Well, I think he always drove with great calmness and precision, which are certainly qualities that help on a superfast road circuit like Spa, as long as you've got the basic speed, particularly in its old configuration, as you say. And while he was fast, he was also easy on his cars. He didn't overstress them, which is probably why he survived as long as he did driving lotuses. He could put fear out of his mind, and he wasn't a show off, which would help, although he could be spectacular, as he showed when he was driving Lotus Cortinas in Salooncar races, usually cornering with one wheel off the ground and giving the crowds a thrill. Brilliant footage to see now, isn't it? It is, yeah, there are a lot of opportunities to look at that. And he was also brilliant in the wet, and of course, it often rains in the Belgian Rden. That Spa win was the first of the three you alluded to in 1962, not including his non-championship F1 race wins. The others were at Aintree in the British Grand Prix and Watkins Glen in the US round of the series. So he finished up second in the championship behind Graham Hill in his second full season, and Graham had four wins, so between them they won seven out of the nine rounds. Jim retired with mechanical problems in four of the six races he didn't win, and he'd started from pole position in each of those four. Yeah, when I asked you what you thought made Clark so quick as a driver, I honestly, I think you nailed it. You know, the things you said about his calmness, his precision, his brilliance in the wet, and the way he nursed his cars instead of caning them, all that, all that I think was spot on. But I'd also like to offer another view here, if I may, also super positive, of course, and including some observational insights as to how he conjured his speed, including not only a bit about his technique, but also a description of his indefatigable determination. And it's not from me, it comes from LJK Settrite, whom you probably remember. You certainly do. Yeah. Avid Reader of Settrite. Yes, well, I was a colleague of his. I worked with him on Car Magazine in the early 1990s. He was the magazine star writer, already a certain age then, and long dead now, 20 years dead now, and I was the young features editor. Anyway, this is what Settrite wrote for Car Magazine after having attended the 1966 Monaco Grompry, obviously long before I was working for Car. And to listeners who've never read Settrite before, I commend his elegant prose style to you. You'll see what I mean. Quote, it was the first year of the 3-litre Formula 1, but the best that Lotus could do for the world's greatest driver was an old Lotus 33 fitted with a 2-litre climax V8. An ice engine in a beautiful car. But pitted against a largely 3-litre field, could Clark honestly be seen as having the superior equipment that was so often supposed to account for his superior performance, not a chance, but there he was on pole position. When the flag fell, he shot away, intent as ever on establishing such a lead as would deter or dismay those compelled to follow him. Then all of a sudden he was going nowhere, and the field rushed past. His gearbox had stuck in bottom gear. Eventually it freed, and he set off in pursuit. I was watching from the infield, standing at the very apex of the old gasworks happen. Monte Carlo streets are not the easiest on which to overtake, but Clark was doing it time and again, quite often as he hove into my view. I found that I could actually hear the car's brakes being applied, and I noted that Clark was starting his braking, at about the point where most of the others were finishing theirs. Progressively he would ease his brakes on, all the way to the apex of the corner, at which point he would throw a pout of the lower lip as he switched his right foot from brake to accelerator, and went hounding off after his next victim. How many he dismissed that way I cannot recall, but there was no question of anything unfair. His racing manners were always impeccable. After 60 of the scheduled 100 laps, he was up to third, at which juncture, just as he was approaching my corner, the notices rear suspension broke, and it wobbled to the outer edge of the track, and retirement. Say not the struggle nor to veil it, Clark could fight. How about that for a bit of race reporting Richard? Marvelous, set right was a one off for you. He really was, and I love that bit about the pout of the lower lip as he switched his right foot from the brake to the accelerator. I mean imagine being able to see drivers expression incredible, rather than just pair of eyes through a cockpit cam. Absolutely brilliant. Anyway, 1962 incidentally was also the year when Clark and Chapman left Le Mans, vowing never to return. They turned up with a beautiful little Lotus 23 sports car with a modified Ford angler engine. It looked so certain to win the index of performance, which was the class based on fuel consumption, and it was usually the class where the French manufacturers traditionally saved their faces. But the French scrutiniers found a reason to exclude it before the race. They pointed out that the wheels were attached by four studs at the front and six at the back. The regulations said they had to be the