Jim
Clark

Jim Clark was born on 4 March 1936 in Kilmany, Fife, and grew up in the Scottish Borders. He started out in local road rallies and hillclimbs. By 1958 he was racing sports cars for the Border Reivers team, driving a Jaguar D-Type and a Porsche, and that caught the eye of Lotus founder Colin Chapman. In 1960 Clark won the Formula Junior championship.

That same year he made his Formula One debut for Lotus at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, and he stayed with the team for the rest of his career. He finished fifth in his second race, in Belgium, to score his first points, and four races after his debut he took his first podium in Portugal. His first win came at the 1962 Belgian Grand Prix, and he ended that season second in the championship behind Graham Hill. In 1963 he won seven of the ten races in the Lotus 25 and took the world title. He was third in the standings in 1964, then won a second title in 1965 with six victories. That year he missed the Monaco Grand Prix to race in the Indianapolis 500 instead, and he won it. It was the first victory there for a mid-engined car and the first for a non-American in 49 years.

The new 3-litre engine rules of 1966 left Lotus less competitive. Clark won only the United States Grand Prix and was sixth in the championship. In 1967 the Lotus 49 appeared with the Ford-Cosworth DFV engine and won on its first outing, with Clark at the wheel in the Netherlands. He took four wins that year and finished third in the standings. He also won the 1968 season opener in South Africa.

On 7 April 1968 Clark died in an accident during a Formula Two race at the Hockenheimring, while leading the world championship. He had started 72 Formula One races, winning 25, with 32 podiums and 33 pole positions, and at the time of his death he held the records for wins and poles. Away from Formula One he won the 1964 British Saloon Car Championship in a Lotus Cortina and the Tasman Series in 1965, 1967 and 1968. In 1960 he finished third overall at Le Mans. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jim Clark”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.