They really undersold that 1965 season, when he won the Indy 500 and the F1 championship. He also won the Tasman series, which was in Australia and New Zealand, the French F2 championship, and a bunch of other stuff. If he wasn't winning a race, he was on a plane to the place he would win the next one.
I saw Jim Clarke in the 60s at Snetterton, which then was simply a 4 mile+ lap of the perimeter of the old RAF Snetterton Heath bomber base from WW11. The track retained one of the main runways for aircraft landings, this is now the Senna Straight on the current track layout. On this Sunday Jim flew himself down from his home in the Scottish Borders, about 350 miles, in his own single engined aircraft and landed on this runway. He took part in 3 races and won them all, in a Lotus 23 sports car, an open wheeled racer and a Lotus Cortina saloon car. He then got back in his aircraft and flew home, just an afternoon 'jaunt'. I thought at the time, 'That's a cool guy!'
There were many drivers in that era who drove (and won) in multiple versions of motorsports: Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Stirling Moss, etc.
The Spa win is really undersold. It was pouring with rain, his gearbox was broken and he was holding it together with his right hand for half the race. He ended up not using the top gear for about a third of the race, which would have an impact anywhere (maybe not so much Monaco), but at Spa that is huge. And to *still* win the race by almost 5 whole minutes. Insanity.
It's only a footnote to his career, but he also raced in NASCAR once: a Holman & Moody Fairlane at Rockingham in 1967. And when he won Indianapolis in '65, it was with the help of the Wood Brothers pit crew - nobody else could get a car refuelled and re-tyred in the same time. Since there wasn't time to get them Lotus team uniforms, however, they had to wear their usual red-and-white #21 team shirts. Also a side note, but I think it's pretty cool: that famous team photo at 3:42? The nerd with the dark hair and the glasses, second from the right? That's our own Allan Moffat. On the Lotus team that day, he was the water boy.
Love this. I am Scottish and Jim Clark is an absolute Legend. There are museums and statues of him dotted around Scotland- go visit if you are ever here. Keep up the good work
I’m quite sure in the 63 season he drove in 64 races all over the world in different categories, statistically that is more than one race every week of the year and dominated. That’s like Lewis Hamilton winning the F1, F2, Indy 500, V8 Supercars and the BTCC, frankly even legend status doesn’t quite describe Jim Clark. Best driver to walk the earth.
I was 14 when he was killed but, being from a small town in Oklahoma I never heard of him. I was a car lover from an early age and later somewhat of a racing fan. I only heard of him mentioned in passing. It wasn't until recently that I discovered videos of his life and career. He is from the motherland of my family name which made me more interested in him. What a great example of humility and quiet confidence he was, as well as a great ambassador to Scotland that should make every Scotsman proud.
Jim Clark, quiet Scottish farmer who was the G.O.A.T. His Indy 500 win was by over 2 minutes!! it also changed the configuration from front to mid engine, once and for all
This was very interesting. I knew about Jim Clark but never really looked into him or his achievements. Truly amazing driver, and a hell of a bloke by the sounds of it.
It's not just the cars from back then that look scary (exposed driver, not crash structure, etc), but the tracks were crazily dangerous too. Many old tracks was road -white line - hay bails or wire fencing. It was a death sentence to go off track back then.
I had the absolute privilege of standing next to him, as a spectator during a Tasman series race in Sandown, Melbourne, Australia, in 1966. He was just standing there as an ordinary spectator during his break from the race, very unassuming and relaxed , a really nice pleasure to know that the greatest driver ever, was near me as a spectator.
One of my earliest memories is being driven round Jim's parents farm in the Borders by him on a tractor - he was a friend of my Dad (who worked for the local agricultural supplies companies - I distinctly remember how upset he was when Jim was killed.
Jim Clarke and Ayrton Senna. I saw them both race, and I saw them both die. 2 days I will never forget. RIP. Truly great drivers, and truly great men. The brightest candles...
@LathropLdST Jim Clark died in an F2 race, not a private test. Team Lotus did most of their testing either at Snetterton circuit or at the then new Hethel test track behind the Lotus Cars factory.
1960's F1 cars were beautiful, IMO. They didn't have downforce, they had to rely on mechanical grip. Clark is my GOAT. Jim famously said "I'm not faster than everybody else, I just concentrate harder." He not only won Spa in '63, as the film mentioned, he did it with a broken gearbox and in the pouring rain. I saw him win Indy in '65(on the TV) when I was a kid. It is Spa, where the Belgian GP is held. The part of the track shown looks like Eau Rouge and Radillon.
Jim Clark and Graham Hill. Both legendary British drivers with an epic rivalry. Hill is the only driver in history to achieve the "motorsports triple crown", this being the Formula One World Championship, the Indianapolis 500, and the Le Mans 24hr. They both also had unfortunate, untimely deaths with Clark dying in 1968 at the Hockenheimring and Hill dying after attempting to land a light aircraft during foggy conditions in 1975.
The hero of my youth as a wee boy in Scotland, he was just a superb driver but also a gentleman. The flying Scot will always be a Scottish legend loved & adored by people from all over the planet.
You’ve got some good content on here. I’ve been watching a lot. Btw, there is something very special you could review. The TOP GEAR Ayrton Senna piece. It’ll blow your mind. It is the Apex of racing - Senna
Another LEgend..too many legends to count on the fingers ...to many awesome people in the racing and car community from everywhere around the world! Brabham Jack was something else to..very cool car that was made and brought back to life like a year or 2 ago that sold like over 2M$ for an exemplar
Brabham is the only person to win a F1 championship in "his own team". The engine was a Repco an Australian car parts company. The team was Brabham. Sir Jack later sold the team to a person named Bernie Eccleston. Before starting his own team Jack won the F1 WC driving for Coopers. His teammate there was a young Bruce McLaren. McLaren also started his own team. The McLaren team is currently the only team in F1 that also is in Indycar. A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti are the only people to win both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 (NASCAR). Mario also won a F1 WC. Emmerson Fittipaldi has won the F1 WC and Indy 500 2 times. He was McLaren's first ever F1 World Champion. Foyt, Andretti and Fittipaldi are huge names in U.S. and world motorsport. They still have family members competing! The Ulser family has a great record at Indianapolis. Alfred Unser Jr. (born April 19, 1962), nicknamed " Little Al ", " Al Junior ", or simply " Junior ", is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. His father won the race 4 times, 1970, 1971, 1978 & 1987. Bobby Unser (little Al's uncle) won the 500 three times, many championships and he won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb overall title 10 times (13 times when class wins are included). Bobby Unser was a great race commentator after he retired. His brother Al and his nephew Al Jnr raced in these races. Hearing Bobby commentate on "little Al" was something special.
The Wood Brothers were his pit crew in the 1965 Indy 500. They were impressed with his ability to stop on the marks they put in the pit box for the tires and fuel hose every single time he stopped. He was the only foreign driver AJ Foyt was impressed with.
loving your work, keep it up. hi from Aus. Australian engineer, racing driver, Jack Brabham with in conduction with Repco Australia designed, engineered and built an F1 car then raced it, set records and won championships in it. you may or may not have time to review it's but definitely is worth a watch. a lot to say but i would almost describe him as the epitome of Australian motor racing at the time.
Ian thanks for doing this reaction, as a Scotsman , Im very proud of our motorsport legends, people know well of Jackie Stewart and Colin McRae however the greatest of them all was Jim Clark, glad you have pulled him into the younger generations minds, ty sir
The Grand Tour did a great tribute to him a few years ago now, and they touch on a few other stats and accomplishments that weren't really mentioned here. Great video though, it's awesome to see how enthused you are to learn about all manner of racing. And all manner of THINGS, to be fair.
Hi Ian, Jim was an all rounder as well, as has been said, his contemporaries looked up to him, no driver gets that. That Lotus 49 with the Cosworth DFV just looks fantastic! From the films I've seen, he does look like he's out for a cruise! Well, done Ian, that was Spa! He was killed in a F2 race at Hockenheim, Germany when for reasons unknown his car left the track, the one certain thing was that it could not be driver error. I think the thing that says the most about him as a man is that on his headstone it gives his name, dates etc then underneath it says "Farmer" then its lists his championships....
It was thought the crash was caused by a deflating rear tyre of which many of the drivers believed because they thought Jim Clark was incapable of making such a mistake.
Clark was a legend. There's a video of him setting lap records and pitting saying he felt a worn wheel bearing techs couldn't feel it. He parked the car torn apart and found a worn new bearing. On the wheel he said it was.