same at both ends, so that the mandatory on-board spare wheel could be used on any of them. Well, that's fair enough. So Chapman got his mechanics to modify the rear fixings overnight to match the front and represented it for scrutinary. Then the commissaries said that the rear wheels had originally required six studs. If that was the case, then four must be less safe. So the disqualification stood over goodness sake. Chapman, Clark, thought they'd been stitched up or whatever the French for stitching up is. They stormed out and never went back. Well, they probably had been stitched up. Truth be told, haven't they? Anyway, if 1962 was a good season for Clark and Lotus, then 1963 was an incredible one. Arguably, one of the greatest seasons for a driver and a team in the history of motor racing, all motor racing. Would you agree, Richard? Yes, I would. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, just listen to the stats. Of the 10 world championship status Grand Prix that year, Formula One Grand Prix that year, Clark won seven. He was on the podium in two of the other three and he finished outside the points only once, eighth at Monaco. He was on the pole for seven of those 10 races and he cropped the fastest lap in six of them. That little lot obviously earned him his first Formula One driver's world championship and Lotus, their first Formula One constructors world championship, both by Big Margin. But to back all that up, Clark finished second in the Indy 500 for Lotus, of course. And he actually won another Uzac race also for Lotus, the Tony Beton-Hausen 200 at the Milwaukee Mile, also from the pole. And he won five non-championship Formula One races too, just incredible. Yeah. And 1963 was actually a special year in lots of respects. It was the year of Beetle Mania and the great train robbery and the year of the profumos scandal in the words of the poet Philip Larkin. It was also the year's sexual intercourse began. Really was it? Well not so sure about that. But it was certainly the start of the 60s as we think of them now. And with Jimmy Clark's success, it was like the 60s had come to motor racing too. And there were some incredible performances. At Spa in the rain, he won from eighth place on the grid, having to hold the gear lever because it was trying to jump out of fifth gear. That was top gear in those days and he needed it at Spa, of course. At Zamvort, he lapped every other car. At the Nurburgring, he stole his engine on the grid, passed 17 cars on the first lap and finished second to Graham Hill with his engine on seven cylinders. And then there was the first trip to Indianapolis with Chapman and the Ford engine Lotus 29 to have a first crack at the 500. The local racing establishment who was still stuck in the era of the glorious but antiquated front engine roadsters treated them as a joke, this little funny car with its rear engine. But they weren't laughing when Jim was in second place with 20 laps to go. Only five seconds off the lead. And when that leading car, Parnelli Jones, is Watson off an hour to start off the way you like to do. If you don't know what's an off the again. Well, it's whatever we call it, it started dropping oil. And the rules on that were clear. He had to be black flagged. But Parnelli Jones was indie royalty, as was the car's entrance, a man called JC Agagenian, who happened to be on the board of the US Auto Club. So the black flag wasn't raised, despite Chapman's entreaties to the stewards. Several cars spun on the dropped oil and crashed into the wall in those closing laps. But Jones won and Clark finished second, 30 seconds behind, having backed off in expectation of the leading car.
disqualification. It was a fix, but it was also a lesson well learned, and it gave them fuel for revenge. Another stitch-up just like Lamar, really. Anyway, by 1964, Clark was seen by every other racing driver in the world, I think, as "Premus into Paris", first among equals. They just knew he was better than they were. Some of them admitted it, but I think they all knew it. He didn't win the Formula One drivers' world championship in 1964, but really he should have done. He was on the pole for five of the ten Grand Prix that took place that year. He clocked fastest lap for four of them, but he won only three. Zanvort, Spar and Brands Hatch. But even so, that was still more than anyone else. John Cirties won the drivers' world championship for Ferrari with two Grand Prix wins, and Clark led and could have won four more Grand Prix that he didn't end up winning that year. Monaco, Ruin, Watkins Glen and Mexico City. You know, lotuses were never very reliable, and as I say, with better reliability, Clark would have become 1964 world champion quite comfortably. But he made up for it in 1965. Another Anos Mirabilis, in which he became the only driver in history to win the Formula One drivers' world championship with six wins out of the ten Grand Prix that year, plus six poles and six fastest laps, and the Indy 500 in the same season, despite missing Monaco to do Indy. This time the stateside racing establishment couldn't stop him. Yeah, and it actually got him the cover of Time magazine, which was a coveted honor in those days, usually reserved for presidents and military heroes. Although a couple of months before Jim, there'd been a cover headline, "Rock and Roll is here to stay" with photos of the beach boys, the Supremes, and Petula Clark and Hermann's Hermits. Really? The line on Jim's cover was Jim Clark, the fastest man on wheel. Which he was? Yep, I saw one of his six Grand Prix victories that season at Silverstone. He was in the Lotus 33 with the V8 climax engine, pretty much one of those perfect Grand Prix cars, like the McLaren MP4, 4 of 1988, or the Red Bull RB6 of 2010. He didn't have it quite his own way at Silverstone, in the sense that although he started from pole, he wasn't actually the first intercopps corner, which was what you would now call turn one. Turn one. That's where I was standing, and actually it's still where I always stand at Silverstone, even though it's no longer turn one. And it was quite a shock to see Richie Ginsers V12 Honda leading into the right Honda. That was the first time a Japanese car had led a Grand Prix. And a Rack Facts, please. A Rack? Yeah, I don't car with many of those, but I will claim that one. But it didn't last. Clark went past Gynthur on Hangerstreet that first start on that first lap. And if you just looked at the complete lap chart of the race afterwards, it was all over from then on. He led every lap. But it wasn't actually that simple. There was still drama. Just after half distance, Clark was cruising half a lap ahead of Graham Hills BRM when his oil pressure was falling. In the closing laps, he only managed to preserve his engine and stay ahead of hill by switching it off in the corners, coasting silently, then switching it back on. That was weird to watch, I can tell you, you know, the leading car just going silently through the corner. You were aware of it. Yeah, but you didn't know why. Nobody was telling you anything. And the lead was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And in the end, Jim won by just three seconds. Actually, Dennis Jenkins in a motorsport thought it was an example of the other drivers being psyched out by Clark's usual dominance. Here's what he wrote, quote, Graham Hill worked up to a grand finale of setting a new lap record on the last lap. But it would have been more impressive if he'd done that more times. And earlier in the race, unquote. Yeah, I think that's interesting. It's a bit like what I was saying earlier about the other drivers just knowing that Clark was better than them. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, slight callous act here. There's a bizarre story from a bit earlier in that season about the Lotus team meeting Yuri Gagarin, the first Soviet cosmonaut at a civic party in Clamour Farah, the night before the French Grand Prix. A lot of champagne was drunk, apparently, then finally Chapman drove Clark, Clark's girlfriend Sally Stokes, and Mike Spence, the Lotus number two driver back to their hotel. But they didn't make it because somehow Chapman put their perjot higher car into a ditch. One day there's probably a podcast about Formula One and higher cars. Anyway, Chapman cut his thumb not too bad. Spence was unhurt, but Sally Stokes went through the windscreen and had cuts to her head and face poor poor woman. Clark took one look at her and fainted. Somehow, although Sally had to be stitched up at the local hospital, they managed to keep it all quiet. What happened the next day? Clark won. He won the French Grand Prix from the pole with fastest lap and he led every lap too. So it was a grand slam war as I prefer to call it grand chilem because we don't say grand prize. We say Grand Prix, don't we? The most dominant way a driver can possibly win a race. And that brings me to another anorac fact. You'll have to bring your trumpet next time. Anyway, although he started only 72 World Championship status Formula One Grand Prix and finished far fewer, owing to Lotus's legendary unreliability mainly, he scored eight grand chilems in his Formula One career. That's the record still now. Next up is a man you may have heard of dear listeners, Louis Hamilton with six. And I think that's yet another statistic that absolutely underlines Clark's brilliance. Yes indeed, Matt, but your mention of Sally Stokes brings up another aspect of his legendary indecisiveness outside the cockpit and that's the toll it took on his private life. He liked women, he liked them very much and they were always throwing themselves at him and often he took advantage of the opportunities. But Sally Stokes was a bit different. She lasted quite a long time. She was a model. A bit of a Jean Shrinton look alike if you're old enough to know what that means. Well, I think I am at 62 old enough to know what that means and didn't Clark pose with Jean Shrinton for a magazine ad for the Ford Corsair? Yeah, he did in a very handsome couple they made. They were actually photographed by the great David Bailey Shrinton's ex-boyfriend. Anyway, Sally Stokes was with Jim for several seasons. She'd actually set eyes on him for the first time at the same Mallory Park meeting that I went to in 1959, but it was a while before they went on a date and that was actually set up by her friend's John Whitmore and his wife. They went to the London