Any auto sport fan ( all types of car racing ) should go to Duns in the Scottish Boarders and visit Jim Clark’s museum He mainly drove for Lotus and he could drive anything , my boyhood hero . I was bought the Lotus racing team set by Corgi for Christmas and I won every race on my race track set up on the carpet 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hi from Fife in Scotland. I live just a few miles down the road from Jim Clarks birthplace, Kilmany. We're very proud of him, he was a proper gentleman racer and devastatingly fast in anything motorised. I see a few others mentioning the fact that his 1965 season was kinda downplayed. He won just about everything on the planet that year, championships in France, Australia, New Zealand aswell as F1 and the Indy 500, in which he nearly lapped the entire field....twice...imagine that, being lapped by him twice lol, and touring car races. If you watch the Top Gear special about him it explains some of his achievements in more detail. Great video.
Well done spotting Senna - his helmet was also in the Brazilian colours. Certainly looks like SPA to me - you're getting really good at this! He died at a minor F2 race at 'The Green Hell", and the speculation was that he swerved to avoid a deer - it being situated basically in a forest - whatever the reason, there were no barriers and he hit a tree. I think it was Sir Jackie Stewart who said, when hearing of his death, "If it can happen to him, what chance do the rest of us have" - or words to that affect.
It was at Hockenheim, not the "Greeen Hell" of the Nurburgring And it wasn't a "minor" F2 race - it was the second round of a chanpionship. It was a dismal wet and cold day. None of the Firestone-tyred cars could get heat into the tyres, and Jimmy only qualified 7th. He foretold that he would not be quick (and teammate Graham Hill was also running few places behind Clark) because of the conditions. The detailed technical analysis of the car wreckage indicated that he had had a slow puncture in the right rear tyre, causing the tread to rise and pull the tyre bead off the wheelrim under increasing cetrifugal force as he accelerated on the long right-handed curve of the track through the forest. That appears to have been the cause of the loss of control that even his prodigious skill could not overcome. It was Chris Amon who made the quote along the lines of "If it can happen to him, what chance do the rest of us have?".
@IWrocker - oh I’m a complete and utter Clark bore - fully paid up member of the hero worship fam club here. There are so many great stories about him, from running NASCAR for a laugh, to mowing peoples lawns in Australia because they didn’t know who he was - legend is a word that gets used too much - he deserves it.
Hi Ian, I was 12 or 13 when myself and two buddies got into Formula One. We diligently watched every Formula One race on TV. Jim Clark was the favorite of all three of us as he was so smooth a driver that was always on the edge. To see him drift all the way through corners at high speeds, with zero down force was quite simply amazing. IMHO His best race was The 1965 British Grand Prix. To save his engine, Clark had coasted round the corners in neutral and battled with the higher gears on the straight parts of the track. "In the last two laps when my engine was showing no oil pressure at all", he said, "I would have been prepared to risk 'blowing up' rather than see Graham Hill pass me in the BRM. Fortunately it was not necessary." Jim, Won the race. After the race one of his mechanics stated that he was completely dumbfounded at the time, as he couldn't hear the car's engine when it went by.
If you don't know Fangio you must learn about him. This whole life is stunning. He once raced and his car broke down, his teammate saw it, stopped and gave him his car. Unbelievable guy.
Add to that, that guy was a greedy grubby guy too, by the name of Mike Hawthorn. Yes. The root cause of the 1955 LeMans tragedy. I still think he gave Fangio the car under team orders, not of his own volition.
My parents were lucky to see him race in Finland. Jim Clark actually even started a race in Nascar, too. I recommend everyone to watch a BBC documentary called Jim Clark: The Quiet Champion. There is so much of emotional stuff in this documentary that it should not leave an eye dry. Also, you will get a confirmation that here was the greatest driver of all time. 🏁🏆🍾💝🏴
Everybody who knew him said he was the best they ever saw. Re indy and f1, mansell was f1 champion in 92 then won indycar in 93!!! He almost won't the indy 500 at his 1st attempt too. Mansell is an underrated monster of a driver imo with HUGE balls
As a motor sport fan, I followed Nigel Mansell in F1 and the 93 Indy car championship. He went from world champion F1 to a rookie Indy driver to Indy Champion. Cheers from Australia
Mansell was totally overrated actually. He never won a single race with Lotus and only started winning because he joined Williams at a time when it was one of the dominant teams of the time. To further prove my argument his replacement at Lotus was none other than Ayrton Senna who started winning for Lotus almost immediately. A good driver can win in a great car but it takes a great driver to win in a good car!
@@B-A-L give over. He out drove Nelson piquet in the same car, he won indycar in his rookie year too! Prost stole his. Car because he didn't know how mansell was so much faster than he was. You're wrong
Since I have been watching your videos, after I found your channel, and after 1 st one I subscribed and liked. I absolutely Love your enthusiasm, and you make me laugh so much. I have seen dozens of your videos now, especially the Rally ones which watching you react is hilarious in a great way. You are also always really respectful about everyone etc. I am from the UK, and lived in the USA for 7 years travelling to 37 states whilst there , and living in many for months at a time. I also lived in Canada, and Nova Scotia etc. I also used to Race Cars professionally in the old British Saloon Car Championship. Also drove at Le Mans 24 Heures race 6 times and also did Rallying in the late 70s at the RAC Rally in UK. I just love your enthusiasm, and You just have to come to the UK and go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, go to the Isle of Man TT, go to Le Mans etc before its to late. also go watch some live stages at a WRC Rally. If not you will regret it.
Jim Clark is part of a very special group, a group that included people like Gilles Villenueve, Tazio Nuvolari, A.J. Foyt, Sébastien Loeb, and a handful of other race drivers, who were simply made different: you could give them a car, or a bike, or anything, to race on for the first time, and they would find a way to win
you put a smile on my face as a 44 yrs old French-Canadian!! first story that came to my mind about Gilles is when he get airborne with a helicopter without license/flight experience!! Salut Gilles!!
@@jean-rochdion4898 i really like him to..this are people lije he said that are born different with amazing skills in every field and with cool adaptation in every sport
@@jean-rochdion4898 I'm italian, and as an italian I'm a Ferrari fan, and Gilles is in my heart as it is in countless Ferrari fan around the world: he was a magnificient driver, and a magnificient person, one that will forever be in our memory.
Clark competed in an era when even the best cars weren't very reliable and almost any mistake could be fatal life expectancy was only a couple of years not decades like today so the only real way to compare them is average starts to results the big numbers todays drivers are not really comparable
Fangio was an Argentine driver, he won the world championship 5 times and pretty much dominated the 1st era of F1 in the 50's (he only entered 7 world championships and the 2 he never won he was 2nd.... one of those he didn't win because he was recovering from a near fatal accident) not to mention that he was 46 years old when he won his last championship in 57 :) he won 24 of the 52 races he competed in. he;s still considered by many as the greatest F1 driver there has ever been (and going by the percentages it's hard to argue with that, nobody else comes close to that level of consistency.) and yeah 18:40 thats Spa. (looking down into eau rouge/raidillon corners) 19:17 ah Jackie Stewart... another Scottish F1 legend and my childhood hero of F1 (being Scottish myself I'm probably a bit biased tho :) I met Jackie years ago at an event that had nothing to do with motor racing and I was so star struck :) he is a lovely man and so humble. the autograph he gave me is one of my prized possessions
All I’m Going to say is Jim had many fans in the USA. In my life time I have seen my oldest brother cry exactly twice . Once at our dad’s funeral, and the day it hit the news that Clark had died. That last photo you showed Jim starting a race at a painted checkered line? That I’m certain is the old Watkins Glen start line which now is the short hill before the esses. It used to be there in the sixties before the track was lengthened. Thank you for this well researched video.
I absolutely love the look of the F1 cars and the way they moved on the track of that era just before they sprouted wings. I do wonder, with today's tech, how fast an open wheel car could be made that doesn't depend on aero/downforce.
Jim came to Australia at least twice, I remember seeing him race at Warwick Farm, Sydney in what was called the Tasman series. It was a series raced in Oz and NZ where other well known drivers raced. Jack Brabham participated as did Jochen Rindt and Denny Hulme. I think wee Jackie also raced. Vision of Jim at Warwick Farm can be found on YT.
Jim farmed at Chirnside in the Scottish Borders near where I grew up. There was a Ford Gakaxy which drove round the local lanes, part of his Indy 500 prize.
Ian, Jim Clark was quite a good rally driver as well. Note: when he raced Lotus Cortina's back then, a roll cage was considered excess weight. Here's a 50 sec clip of him in the Cortina ruclips.net/video/YKWNhRzkk0w/видео.html I got to see Jim Clark driving the NZ Grand Prix in 1967 [as a very young boy] You need to do some research on Fangio who was 39 when he started racing F1 [1950] and won 5 world championships by the time he was 46 [1957] He also took a year off in 1952 to recover from a broken neck
That picture @ 21:23 shows Jim Clarke, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill - all F1 racing legends. In fact, Jackie Stewart is sometimes a commentator for modern F1 races.
JIm Clark was amazing, one of a great line of Scottish drivers.. you should do Jackie Stewart (another Scotsman like Jim the sheppard and 3 times F1 champion)... ONLY driver to win the F1 championship still driving a V8 when every other team had moved to V10s. He won some races by just under 5 minutes. He was a leader in bringing safety in as well.