Premier of Clear Patrick, starring Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. That's how long ago it was. And all their friends assumed they'd get married as did Sally. It was a bit like Paul McCartney and Jay Nashia if they'd made it down the aisle. The whole world would have cheered and breathed the sigh of relief. But Jim kept avoiding the issue. Wouldn't make a decision. And eventually she gave him an ultimatum at which point he suggested that she'd be better off getting married to someone else. So she did. She married Ed Swart, a Dutch driver who raised sports and touring cars, mostly our baths. And eventually they went off to live in California from where she stayed in touch with the Clark family and never had a bad word to say about her former boyfriend. That's interesting. Anyway, let's move on to 1966 now if we can. The first season of the three-liter Formula One. The first Grand Prix was Monaco, and that's the race about which LJK set-trite wrote that wonderful report that I read out a few minutes ago. And the reason why Lotus had saddled Clark with a two-liter engine in a three-liter formula, which seems idiotic, right, was that they'd been planning on running the BRM H-16 engine, but it wasn't ready early enough. And when it was, it was awfully heavy. Actually quite a few of the teams were struggling with engines that year. For example, Cooper used a Maserati V12 that Maserati had run as long ago as 1957. Okay, it had been updated a bit, but it was still almost 10 years old. McLaren were in trouble with engines too, flitting, two, and fro from a Ford V8 to a Serenissima V8. Whatever that was. Exactly. Well, it sounds nice. The team that made the best fist of it engine-wise was BRM, who used a three-liter Repco V8. And so it was that Jack Brabham became World Champion. The first and now surely the only man to win a Formula One World Championship driving a car bearing his own name. Clark won just one race at Watkins Glen in a Lotus powered by that BRM H-16 engine, which makes it the only World Championship status Formula One Grand Prix win for a car with 16 cylinders. Anyway, in 1967, Lotus' engine troubles were well and truly solved by the arrival of the legendary three-liter Ford Cosworth DF V8.
DFC standing for double four valve, of course, meaning four valves per cylinder across two banks of cylinders. Well I saw Clark lead the Belgian Grand Prix in that car's second race. That car being the famous Lotus 49? Yes indeed. It was a lovely sunny day and I was sitting on the grass near the top of the rise above O Rouge looking across to the old starting grid which was on the downhill section down from Las Ares. Jim started from pole and of course I was hoping to see him win at Spa for a fifth time. But a long stop to cure ignition trouble meant that he finished sixth lap down. The race was actually won by the beautiful Eagle West Lake V12 of Dan Gurney. Can I just say quickly, Ron Dennis, my old boss at McLean, thought that car is the most beautiful racing car of all time? Well he's not far off. He's not far off is he? Yeah. I'll tell you what, let's see. It's often said that Gurney was the only driver that Clark actually feared in terms of speed which may have been true. Jim would take four wins that season including the last two of the year at Watkins Glen and Mexico City which showed what might have been if the car had been reliable straight away. But that was only good enough for third in the championship behind the more consistent Brabams of Denny Hall and Jack Rumbam himself. They had only two wins a piece but lots more points finishes. But what Jim's fans remember from that year is what he did at Monza. He led the Italian Grand Prix for twelve laps, then picked up a puncture and lost a whole lap getting the wheel changed. And he spent the next 48 laps overtaking the entire field going past 15 cars one after another to get the lead back. And he was about to win when he started to run out of fuel on the very last lap because he'd been charging so hard. And he was overtaken by 30s and Brabams. It was a third place almost as fondly remembered as the greatest of his wins. Yes, absolutely. That third place for Clark at Monza in 1967 is one of the all-time great Formula One drives. No question about it. Anyway, on to 1968. The season started with the South African Grand Prix and here, if I may, is another anorak fact. The race was run on January the first New Year's Day, which meant that qualifying was run on December the 31st. Yes, qualifying and race took place not only in different months but actually in different years. A bonus anorak point for that one, man. Anyway, not surprisingly, Clark took the pole. His pole lap a whole second faster than the best that his Lotus teammate Graham Hill could manage. Then the next day, Clark drove the fastest lap and he won the race easily. The next round of the Formula One World Championship would be the Spanish Grand Prix on May the 12th, more than four months later. And that feels like a good time for our final break. For motor racing fans of a certain age, the date April the 7th, 1968 is burned into the subconscious. Just as May the 1st, 1994 is burned into the subconscious of slightly younger motor racing