V12, V10s for F1 were introduced in the 1980s, the first being the Alfa Romeo V1035, dyno-tested in July 1986 but never raced following FIAT's acquisition of the brand, the Honda RA109E developed in 1987 and introduced in competition in 1989 along with the Renault RS1
The Cosworth V8 was a far better engine than the Ferrari, BRM, Honda & Weslake V12's of the era. More cylinder's are not necessarily better. After Clark, most of the future world champions used that engine. No one used V10's until the 90's
I was at the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch the day he was killed at Hockenheim. The entire crowd was in shock, the grief was palpable. i was also at the, I think it was called, the "DailyExpress" trophy race for F1 cars at Silverstone in April/May 1968. All the drivers and their cars assembled on the grid before the race and the drivers stood alongside their cars whilst a piper played a lament from the very top of the grandstand roof. There was NOT a dry eye in the place, including me. Jim Clark will be forever be NUMBER ONE.
I believe I saw Jim Clark at Sandown in Melbourne Australia when he came down for the Tasman series. Seems he had the smooth approach to driving much like our Peter Brock in later years (that's why Peter was known as "Peter Perfect"). They both looked after their equipment during a race....
The story with hay on the tires, in England most race tracks had grass paddocks until the 80s, and even 2000s for some tracks. I’ve seen footage of 70s f1 race in England where the cars are being driven around in a lot of mud from rain on the grass
You were correct, that was the climb at Eau Rouge - Radillon in Spa. In those days they used the pits facing towards it for the F1 races, rather than where it is now before the hairpin at La Source
Jim Clarke, Stuart Graham and Sterling Moss are potentially the best drivers of all time. My dad had a 67 mustang in the mid seventies that had a cam ground by Jim Clarke in it and it was allegedly one of the first 289s in the UK to dyno over 450bhp. The man was a brilliant driver and a legend in the parts world
Hi Ian, Clark was a great driver, and all the lotus you see here are powered by Ford, lotus Cortina is a Ford Cortina with the green stripe on the side. You should check out Jack Brabham. He was a great racer. Keep up the good work from Dave in Australia.
The only Ford components of the so called Ford Cosworth DFV V8 multi championship winning engine is the 100,000 quid Cowsworth got from Ford to develop the engine and allow Ford to have naming rights to the engine. Quite a bargain as still so many think it reflected Ford engineering skills when none were involved. Similar with the Lotus Cortina with its Lotus twin cam head that gave it the big advantage but never developed
That is Spa but the helmet in the car is Graham Hill which used the London Rowing Clubs colours. Graham only driver to hold the triple crown of winning the triple crown of motorsport, the Indianapolis 500, 24hr Le Mans and the F1 world championship. His son, Damon Hill (also a F1 World Champion) and grandson Josh wear the same colours on their helmets. Jim Clark was a legend
You mentioned not knowing Fangio - he basically dominated F1 in the 50s, winning five championships between 1951 and 1957. This record would stand until Schumacher equaled it in 2002, and then beat it in 2003. Absolute legend.
"Fanging it" is a standard Australian saying about driving. comes from Fangio - Hes more famous than most know, my dad also used to use "steady on fangio" all the time.
Another great was Sir jack Brabham, he won the F1 championship in 59, 60 and 66 . He was the first and still the only man to win the Formula One world championship driving one of his own designed and built cars.
And the Repco Brabham car won the championship again in 1967 with Denny Hulme driving. Jack got a bit greedy with the new development parts kept for himself to use first. Denny kept the proven parts which proved more reliable enough for him to win the championship. Not a bad record for the Repco engine company starting with cast off Oldsmobile aluminium engine blocks that they beat all the Ferrari, Maserati, Honda, BRM and Ford engined cars in 66 and 67.
As a 71 year old Jim Clark was my driving hero. He only had one accident a fatal one in 1968! I hope you also look into Juan Fangio - he was an amazing talent from Argentina. His best years were the WW2 years. So he never got into F1 until past his prime.
Putting those 8 grand slams (pole, fastest lap, led every lap) into real perspective, that is one for every nine starts he had. Comparing with Lewis Hamilton's 6 out of 310 or one in every 52 starts.
Keep in mind while they review his stats that the cars of that day, most definitely including the Lotus, were notoriously unreliable and prone to mechanical failure. When he was killed Dan Gurney thought "If Jim Clark can get killed, what chance do the rest of us have?"
1:23 This is the 1967 Lotus 49 with a 3 Litre Cosworth DFV, engine. This engine then was used until the 2000 era. I may be wrong, but I think this photo was made at the '67 mexican Grand Prix.
I’ve only missed 3 f1 Grand Prix since 1986, and was an avid fan since the mid 70’s and Jim Clark is without doubt in my mind at the top, you can debate the other 9 members of that illusive top 10 greatest drivers but Jim Clark sits at the top. Different times but for what it’s worth, my 10… Clark Fangio Hamilton Schumacher Senna Lauda Prost Vettel Alonso Mansell G Villeneuve Ok, I made it 11, never discount Gille from a list of greats! Great vids, man 😉🥰
Good list. You have there maybe 1 or 2 names that I'd personally replace with Häkkinen but you have a fair argument for every name on your list. It's more of a cosmetical error to count out your flying finns. ;)
Hamilton in the top 3?? No way should he be there can’t do anything unless he’s in by far the best car on the grid. Good driver yes but not even top 3 British drivers let alone in the world
@@andypandy5613 It's true that Hamilton has driven with way better cars than any other driver on the grid. I don't myself rate Hamiltons reign that highly, since he basically had it given. He has had to fight for what 4 times for the championship, and he lost twice? Nico and Max. If I'm not forgetting some of his earlier battles. Still I think there is a case to be made that anyone who has 7 championships should be on these lists. I'm going on a assumption that this list isn't in order. Since if this is top 1-10 order, putting hamilton in front of likes of Schumacher and Senna is just absurd.
@@Pyllymysli yes he should be on the list there is no disputing that but and it’s a big but I would certainly put him behind Senna, Schumacher and Prost and as a British driver behind Mansell, the reasoning behind that one are Mansell while flawed as a person and a driver at times could certainly fight on the track where as I don’t think Lewis can
I've visited Jim's grave a few times when I have been up on the borders, and attended his 50th memorial in Churnside, one of the visits to his grave I met an elderly lady called Grace who lived in a bungalow overlooking the church yard, she proceeded to tell me she knew Jim and Jackie ( Stewart) Jim's farm was a couple of miles away Eddington Mains I think, she said she would go to the local young farmers dances and Jim would usually be there if he wasn't racing, a quite shy lad, but she said Jackie was quite a show off! I told her I was also a farmer and had been involved in Rallying, she was a lovely lady.
I was a lad in the days of Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, and Jim Clarke. Clarke was my favourite - no pretensions, just somebody out for a fun day's drive.
In the Belgian GP he won, he basically drove the race with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand holding the gear shift lever in place. He also did this in the rain.
At that time Colin Chapman completely overturned the design of F1 cars. He made them mid engined but the main thing was using the engine/gearbox as a part of the chassis. This hadn’t been done before and all F1 cars were front engine/rear drive. So a good part of the success Clark had was due to the cars.
Myth. look at what his team mates managed during the same period. Lotus had just one 1-2 finish while Clark was racing and only one other Lotus driver won a race. Those team mates included John Surtees and Graham Hill. The fastest thing about those cars was Clark.
@@fugawiaus the Lotus 49b was a drastically improved version of the original 49 that Clark drove in 67. Hill was nowhere with the original 49. Clark won 4 races that season to Hill's 0. It wasn't until the B version came along that Hill began to win races (by which time Clark was gone also). The B had radically.improved power delivery, Gearbox and rear suspension. The 33 with which Clark Dominated the 1965 season was basically upgraded 25, a now 4 year old design and well down on power against BRM and Ferrari. Clark took maximum points. His team mates had 1 podium between them that season. Best Cars? Do some reading. Incidentally the stressed member engine concept you seem to think Clark had all career didn't come along until 1966 with the Lotus 43 and was refined in the 49. Clark didn't have it for either of his titles
Both Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren likely got there car building and designing skills at the Cooper F1 team in 1959 to 60. The Cooper approach was to point a new driver at a set of tubing saying there is your car just build it. A great learning experience for Frank Gardiner as well. Might have flowed on to Dan Gurney when driving for Brabham cars too. Three drivers that drove F1 cars of their own company.
About Lotus, they were indeed one of the best for many years. Some of the innovations they brought to F1 - The moncoque chassis, Chapman strut suspension, the Ford DFV engine, using the engine as a stressed member, full team sponsorship with Gold Leaf, front and rear wings, gas turbines, inboard suspension, side mounted radiators, ground effect, carbon fibre tub, twin chassis Lotus 88, active suspension.... Chapman and his team were absolute genius.