fans, Richard, do you remember where you were when you heard the news that the great Jim Clark had been killed in a Formula 2 race at Hawkelynheim on April the 7th, 1968? Well, quite honestly, Matt, I don't. It was a Sunday, so I think I was probably at home. But what I do remember very clearly indeed was the sense of not just shock, but utter, utter dismay. And it was all the greater because he was the one you never expected it to happen to. He was at a level above everybody else and that made him seem invulnerable. That was in illusion, of course. And a bit like Senna a quarter of a century later, I guess. Another of those days when following motor racing ceases to feel like an innocent pleasure? Yeah, that's well put, I think. Anyway, that Formula 2 race at Hawkelynheim wasn't an important event, but in those days, Formula 1 drivers used to race almost anything in their free weekends between Grand Prix. A number of Formula 1 drivers took part in that Hawkelynheim Formula 2 race, therefore, not only Clark, but also Graham Hill, John Cirties, Chris Aiman, Jean-Pierre Belltois, Piers Courage, etc. Oh and Max Mosley too, the future FI president, not that he was ever a Formula 1 driver. And here, if you'll indulge me, is a truly remarkable story, I think, because just over 30 years later, on August 2nd, 1998, to be precise, which was the date on which that year's German Grand Prix was being run also at Hawkelynheim. An hour before the warm-up, do you remember race morning warm-ups? Certainly do, what a good thing they were. They were. Anyway, an hour before the warm-up, I walked from the paddock to a spot near the first chicane, to pay my respects to the memorial monument to Clark that had been placed there, a small stone cross near where he breathed his last. Anyway, when I got there, I saw something that I really didn't want to see. Sitting on the cross itself, sitting on the cross, were two bliery eyed, beer gutted and scarlet clad oafs. Sorry, but they were oafs. Each wearing a deck-crab branded cap, do you remember them? Yep. Each sipping a can of vastine beer, schumi fans obviously. All around were crisp packets, cigarette butts, washedine empties, and more dozing drunks. I was incensed and I summoned up my courage to say, "Get off that." At first there was no reaction. "Get off that," I shouted again. Eventually they complied, mumbling and chuckling. I tried to pay my respects as I'd planned, but it was hopeless. The drunks were too close by, and they were still mumbling and still chuckling. Soon I gave up and walked, you know, the 50 odd meters to the first chicane itself. The gym clerk curve, as it was called, which is where I'd been planning to watch the warm-up from. On my way I passed a marshal's post and some marshal's. "Scotish, one of them asked me?" I was a bit surprised. No English, British, I replied. And then he replied, "British, like Jimmy, I saw you at the cross." Then after a pause he added, "I saw him die." And there and then I decided to interview this 60-something marshal for F1 Racing, the magazine I was editing at the time. So I asked Daren Heath, our photographer, who was standing nearby to take a portrait pick of him, which he did. His name, I remember, was Vin Fried Kolb. Greyhad, Chubby, and he told me that he'd stood at marshal post number 16 on most race days since 1965. I won't read the entirety of the interview I did with him, which I've published in F1 Racing because it's too long for a podcast, but here are some of the things I wrote about what he said. So these are all quotes from the marshal. "I remember April 7, 1968 so well. I was a big Jimmy Clark fan. Me and my friends were so excited that he was coming to Hockenheim for the Formula 2 race. In our opinion, he was the greatest." There was no chicane here in those days, just one long, long curved road, a tunnel carved through the forest, with trees each side no more than a metre from the trackside. We were disappointed that Jimmy wasn't on the pole. He was a few rows back, car trouble, perhaps tire trouble we heard, but he was here at Hockenheim at our track, which had never staged a Formula 1 Grand Prix in those days. With the sart, it had stopped raining, but there were still puddles everywhere. I remember that Kurt Akhrins was leading from Henri Pescarolo and Jean-Pierre Bill Toise. Visibility was terrible. Spray everywhere. They passed my post at maximum speed, which for a late 1960s Formula 2 car was about 250 kilometres per hour or about 155 miles per hour. To my surprise and disappointment, Jimmy wasn't moving up. Then, as the cars came by for another lap, I looked to my right, and I saw the nose of Ahrens Brabham, the nose of Pescarolo's Matra, the nose of Beltois's Matra, and then the number one on the side of Jimmy's Lotus. It all happened so quickly. The back end of the car snapped to the left. Jimmy's hand went up to correct. The car slid broadside towards the side of the track, the left side where my post was. There was a lot of spray, but I could see that the Lotus was heading for a tree. One big tree, among all the other trees, and I could see that there was no way Jimmy was going to be able to avoid it. The car hit the tree, side on, and it broke into three pieces. The engine and gearbox flew about 80 meters along the low wall that spectators could stand behind there. The front part disintegrated and slid down the tarmac. And the cockpit part, with Jimmy still inside, ended up on the left hand side of the track. Jimmy's head was still.
On one side I was frozen. It looked so bad. In those days you didn't have doctors at every post like you do now, so I had to radio for one to come. All the cars had sped past. The track was empty. Everything was quiet. I ran to Jimmy, it took me about a minute to get to him. And the doctor arrived by car a few seconds after me. There was no movement in the cockpit. I looked at the doctor and his face was grim. He was bending over Jimmy. Suddenly he said, "He isn't dead!" I remember that moment so clearly. I looked down the track, waiting for the ambulance, and then I saw it coming. I didn't dare to hope. They put Jimmy in the ambulance and it drove away. No way was the accident Jimmy's fault. No way. That part of the track wasn't difficult. Flat out, but easy. I'm sure it was a blown tire. The left rear I think. I waited for news and soon it came. Jimmy was dead. The field flew by again, now bell-toise ahead, and they all rushed past the debris in a ball of spray. Well, all except Graham Hill, Jimmy's lotus teammate, who was running near the back. He looked in his mirrors. He went down through the gears. He slowed to walking pace. He stared at the debris and he shook his head. I could see the shock on his face. Then he accelerated slowly away. Well, that's fascinating. What a graphic description of those. I felt so privileged to bump into him in that way. I'm sure you did, and it's a quite a thing to have recorded for posterity. Yes. And I was so lucky also that he spoke such good English. A man 30 years ago, a German in his 60s, you might not necessarily be that lucky. Anyway, remarkable story. I think a lot of people immediately assumed that the accident had been caused by something breaking, and probably the rear suspension, which wasn't exactly unknown with the lotuses, but it really does seem to have been caused by a deflating tire. Yeah, which is what the Marshall thought. Anyway, as I say, that interview was published in F1 Racing magazine. I was their editor of. And Bernie Eccleston read it, and his PA faxed it to the Hockenheim organizers, attaching a complaint from Bernie about the spectator's behaviour, which I'd described in my piece. And soon after, I received a letter of apology, which I still have actually, from the Hockenheim organizers, saying that they would put measures in place to prevent fans disrespecting Jim Clark's cross-in-future, which I think they did. Good. And among the other competitors that day, as you said, Matt, was none other than Max Mosley in his first international F2 race, driving a Brabham he'd bought from Frank Williams. In his autobiography, he wrote not just about the horrible conditions that day, but about the impact of the tragedy and how it made it impossible for him to pretend to his wife that motor racing was basically a safe sport. And she asked him, "If Jim Clark can get killed, why not you?" He really didn't have an answer. Yeah, actually, that reminds me of what Halden Gannley once said to me. Many years later, over lunch at the Macrarran Technology Centre when I was working for Macrarran as the team's comms and PR chief. In the 1960s, Halden had been racing in his native New Zealand. And by the time he'd come to Europe and he'd worked his way up to Formula One in 1971, that was. Clark had obviously been dead for three years, but the grief about Clark was still fresh for everyone in racing and Clark was still a legend. Anyway, over post-lunch coffees, many years later as I say, I remember asking Halden to think back to his Formula One career and to whether he'd feared for his life at the time, because of course the early 1970s were a time when Formula One was extremely dangerous. And this is how he answered me, quote, "oh, you have to realise that I didn't expect to survive my Formula One career." I was an OK driver, but if Jim Clark could die at the wheel of a Formula One car, when he was a total genius, well, what chance did I have? Yeah, the place the news really made a particularly powerful impact on the day was Brands Hatch, where the BOAC 500, a big sports car race, was being held. Jim might have been there, not at Hockenheim, because Ford wanted him to drive their new prototype car, the F3L. But he told them that Colin Chapman wanted him and Graham Hill to do the F2 race at Hockenheim, and Lotus was always his priority. Chapman was probably also thinking that they had a new sponsor, Go Leaf cigarettes, in whose red and white colours the cars were now painted, and who had to be kept happy. But everybody who was at Brands that day remembers the awful sensation, as the news went round. Eric Dimock, who was the Guardians Motor Racing correspondent at the time, wrote a biography of Clark, a very good one. And this is how he described the mood in the Brands Hatch press box. A sensation of incredulity, of incalculable grief, descending like a pole. Jim Clark had died of a broken neck, motor racing almost died of a broken heart. That's very well put, isn't it? That