Jim was a maestro behind a steering wheel. Could drive anything competitively. Surely if he had lived he would have won at least 7 possibly 8 World championships. Jim is well remember with a museum in his memory in the Village of Duns in Scotland and a Facebook page with all his pics interviews and stories Well worth a visit to both.
I remember seeing an episode of Pawn Stars once where someone was pawning an item that had all these driver names on it and Rick, who claims to be this huge racing fan, had never heard of Jim Clark and was somewhat dismissive of the drivers names on the item. Now that may have been to drive the price down, but to dismiss a two time F1 world champion and an Indy 500 winner as someone nobody would have heard of was jaw dropping to me.
I loved watching Jim Clark (on TV of course), but to me, Fangio was the best. His record five world championships stood until Schumacher won his 6th in 2003. He won the title in four different makes: Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Maserati. He has the highest winning percentage of any driver, 46.15%. The most amazing thing about him is that the Formula 1 drivers championship didn't begin until 1950 when Fangio was 39 years old. He won his fifth title at age 46!
Yep that’s probably grass on the tyres. One story about him that gives a clue of his ability was during practice at a GP he pitted and reported to his mechanic that something wasn’t right in the back of the car. After checking the car he went out again and still said the same thing. After practice was over the mechanic pulled to rear suspension down and discovered a bearing that had just started to wear.
That picture at 21 / 22 minutes is incredible left to right Jackie Stewart 3x, Jim Clark 2x and Graham Hill 2x F1 world champions, it is such an iconic picture.
I had the opportunity to see him racing in the start of my teen years when F1 Grand Prix ran a race at the Sandown Park racing circuit here in Melbourne, just down the street from my home. A circuit now running various motor sport events including Super Car rounds. The F1 Grand Prix has not been there since the 1960s, now foray years at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, as you well know a popular street circuit with the F1 drivers. If you have not seen the Holiwood Grand Prix movie, with Steve McQueen from memory, I think it is worth seeing, covering the time frame of Jim Clark racing F1.
Well done spotting Spar and Ayerton, you are learning fast. Colin Chapman was a legend, he was a genius inovator, Enzio Ferrari referd to him as a garageester, all those world championship car where built a on a shoe string budget compared to the big names, in a lock up garage. I've been lucky enough to get up close to one of the Lotus cars from this era, It terrifid me just looking at it, the very thought of racing in one was a mind blower, tube chassis with an aluminium skin, it looked so flimsy I did not dare touch it for fear of breaking it! There is however another legend assosiated with Colin and Jim, Dave "Beaky Sims, Jim's mechanic who is described as a legend in the pit lane across the world and in many catagories of motor sport, did a lot of work in the USA. You may want to seek out a vid on Lotus and or Chapman. Driving at the same time was Graham Hill, 3 time F1 Camp and the only man ever to gain the tripple crown (winning, the Monaco GP, the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24hrs, Alonso has had a try but not yet win at Indy, Montoya is so far besed placed to achieve the crown as the Le Mans is arguably the easiest to win, and i think we may see him do it.) they called him "Mr Monaco" due to his prowess on that track, 5 wins, he also has a first that no one will ever top, he is the first driver, sadly after his death, to have his son also claim an F1 Championship. It's been achieved once since, I 'll let you work it out, but as a clue, the son had to beat one of the greats of formula 1 in the same car.
The greatest F1 driver to ever live was Juan Manuel Fangio. He won 5 world championships back in the 50s and held that record until Michael Schumacher broke it in the 90s. My dad interviewed Fangio when he came out here in 1977 and I got to meet the legend. Something I'll never forget!!!
In those days racing was not in TV and almost every year they lost a lot of drivers because the cars were so light and fragile if you flew from the trak you had hardly a chance to live, my favorit drivers were Jim Clarke, Graham hill, and Jackie Stewart plus the late Stirling Moss whos race carrier was cut short because he hit a Patch of oil and flew from the track, he was badly injured and could not drive after that, was happy that he lived a long life, Graham Hill was another champion in three classes, Indi 500, the 24 hours of LA MON and F1, he started as a engineer and worked his way up in the end to team leader.
just a thought from an old kiwi. a large number of sheep farms are a bi remote and gravel roads were common back then so having your car drift was usual. driving with very little traction on roads so windy and often hilly requires smoothness and sensitivity, also he very likely was involved in winter feeding out hay I frequented a friends family farm and every winter the farm surface offered traction like ice does, plus if you spin out you tear up the grass all the way to the bottom of the hill, damaging productivity and mud provides less grip than grass. he grew up driving in very demanding conditions where reading traction was essential. looking at the onboard it looks as if he was driving on the edge of traction. the car is sliding slightly but only just and always within limits. I think his sheep farm upbringing was a foundation for his style. oh yes and those gravel roads often had the clif from where the road had been cut into a hillside or an unguarded drop so loosing it was always expensive or dangerous, usually both. in my mind this goes some way to explaining his style. it was an extension and development of what he already knew. also frequently if you broke it you also got to fix it as obviously there are no mechanics out in the country lotus were great but famously fragile so Mr Clark was perfect his great mechanical sensitivity and likely a fair ability as a spanner swinger allowed him to drive a fragile car fast without breaking it thanks for a great video
A long time before he ever even saw a Formula 1 car, he accompanied a young friend of Ian Baker Watson, to a little club race in Scotland, where he would help as mechanic. Jim had never raced anything in his life. After watching his friend in practice, he asked if he could give it a try. He was immediately 2 seconds a lap faster. On a1.2 mile track. In 1964, at an extremely fast and dangerous track called Spa, in a torrential downpour, he won the Belgian Gran Prix by over 5 minutes in a 185 mile race. An absolutely devastating driver. If you were racing against him, you had best hope his car broke....
So many fellow Scots have talked about Jim in this way I always assumed he was great but that there was some patriotic bias too. Apparently not...I'd never heard the Indy 500 story for example. Regarding his 'humble' beginnings his family must have been landowning farmers as he was sent to exclusive private schools (hence his mild Scottish accent)...car racing was (and is) and expensive hobby for a young man.
@@alexanderupb4546 agree, he was talented and a great man in his own right...I just feel we don'r need to embellish to exaggerate his already great story
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
They really undersold that 1965 season, when he won the Indy 500 and the F1 championship. He also won the Tasman series, which was in Australia and New Zealand, the French F2 championship, and a bunch of other stuff. If he wasn't winning a race, he was on a plane to the place he would win the next one.
He also won the European Championship that year.
Also the british f2
Think he finished second om bttc aswell
@@Zirion123 he won the btcc in 1964
@@Zirion123 third. He won it the year before, at odd weekends. Mad talented
I saw Jim Clarke in the 60s at Snetterton, which then was simply a 4 mile+ lap of the perimeter of the old RAF Snetterton Heath bomber base from WW11. The track retained one of the main runways for aircraft landings, this is now the Senna Straight on the current track layout. On this Sunday Jim flew himself down from his home in the Scottish Borders, about 350 miles, in his own single engined aircraft and landed on this runway. He took part in 3 races and won them all, in a Lotus 23 sports car, an open wheeled racer and a Lotus Cortina saloon car. He then got back in his aircraft and flew home, just an afternoon 'jaunt'. I thought at the time, 'That's a cool guy!'
Jim Clark
In the days when the super fast Norwich Straight was still in use...👌
You know whats mad about Jim, at his heart he remained a farmer. A simple farmer from the boarders of Scotland that had a God given talent. Amazing
Jim was from Kilmany in North East Fife, before he moved to the borders
"he could race anything"
You might want to look up "John Surtees". The only F1 and Motorbike Worldchampion :)
Or Tazio Nuvolari, pretty much the same achievements, only those categoried didn't exist when he was racing: he retired the year before F1 was born.
Torben you beat me too it just posted same thing
VIC ELFORD ?????????
Don't forget first Can- Am champion as well with his Lola T70.
There were many drivers in that era who drove (and won) in multiple versions of motorsports: Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Stirling Moss, etc.
The Spa win is really undersold.
It was pouring with rain, his gearbox was broken and he was holding it together with his right hand for half the race. He ended up not using the top gear for about a third of the race, which would have an impact anywhere (maybe not so much Monaco), but at Spa that is huge.
And to *still* win the race by almost 5 whole minutes.
Insanity.
It's only a footnote to his career, but he also raced in NASCAR once: a Holman & Moody Fairlane at Rockingham in 1967. And when he won Indianapolis in '65, it was with the help of the Wood Brothers pit crew - nobody else could get a car refuelled and re-tyred in the same time. Since there wasn't time to get them Lotus team uniforms, however, they had to wear their usual red-and-white #21 team shirts.
Also a side note, but I think it's pretty cool: that famous team photo at 3:42? The nerd with the dark hair and the glasses, second from the right? That's our own Allan Moffat. On the Lotus team that day, he was the water boy.
Love this. I am Scottish and Jim Clark is an absolute Legend. There are museums and statues of him dotted around Scotland- go visit if you are ever here. Keep up the good work
I’m quite sure in the 63 season he drove in 64 races all over the world in different categories, statistically that is more than one race every week of the year and dominated. That’s like Lewis Hamilton winning the F1, F2, Indy 500, V8 Supercars and the BTCC, frankly even legend status doesn’t quite describe Jim Clark. Best driver to walk the earth.
I was 14 when he was killed but, being from a small town in Oklahoma I never heard of him. I was a car lover from an early age and later somewhat of a racing fan. I only heard of him mentioned in passing. It wasn't until recently that I discovered videos of his life and career. He is from the motherland of my family name which made me more interested in him. What a great example of humility and quiet confidence he was, as well as a great ambassador to Scotland that should make every Scotsman proud.
Jim was a class act
Jim Clark, quiet Scottish farmer who was the G.O.A.T. His Indy 500 win was by over 2 minutes!! it also changed the configuration from front to mid engine, once and for all
This was very interesting. I knew about Jim Clark but never really looked into him or his achievements. Truly amazing driver, and a hell of a bloke by the sounds of it.
It's not just the cars from back then that look scary (exposed driver, not crash structure, etc), but the tracks were crazily dangerous too. Many old tracks was road -white line - hay bails or wire fencing. It was a death sentence to go off track back then.
Book called The Killing Years
Yet I’d still do it.
Not half the old green hell was beyond insanity.
I had the absolute privilege of standing next to him, as a spectator during a Tasman series race in Sandown, Melbourne, Australia, in 1966. He was just standing there as an ordinary spectator during his break from the race, very unassuming and relaxed , a really nice pleasure to know that the greatest driver ever, was near me as a spectator.
One of my earliest memories is being driven round Jim's parents farm in the Borders by him on a tractor - he was a friend of my Dad (who worked for the local agricultural supplies companies - I distinctly remember how upset he was when Jim was killed.
Jim Clarke and Ayrton Senna. I saw them both race, and I saw them both die. 2 days I will never forget. RIP. Truly great drivers, and truly great men. The brightest candles...
Jim Clark
I saw both, too.
Jimmy every time.
Jim Clark was Ayrton Senna's idol.
You were at the F2 private test where Clark passed away? Wow.
@LathropLdST Jim Clark died in an F2 race, not a private test.
Team Lotus did most of their testing either at Snetterton circuit or at the then new Hethel test track behind the Lotus Cars factory.
1960's F1 cars were beautiful, IMO. They didn't have downforce, they had to rely on mechanical grip. Clark is my GOAT. Jim famously said "I'm not faster than everybody else, I just concentrate harder." He not only won Spa in '63, as the film mentioned, he did it with a broken gearbox and in the pouring rain. I saw him win Indy in '65(on the TV) when I was a kid. It is Spa, where the Belgian GP is held. The part of the track shown looks like Eau Rouge and Radillon.
Jim Clark and Graham Hill. Both legendary British drivers with an epic rivalry. Hill is the only driver in history to achieve the "motorsports triple crown", this being the Formula One World Championship, the Indianapolis 500, and the Le Mans 24hr. They both also had unfortunate, untimely deaths with Clark dying in 1968 at the Hockenheimring and Hill dying after attempting to land a light aircraft during foggy conditions in 1975.
The hero of my youth as a wee boy in Scotland, he was just a superb driver but also a gentleman. The flying Scot will always be a Scottish legend loved & adored by people from all over the planet.
Jim Clarke was also a great rally driver!!! There's even a rally in the UK named after him to this day!!
Vision of Jim driving his Lotus Cortina in a Rally and also on the streets around his home can be found on YT.
Jim Clark
You’ve got some good content on here. I’ve been watching a lot. Btw, there is something very special you could review. The TOP GEAR Ayrton Senna piece. It’ll blow your mind. It is the Apex of racing - Senna
rocker, look up an Aussie called Sir jack brabham. Not omly did he win the F1 champion twice, but he built his own car.
Another LEgend..too many legends to count on the fingers ...to many awesome people in the racing and car community from everywhere around the world!
Brabham Jack was something else to..very cool car that was made and brought back to life like a year or 2 ago that sold like over 2M$ for an exemplar
Actually, he won the World Championship three times.
Brabham is the only person to win a F1 championship in "his own team". The engine was a Repco an Australian car parts company. The team was Brabham. Sir Jack later sold the team to a person named Bernie Eccleston. Before starting his own team Jack won the F1 WC driving for Coopers. His teammate there was a young Bruce McLaren. McLaren also started his own team. The McLaren team is currently the only team in F1 that also is in Indycar.
A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti are the only people to win both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 (NASCAR). Mario also won a F1 WC. Emmerson Fittipaldi has won the F1 WC and Indy 500 2 times. He was McLaren's first ever F1 World Champion.
Foyt, Andretti and Fittipaldi are huge names in U.S. and world motorsport. They still have family members competing! The Ulser family has a great record at Indianapolis. Alfred Unser Jr. (born April 19, 1962), nicknamed " Little Al ", " Al Junior ", or simply " Junior ", is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. His father won the race 4 times, 1970, 1971, 1978 & 1987. Bobby Unser (little Al's uncle) won the 500 three times, many championships and he won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb overall title 10 times (13 times when class wins are included).
Bobby Unser was a great race commentator after he retired. His brother Al and his nephew Al Jnr raced in these races. Hearing Bobby commentate on "little Al" was something special.
The Wood Brothers were his pit crew in the 1965 Indy 500. They were impressed with his ability to stop on the marks they put in the pit box for the tires and fuel hose every single time he stopped. He was the only foreign driver AJ Foyt was impressed with.
loving your work, keep it up. hi from Aus. Australian engineer, racing driver, Jack Brabham with in conduction with Repco Australia designed, engineered and built an F1 car then raced it, set records and won championships in it. you may or may not have time to review it's but definitely is worth a watch. a lot to say but i would almost describe him as the epitome of Australian motor racing at the time.
Jim Clarke the GOAT 100%
Ian thanks for doing this reaction, as a Scotsman , Im very proud of our motorsport legends, people know well of Jackie Stewart and Colin McRae however the greatest of them all was Jim Clark, glad you have pulled him into the younger generations minds, ty sir
Scotland seems to be like NZ: really punching above it's weight in the world of motorsport.
@@mikespearwood3914 Just small countries of 6 million but we have produced some great people
The Grand Tour did a great tribute to him a few years ago now, and they touch on a few other stats and accomplishments that weren't really mentioned here. Great video though, it's awesome to see how enthused you are to learn about all manner of racing.
And all manner of THINGS, to be fair.
He was Ayrton Sennas idol. That's says it all!
Hi Ian,
Jim was an all rounder as well, as has been said, his contemporaries looked up to him, no driver gets that.
That Lotus 49 with the Cosworth DFV just looks fantastic!
From the films I've seen, he does look like he's out for a cruise!
Well, done Ian, that was Spa!
He was killed in a F2 race at Hockenheim, Germany when for reasons unknown his car left the track, the one certain thing was that it could not be driver error.
I think the thing that says the most about him as a man is that on his headstone it gives his name, dates etc then underneath it says "Farmer" then its lists his championships....
It was thought the crash was caused by a deflating rear tyre of which many of the drivers believed because they thought Jim Clark was incapable of making such a mistake.
Clark was a legend. There's a video of him setting lap records and pitting saying he felt a worn wheel bearing techs couldn't feel it. He parked the car torn apart and found a worn new bearing. On the wheel he said it was.
Any auto sport fan ( all types of car racing ) should go to Duns in the Scottish Boarders and visit Jim Clark’s museum
He mainly drove for Lotus and he could drive anything , my boyhood hero . I was bought the Lotus racing team set by Corgi for Christmas and I won every race on my race track set up on the carpet 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hi from Fife in Scotland. I live just a few miles down the road from Jim Clarks birthplace, Kilmany. We're very proud of him, he was a proper gentleman racer and devastatingly fast in anything motorised. I see a few others mentioning the fact that his 1965 season was kinda downplayed. He won just about everything on the planet that year, championships in France, Australia, New Zealand aswell as F1 and the Indy 500, in which he nearly lapped the entire field....twice...imagine that, being lapped by him twice lol, and touring car races. If you watch the Top Gear special about him it explains some of his achievements in more detail. Great video.
Well done spotting Senna - his helmet was also in the Brazilian colours.
Certainly looks like SPA to me - you're getting really good at this!
He died at a minor F2 race at 'The Green Hell", and the speculation was that he swerved to avoid a deer - it being situated basically in a forest - whatever the reason, there were no barriers and he hit a tree.
I think it was Sir Jackie Stewart who said, when hearing of his death, "If it can happen to him, what chance do the rest of us have" - or words to that affect.