was good, Jim. Matt Jim was just 32 when he died, and he showed no signs of wanting to give up. How many more titles do you think he might have won? Had he survived? Well, quite a few more, probably, but obviously we'll never know. And you could ask the same question about Afton Senna, who incidentally rated Clark as the very greatest. But isn't it strange to think that if Clark could race on in Formula One to the age of, I don't know, 40 and why shouldn't he have? He would have been racing against the next generation. Drivers like Emerson Fiddy-Powldy, Ronnie Peterson, Nikki Lowder, James Hunt, Mary Andreeti, Carlos Reutman, Jodie Schechter, etc. And how do you think Colin Chapman was affected by losing his great champion? Well, Chapman went missing for a while, didn't he? For example, I mean, he didn't even attend the next Grand Prix, the Spanish Grand Prix, which by the way, Graham Hill won for Lotus, a very plucky performance indeed, and eerily, but impressively similar to his sun-daymen's equally plucky Spanish Grand Prix win for Williams, shortly after Senna had been killed at Emola in 1994. But anyway, Richard, what do you think Clark might have done in retirement? Hmm. Well, would he have gone back to farming? That's the big question. His father had passed the Eddington Main's farm onto him, and he'd certainly have continued to be its custodian, but I think he'd have got somebody else to run it for him and stayed in motor racing in some capacity. Perhaps Peter Windsor? Yeah. So exact. Might have ended up as a farmer. A farmer, yeah. A custodian farmer. Clark had become a lot more cosmopolitan in those last years, more outgoing and sociable. Some of that reserve was breaking down. Even though his last few years were somewhat darkened by a long battle with the British tax authorities. In those days, high earners were expected to pay 90% of their income in tax, which Jim didn't see as reasonable. Big money was coming into the sport by that time. You know, for winning the Indy 500 in 1965, he took home a total of £46,000, which was the equivalent of over £1,000,000 today, and he wanted to hang onto as much of it as he could. So in 1966, he went into tax exile, first in Paris, where he shared a flat with his friend and our friend, the late Jabi Crombach, the editor of the magazine Sporoto. And then in Bermuda, where he bought a condominium. And to persuade the inland revenue that he really did live abroad, he had to remove all his possessions from the farm. Everything. I think that was pretty hard to ask. Yeah, nice thing to do. But let's talk about his legacy as a racer. Matt, where do you think he stands, ultimately, among the all-time greats? Well, unlike you, I never saw Jim Clark racer at all. I was five years old when he died. But if asked to name the greatest Formula One driver of them all, his is the name I answer with if I have to answer with one. I think his stats are extraordinary, and his loyalty to Lotus, of course. But let's look at the stats. He made 72 Formula One Grand Prix starts. So many of them were DNFs did not finish. And so few of those did not finish his, DNFs were his fault. But despite all those DNFs, he scored 25 Grand Prix wins and 16 non-championship Formula One race wins too. But in addition to that, he also won 11 Formula Junior races, 13 Formula Two races, the 1961 Springbok series, 21 Tasman series races, including the 1965, 1967 and 1968 Tasman Championships, 23 Saloon Car races, 54 sports car races and two UZAC races, one of them the Indianapolis 500. And as I mentioned earlier, what about his eight Formula One Grand Schlem wins, pole fastest lap leading from lights to flag, which is still more than anyone else after all these years. But of all the
stats. This is my favourite Jim Clark stat of them all. Guess how many times he finished second in Formula One Grand Prix? The answer is once. Just once. In other words, when his notices held together, he won. Yeah, you say you think he was the greatest and on a purely emotional level, I'd agree, because I saw him when I was 12 and that's the impact he had on me. But there's also the pretty much unanimous acclaim of Clark's peers to back it up. They all believed him to be the best. And there's also the fact that he could win in anything, as you've said, including sports cast and saloons. Of course, your max for stappens and landowneresses don't get the chance to show whether they'd be capable of that. Well, I'm pretty sure they would, actually. It's all my to be familiar. And that's really the answer to anyone who says, "Well, the only one Grand Prix with Lotus." I can see their point and I happen to have a particular respect for drivers who win the World Championship with more than one team and more than one car designer. But I think the way Clark won his races puts him above that argument. Do you think he has a modern equivalent map? Probably not. Okay, I agree with you that drivers like max for stappen and Lewis Hamilton too are absolutely top draw. Of course they are. Just as one man will fangio and sterling moss were absolutely top draw before Clark's time. But you know, time passes. Clark's reputation probably isn't now as high generally as it deserves to be. But perhaps via this podcast