It was at Hockenheim, not the "Greeen Hell" of the Nurburgring And it wasn't a "minor" F2 race - it was the second round of a chanpionship. It was a dismal wet and cold day. None of the Firestone-tyred cars could get heat into the tyres, and Jimmy only qualified 7th. He foretold that he would not be quick (and teammate Graham Hill was also running few places behind Clark) because of the conditions.
The detailed technical analysis of the car wreckage indicated that he had had a slow puncture in the right rear tyre, causing the tread to rise and pull the tyre bead off the wheelrim under increasing cetrifugal force as he accelerated on the long right-handed curve of the track through the forest. That appears to have been the cause of the loss of control that even his prodigious skill could not overcome.
It was Chris Amon who made the quote along the lines of "If it can happen to him, what chance do the rest of us have?".
@IWrocker - oh I’m a complete and utter Clark bore - fully paid up member of the hero worship fam club here. There are so many great stories about him, from running NASCAR for a laugh, to mowing peoples lawns in Australia because they didn’t know who he was - legend is a word that gets used too much - he deserves it.
Hi Ian, I was 12 or 13 when myself and two buddies got into Formula One. We diligently watched every Formula One race on TV. Jim Clark was the favorite of all three of us as he was so smooth a driver that was always on the edge. To see him drift all the way through corners at high speeds, with zero down force was quite simply amazing. IMHO His best race was The 1965 British Grand Prix. To save his engine, Clark had coasted round the corners in neutral and battled with the higher gears on the straight parts of the track. "In the last two laps when my engine was showing no oil pressure at all", he said, "I would have been prepared to risk 'blowing up' rather than see Graham Hill pass me in the BRM. Fortunately it was not necessary." Jim, Won the race. After the race one of his mechanics stated that he was completely dumbfounded at the time, as he couldn't hear the car's engine when it went by.
If you don't know Fangio you must learn about him. This whole life is stunning. He once raced and his car broke down, his teammate saw it, stopped and gave him his car. Unbelievable guy.
Add to that, that guy was a greedy grubby guy too, by the name of Mike Hawthorn.
Yes.
The root cause of the 1955 LeMans tragedy.
I still think he gave Fangio the car under team orders, not of his own volition.
Jim Clark was to anything with wheels as Roy Clark was to anything with strings. A game breaking combination of speed precision and smoothness.
My parents were lucky to see him race in Finland. Jim Clark actually even started a race in Nascar, too. I recommend everyone to watch a BBC documentary called Jim Clark: The Quiet Champion. There is so much of emotional stuff in this documentary that it should not leave an eye dry. Also, you will get a confirmation that here was the greatest driver of all time. 🏁🏆🍾💝🏴
Everybody who knew him said he was the best they ever saw.
Re indy and f1, mansell was f1 champion in 92 then won indycar in 93!!! He almost won't the indy 500 at his 1st attempt too. Mansell is an underrated monster of a driver imo with HUGE balls
As a motor sport fan, I followed Nigel Mansell in F1 and the 93 Indy car championship. He went from world champion F1 to a rookie Indy driver to Indy Champion.
Cheers from Australia
Nigel was also very polite
It was awesome following Mansell from F1 to Indycar. Thanks to him i discovered Indycar and prefer it to F1 these days 😊
Mansell was totally overrated actually. He never won a single race with Lotus and only started winning because he joined Williams at a time when it was one of the dominant teams of the time. To further prove my argument his replacement at Lotus was none other than Ayrton Senna who started winning for Lotus almost immediately. A good driver can win in a great car but it takes a great driver to win in a good car!
@@B-A-L give over. He out drove Nelson piquet in the same car, he won indycar in his rookie year too! Prost stole his. Car because he didn't know how mansell was so much faster than he was. You're wrong
Since I have been watching your videos, after I found your channel, and after 1 st one I subscribed and liked. I absolutely Love your enthusiasm, and you make me laugh so much. I have seen dozens of your videos now, especially the Rally ones which watching you react is hilarious in a great way. You are also always really respectful about everyone etc. I am from the UK, and lived in the USA for 7 years travelling to 37 states whilst there , and living in many for months at a time. I also lived in Canada, and Nova Scotia etc. I also used to Race Cars professionally in the old British Saloon Car Championship. Also drove at Le Mans 24 Heures race 6 times and also did Rallying in the late 70s at the RAC Rally in UK. I just love your enthusiasm, and You just have to come to the UK and go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, go to the Isle of Man TT, go to Le Mans etc before its to late. also go watch some live stages at a WRC Rally. If not you will regret it.
Fantastic era of racing. The Fangio story is well worth watching too bro!!
Jim Clark is part of a very special group, a group that included people like Gilles Villenueve, Tazio Nuvolari, A.J. Foyt, Sébastien Loeb, and a handful of other race drivers, who were simply made different: you could give them a car, or a bike, or anything, to race on for the first time, and they would find a way to win
you put a smile on my face as a 44 yrs old French-Canadian!! first story that came to my mind about Gilles is when he get airborne with a helicopter without license/flight experience!!
Salut Gilles!!
@@jean-rochdion4898 i really like him to..this are people lije he said that are born different with amazing skills in every field and with cool adaptation in every sport
@@jean-rochdion4898 I'm italian, and as an italian I'm a Ferrari fan, and Gilles is in my heart as it is in countless Ferrari fan around the world: he was a magnificient driver, and a magnificient person, one that will forever be in our memory.
Mario Andretti and Sebastian Loeb , are others on this list
Clark competed in an era when even the best cars weren't very reliable and almost any mistake could be fatal life expectancy was only a couple of years not decades like today so the only real way to compare them is average starts to results the big numbers todays drivers are not really comparable
Fangio was an Argentine driver, he won the world championship 5 times and pretty much dominated the 1st era of F1 in the 50's (he only entered 7 world championships and the 2 he never won he was 2nd.... one of those he didn't win because he was recovering from a near fatal accident) not to mention that he was 46 years old when he won his last championship in 57 :) he won 24 of the 52 races he competed in.
he;s still considered by many as the greatest F1 driver there has ever been (and going by the percentages it's hard to argue with that, nobody else comes close to that level of consistency.)
and yeah 18:40 thats Spa. (looking down into eau rouge/raidillon corners)
19:17 ah Jackie Stewart... another Scottish F1 legend and my childhood hero of F1 (being Scottish myself I'm probably a bit biased tho :) I met Jackie years ago at an event that had nothing to do with motor racing and I was so star struck :) he is a lovely man and so humble. the autograph he gave me is one of my prized possessions
All I’m
Going to say is Jim had many fans in the USA. In my life time I have seen my oldest brother cry exactly twice . Once at our dad’s funeral, and the day it hit the news that Clark had died. That last photo you showed Jim starting a race at a painted checkered line? That I’m certain is the old Watkins Glen start line which now is the short hill before the esses. It used to be there in the sixties before the track was lengthened. Thank you for this well researched video.
I absolutely love the look of the F1 cars and the way they moved on the track of that era just before they sprouted wings.
I do wonder, with today's tech, how fast an open wheel car could be made that doesn't depend on aero/downforce.
he was known as gentleman JIM . RIP GREAT MAN
In the colour picture of 82 after Indy, the mechanic wearing glasses second from the right is Allan Moffat.
Yes , but his position was a unpaid water boy gofor.
Not to many racing mechanic skills.
Won the Indy500 in 1965 second in 66 behind another F1 legend Graham Hill.
in 65 he led for 190 laps.
0:05 Ask God and he'll tell you it's Jim Clark. Pretty definitive I'd say.
Jim came to Australia at least twice, I remember seeing him race at Warwick Farm, Sydney in what was called the Tasman series. It was a series raced in Oz and NZ where other well known drivers raced. Jack Brabham participated as did Jochen Rindt and Denny Hulme. I think wee Jackie also raced. Vision of Jim at Warwick Farm can be found on YT.
Jim farmed at Chirnside in the Scottish Borders near where I grew up. There was a Ford Gakaxy which drove round the local lanes, part of his Indy 500 prize.
Ayrton Senna was also one of the greatest
Ian, Jim Clark was quite a good rally driver as well. Note: when he raced Lotus Cortina's back then, a roll cage was considered excess weight.
Here's a 50 sec clip of him in the Cortina ruclips.net/video/YKWNhRzkk0w/видео.html
I got to see Jim Clark driving the NZ Grand Prix in 1967 [as a very young boy]
You need to do some research on Fangio who was 39 when he started racing F1 [1950] and won 5 world championships by the time he was 46 [1957] He also took a year off in 1952 to recover from a broken neck
Nice!
At that level, those guys are not just good with anything with wheels, but are in a different league.
You need to check out the legendary Cosworth DVF (Double Four Valve) V8 F1 engine - its iconic
Tis a good engineering story The DFV8. First stressed member engine I believe
Check out Jack Brabham Repco Brabham made in Australia .won F1 in 1959 1960 1966
I wasn't even 3 years old when Jim Clark lost his life at Hockenheim in a Formula 2 race, and yet I still feel he was a true genius.
That picture @ 21:23 shows Jim Clarke, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill - all F1 racing legends. In fact, Jackie Stewart is sometimes a commentator for modern F1 races.
JIm Clark was amazing, one of a great line of Scottish drivers.. you should do Jackie Stewart (another Scotsman like Jim the sheppard and 3 times F1 champion)... ONLY driver to win the F1 championship still driving a V8 when every other team had moved to V10s. He won some races by just under 5 minutes. He was a leader in bringing safety in as well.
Two extra cylinders doesn't neccessary mean a better motor. The V8 would have had more torque and be easier to drive. Yes he was a great driver.
V12, V10s for F1 were introduced in the 1980s, the first being the Alfa Romeo V1035, dyno-tested in July 1986 but never raced following FIAT's acquisition of the brand, the Honda RA109E developed in 1987 and introduced in competition in 1989 along with the Renault RS1
The Cosworth V8 was a far better engine than the Ferrari, BRM, Honda & Weslake V12's of the era. More cylinder's are not necessarily better. After Clark, most of the future world champions used that engine. No one used V10's until the 90's
I was at the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch the day he was killed at Hockenheim. The entire crowd was in shock, the grief was palpable. i was also at the, I think it was called, the "DailyExpress" trophy race for F1 cars at Silverstone in April/May 1968. All the drivers and their cars assembled on the grid before the race and the drivers stood alongside their cars whilst a piper played a lament from the very top of the grandstand roof. There was NOT a dry eye in the place, including me. Jim Clark will be forever be NUMBER ONE.
I believe I saw Jim Clark at Sandown in Melbourne Australia when he came down for the Tasman series. Seems he had the smooth approach to driving much like our Peter Brock in later years (that's why Peter was known as "Peter Perfect"). They both looked after their equipment during a race....
And don't forget that his win at Indy was the first for a rear engined car. Clark was phenomenal, and a joy to watch racing.
The story with hay on the tires, in England most race tracks had grass paddocks until the 80s, and even 2000s for some tracks. I’ve seen footage of 70s f1 race in England where the cars are being driven around in a lot of mud from rain on the grass
You were correct, that was the climb at Eau Rouge - Radillon in Spa. In those days they used the pits facing towards it for the F1 races, rather than where it is now before the hairpin at La Source
Jim Clarke, Stuart Graham and Sterling Moss are potentially the best drivers of all time. My dad had a 67 mustang in the mid seventies that had a cam ground by Jim Clarke in it and it was allegedly one of the first 289s in the UK to dyno over 450bhp. The man was a brilliant driver and a legend in the parts world
Hi Ian, Clark was a great driver, and all the lotus you see here are powered by Ford, lotus Cortina is a Ford Cortina with the green stripe on the side. You should check out Jack Brabham. He was a great racer. Keep up the good work from Dave in Australia.
The only Ford components of the so called Ford Cosworth DFV V8 multi championship winning engine is the 100,000 quid Cowsworth got from Ford to develop the engine and allow Ford to have naming rights to the engine.
Quite a bargain as still so many think it reflected Ford engineering skills when none were involved.
Similar with the Lotus Cortina with its Lotus twin cam head that gave it the big advantage but never developed
That is Spa but the helmet in the car is Graham Hill which used the London Rowing Clubs colours. Graham only driver to hold the triple crown of winning the triple crown of motorsport, the Indianapolis 500, 24hr Le Mans and the F1 world championship. His son, Damon Hill (also a F1 World Champion) and grandson Josh wear the same colours on their helmets.
Jim Clark was a legend
You mentioned not knowing Fangio - he basically dominated F1 in the 50s, winning five championships between 1951 and 1957. This record would stand until Schumacher equaled it in 2002, and then beat it in 2003. Absolute legend.
Couldn't agree more, and with four different makes But well, he's a NASCAR guy, what do U expect
"Fanging it" is a standard Australian saying about driving. comes from Fangio - Hes more famous than most know, my dad also used to use "steady on fangio" all the time.
@@chair2335 that's really cool! i've heard the saying before in Mad Max but i never knew it came from Fangio. very cool
Another great was Sir jack Brabham, he won the F1 championship in 59, 60 and 66 . He was the first and still the only man to win the Formula One world championship driving one of his own designed and built cars.
And the Repco Brabham car won the championship again in 1967 with Denny Hulme driving.
Jack got a bit greedy with the new development parts kept for himself to use first. Denny kept the proven parts which proved more reliable enough for him to win the championship.
Not a bad record for the Repco engine company starting with cast off Oldsmobile aluminium engine blocks that they beat all the Ferrari, Maserati, Honda, BRM and Ford engined cars in 66 and 67.
Senna was the one for me, I was not born when Clark was racing, but Senna was the one when I was a kid
Yes that was Spa. Fangio also unanimously considered as one of the best or the best. Netflix had a documentary about him
My dad saw Fangio race in England during the latter part of his career. He is probably the best F1 driver, ever.
As a 71 year old Jim Clark was my driving hero. He only had one accident a fatal one in 1968! I hope you also look into Juan Fangio - he was an amazing talent from Argentina. His best years were the WW2 years. So he never got into F1 until past his prime.
Putting those 8 grand slams (pole, fastest lap, led every lap) into real perspective, that is one for every nine starts he had. Comparing with Lewis Hamilton's 6 out of 310 or one in every 52 starts.
Keep in mind while they review his stats that the cars of that day, most definitely including the Lotus, were notoriously unreliable and prone to mechanical failure.
When he was killed Dan Gurney thought "If Jim Clark can get killed, what chance do the rest of us have?"
Great footage from Spa-Francorchamps, looked like coming out of Les Combes going into Bruxelles.
Love how humbled you are by each of these videos!
1:23 This is the 1967 Lotus 49 with a 3 Litre Cosworth DFV, engine. This engine then was used until the 2000 era. I may be wrong, but I think this photo was made at the '67 mexican Grand Prix.
I’ve only missed 3 f1 Grand Prix since 1986, and was an avid fan since the mid 70’s and Jim Clark is without doubt in my mind at the top, you can debate the other 9 members of that illusive top 10 greatest drivers but Jim Clark sits at the top.
Different times but for what it’s worth, my 10…
Clark
Fangio
Hamilton
Schumacher
Senna
Lauda
Prost
Vettel
Alonso
Mansell
G Villeneuve
Ok, I made it 11, never discount Gille from a list of greats!
Great vids, man 😉🥰
Good list. You have there maybe 1 or 2 names that I'd personally replace with Häkkinen but you have a fair argument for every name on your list. It's more of a cosmetical error to count out your flying finns. ;)
Hamilton in the top 3?? No way should he be there can’t do anything unless he’s in by far the best car on the grid. Good driver yes but not even top 3 British drivers let alone in the world
@@andypandy5613 It's true that Hamilton has driven with way better cars than any other driver on the grid. I don't myself rate Hamiltons reign that highly, since he basically had it given. He has had to fight for what 4 times for the championship, and he lost twice? Nico and Max. If I'm not forgetting some of his earlier battles. Still I think there is a case to be made that anyone who has 7 championships should be on these lists. I'm going on a assumption that this list isn't in order. Since if this is top 1-10 order, putting hamilton in front of likes of Schumacher and Senna is just absurd.
@@Pyllymysli yes he should be on the list there is no disputing that but and it’s a big but I would certainly put him behind Senna, Schumacher and Prost and as a British driver behind Mansell, the reasoning behind that one are Mansell while flawed as a person and a driver at times could certainly fight on the track where as I don’t think Lewis can
I've visited Jim's grave a few times when I have been up on the borders, and attended his 50th memorial in Churnside, one of the visits to his grave I met an elderly lady called Grace who lived in a bungalow overlooking the church yard, she proceeded to tell me she knew Jim and Jackie ( Stewart) Jim's farm was a couple of miles away Eddington Mains I think, she said she would go to the local young farmers dances and Jim would usually be there if he wasn't racing, a quite shy lad, but she said Jackie was quite a show off! I told her I was also a farmer and had been involved in Rallying, she was a lovely lady.
I was a lad in the days of Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, and Jim Clarke. Clarke was my favourite - no pretensions, just somebody out for a fun day's drive.
In the Belgian GP he won, he basically drove the race with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand holding the gear shift lever in place. He also did this in the rain.
At that time Colin Chapman completely overturned the design of F1 cars. He made them mid engined but the main thing was using the engine/gearbox as a part of the chassis. This hadn’t been done before and all F1 cars were front engine/rear drive.
So a good part of the success Clark had was due to the cars.
It was Cooper that brought mid-engined cars to F1.
@@kumasenlac5504 Chapman made it part of the chassis.
Myth. look at what his team mates managed during the same period. Lotus had just one 1-2 finish while Clark was racing and only one other Lotus driver won a race. Those team mates included John Surtees and Graham Hill.