we've done our bit to explain to younger listeners just how magnificent he was. Yes, he was, but time passes, as you say. And perhaps not everyone is as interested in history as we are. Do spectators at today's Grand Prix know about Tatsy and Leverlari, Rudy Carracciola and Alberto Ascari or even fangio? Do they need to actually? But those drivers are all immortal, aren't they? And they are. And you know, although he was well aware of his own special qualities, he was brought up to be a modest person and that's how he stayed. A few years ago I visited his grave at the churchyard in Churnside near the family farm and I couldn't help but be impressed and moved by the inscription is what it says. In loving memory of Jim Clark OBE, farmer, Eddington main Churnside and of Pemperuk, Permuda, World Champion, Motor Racing Driver 1963 in 1965, winner of 25 Grand Prix races Indianapolis 500 winner 1965 first Freeman of the Borough of Dunns, farmer first, then World Champion Motor Racing Driver. I think we can all respect that even if it's not quite how we saw it. Indeed we can. I'm absolutely we can. And that feels like a good place to say and colossally that's history and wrap up our episode on the great Jim Clark one of Motorsports immortals. So let's get into our questions section now where we answer a couple of questions about last week's topic which happened to be Williams's 1986 season when Frank Williams suffered his devastating road car accident but survived to see his team win the Constructors Championship. I should say don't worry if we don't get to your question in this episode there's still a chance we'll answer it in our end of season question and answer episode which will be available exclusively for the race members club but more on that in a moment. Yes so let's get into it and the first question comes from Michael Sanderson. He asks were there any vouchers waiting in the wings to buy the Williams team in the event that it couldn't continue under Frank Williams and Patrick Hed's ownership? Well I have to say I don't remember any talk of that at the time. Not in the aftermath of Frank's accident. I mean their partnership at that time was so solid and you know I think to have entertain the idea of selling part of the team would have been to entertain the suggestion that Frank wasn't going to recover and wasn't going to be taking further part in the team and 15 years later they had a partnership with BMW who wanted to buy the team then and they refused that at the time and it took a while after that before the team began to pass into other hands. Then in the 80s no I don't think there was any. Not that. Not why I grew with you but I also think that perhaps Mr Sanderson's question implied that would that have been the case if Frank had certainly succumbed and if that is what he also implies in his question my answer to that is well Patrick Hed was the co-owner I think he had 30% and Frank had 70% but he said I had 30% and look Patrick was no one's full. Patrick would have stoutly defended and continued running the team in the way that he and Frank always had so actually I don't think there were vultures or at least if there were vultures they didn't have an earthly. No and I think Patrick had that happen Patrick would have continued with the full support of Ginny Williams, Frank's wife and her 70% anyway. Absolutely. Our second question today is from Tim and Tim says how do you think the Mansfield P.K. rivalry would be played out today? In those days did drivers have entourage and their teams of people like today would the Verstappen versus science camps of Red Bull in 2015 be close to what you'd expect Mansfield P.K. to be like today or was it actually more toxic and we just didn't hear as much about it? Well in my view you know we're talking about the 80s aren't we and although that is 40 years ago yes they did have entourage is by that time if you went back to the 50s perhaps they didn't but they did in the 80s and the question includes the the the word toxic was it actually more toxic? No nothing is more toxic than Nelson P.K. Can you expand on that? I think I have in the past. Okay if somebody asks why I've said that I mean he was a great driver he won three world championships but he was apporlingly rude about Rosen Mansfield, Nigel's wife who was Mansfield's entourage? Absolutely and with a couple of others but yes and he was apporlingly rude about Atten Center and he was apporlingly more recently rude about Lewis Hamilton. Yep. If you'd like to ask a question about Jim Clark just head to patreon.com/thorace and sign up to the race members club. It costs about the same as a cup of coffee each month and you will get all the races shows including ours ad free plus bonus shows and loads of other benefits. And if you don't have a question for the show but you'd still like to drop us a line you can get in touch via
[email protected] or you can drop us a line via social media. I'm at the bish f1 and Richard is at our Williams 1947. So that's it for this week until next time with thanks to our producer Johnny Reynolds and to you for listening it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from him. The Athletic.
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