The fastest thing about those cars was Clark.
@@dryfesands1367 funny, the cars kept winning after his death.
Clark was great but the best cars and team at the time helped.
@@fugawiaus the Lotus 49b was a drastically improved version of the original 49 that Clark drove in 67. Hill was nowhere with the original 49. Clark won 4 races that season to Hill's 0. It wasn't until the B version came along that Hill began to win races (by which time Clark was gone also). The B had radically.improved power delivery, Gearbox and rear suspension.
The 33 with which Clark Dominated the 1965 season was basically upgraded 25, a now 4 year old design and well down on power against BRM and Ferrari. Clark took maximum points. His team mates had 1 podium between them that season.
Best Cars? Do some reading.
Incidentally the stressed member engine concept you seem to think Clark had all career didn't come along until 1966 with the Lotus 43 and was refined in the 49. Clark didn't have it for either of his titles
You should have done this vid on jack brabham. An Aussie and built his own car etc
Or Bruce Mclaren
Brabham and McLaren....true greats
Both Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren likely got there car building and designing skills at the Cooper F1 team in 1959 to 60.
The Cooper approach was to point a new driver at a set of tubing saying there is your car just build it.
A great learning experience for Frank Gardiner as well.
Might have flowed on to Dan Gurney when driving for Brabham cars too.
Three drivers that drove F1 cars of their own company.
Jim Clark better than those 2
Whenever I see someone called "goat", I can only see it as an insult
I love your video's and humbleness Ian, keep up the great work mate!
You may enjoy watching Australian legend sir Jack Brabham, only man to win in f1, in a car he built!
Only man to win a championship in the car he built. Dan Gurney won an F1 race in his Eagle.
@@bigredracingdog466 Gurney for President!
About Lotus, they were indeed one of the best for many years. Some of the innovations they brought to F1 - The moncoque chassis, Chapman strut suspension, the Ford DFV engine, using the engine as a stressed member, full team sponsorship with Gold Leaf, front and rear wings, gas turbines, inboard suspension, side mounted radiators, ground effect, carbon fibre tub, twin chassis Lotus 88, active suspension.... Chapman and his team were absolute genius.
Jim was a maestro behind a steering wheel. Could drive anything competitively. Surely if he had lived he would have won at least 7 possibly 8 World championships.
Jim is well remember with a museum in his memory in the Village of Duns in Scotland and a Facebook page with all his pics interviews and stories
Well worth a visit to both.
I remember seeing an episode of Pawn Stars once where someone was pawning an item that had all these driver names on it and Rick, who claims to be this huge racing fan, had never heard of Jim Clark and was somewhat dismissive of the drivers names on the item. Now that may have been to drive the price down, but to dismiss a two time F1 world champion and an Indy 500 winner as someone nobody would have heard of was jaw dropping to me.
I loved watching Jim Clark (on TV of course), but to me, Fangio was the best. His record five world championships stood until Schumacher won his 6th in 2003. He won the title in four different makes: Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Maserati. He has the highest winning percentage of any driver, 46.15%. The most amazing thing about him is that the Formula 1 drivers championship didn't begin until 1950 when Fangio was 39 years old. He won his fifth title at age 46!
Yep that’s probably grass on the tyres. One story about him that gives a clue of his ability was during practice at a GP he pitted and reported to his mechanic that something wasn’t right in the back of the car. After checking the car he went out again and still said the same thing. After practice was over the mechanic pulled to rear suspension down and discovered a bearing that had just started to wear.
That picture at 21 / 22 minutes is incredible left to right Jackie Stewart 3x, Jim Clark 2x and Graham Hill 2x F1 world champions, it is such an iconic picture.
Ayrton Senna was the best ever. Find a video of the opening lap of the 1993 European Grand Prix from Donnington Park, and, you'll understand why.
I had the opportunity to see him racing in the start of my teen years when F1 Grand Prix ran a race at the Sandown Park racing circuit here in Melbourne, just down the street from my home. A circuit now running various motor sport events including Super Car rounds. The F1 Grand Prix has not been there since the 1960s, now foray years at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, as you well know a popular street circuit with the F1 drivers.
If you have not seen the Holiwood Grand Prix movie, with Steve McQueen from memory, I think it is worth seeing, covering the time frame of Jim Clark racing F1.
Well done spotting Spar and Ayerton, you are learning fast. Colin Chapman was a legend, he was a genius inovator, Enzio Ferrari referd to him as a garageester, all those world championship car where built a on a shoe string budget compared to the big names, in a lock up garage. I've been lucky enough to get up close to one of the Lotus cars from this era, It terrifid me just looking at it, the very thought of racing in one was a mind blower, tube chassis with an aluminium skin, it looked so flimsy I did not dare touch it for fear of breaking it! There is however another legend assosiated with Colin and Jim, Dave "Beaky Sims, Jim's mechanic who is described as a legend in the pit lane across the world and in many catagories of motor sport, did a lot of work in the USA. You may want to seek out a vid on Lotus and or Chapman. Driving at the same time was Graham Hill, 3 time F1 Camp and the only man ever to gain the tripple crown (winning, the Monaco GP, the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24hrs, Alonso has had a try but not yet win at Indy, Montoya is so far besed placed to achieve the crown as the Le Mans is arguably the easiest to win, and i think we may see him do it.) they called him "Mr Monaco" due to his prowess on that track, 5 wins, he also has a first that no one will ever top, he is the first driver, sadly after his death, to have his son also claim an F1 Championship. It's been achieved once since, I 'll let you work it out, but as a clue, the son had to beat one of the greats of formula 1 in the same car.
Jim Clarke is one of the all time greats of his time,
you should check out jack Brabham , one who raced against Clarke
The greatest F1 driver to ever live was Juan Manuel Fangio. He won 5 world championships back in the 50s and held that record until Michael Schumacher broke it in the 90s. My dad interviewed Fangio when he came out here in 1977 and I got to meet the legend. Something I'll never forget!!!
In those days racing was not in TV and almost every year they lost a lot of drivers because the cars were so light and fragile if you flew from the trak you had hardly a chance to live, my favorit drivers were Jim Clarke, Graham hill, and Jackie Stewart plus the late Stirling Moss whos race carrier was cut short because he hit a Patch of oil and flew from the track, he was badly injured and could not drive after that, was happy that he lived a long life, Graham Hill was another champion in three classes, Indi 500, the 24 hours of LA MON and F1, he started as a engineer and worked his way up in the end to team leader.
just a thought from an old kiwi. a large number of sheep farms are a bi remote and gravel roads were common back then so having your car drift was usual. driving with very little traction on roads so windy and often hilly requires smoothness and sensitivity, also he very likely was involved in winter feeding out hay I frequented a friends family farm and every winter the farm surface offered traction like ice does, plus if you spin out you tear up the grass all the way to the bottom of the hill, damaging productivity and mud provides less grip than grass. he grew up driving in very demanding conditions where reading traction was essential. looking at the onboard it looks as if he was driving on the edge of traction. the car is sliding slightly but only just and always within limits. I think his sheep farm upbringing was a foundation for his style. oh yes and those gravel roads often had the clif from where the road had been cut into a hillside or an unguarded drop so loosing it was always expensive or dangerous, usually both. in my mind this goes some way to explaining his style. it was an extension and development of what he already knew. also frequently if you broke it you also got to fix it as obviously there are no mechanics out in the country lotus were great but famously fragile so Mr Clark was perfect his great mechanical sensitivity and likely a fair ability as a spanner swinger allowed him to drive a fragile car fast without breaking it thanks for a great video
I think you would understand his greatness even more if you watched the uk top gear memorial. Personally that’s the best tribute in my opinion :)
A long time before he ever even saw a Formula 1 car, he accompanied a young friend of Ian Baker Watson, to a little club race in Scotland, where he would help as mechanic. Jim had never raced anything in his life. After watching his friend in practice, he asked if he could give it a try. He was immediately 2 seconds a lap faster. On a1.2 mile track.
In 1964, at an extremely fast and dangerous track called Spa, in a torrential downpour, he won the Belgian Gran Prix by over 5 minutes in a 185 mile race.
An absolutely devastating driver. If you were racing against him, you had best hope his car broke....
So many fellow Scots have talked about Jim in this way I always assumed he was great but that there was some patriotic bias too. Apparently not...I'd never heard the Indy 500 story for example.
Regarding his 'humble' beginnings his family must have been landowning farmers as he was sent to exclusive private schools (hence his mild Scottish accent)...car racing was (and is) and expensive hobby for a young man.
yeah he was rich..but was also talented and very humble and not so arrogant like he was a legend..winning in the same year F1 and Indy! LEGEND
It seems like that's how almost everyone becomes a racing driver especially f1 I know senna was very similar. Great drivers though
@@alexanderupb4546 agree, he was talented and a great man in his own right...I just feel we don'r need to embellish to exaggerate his already great story