Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash in Imola in 1994. The skiing accident that left record world champion Michael Schumacher in need of nursing care in 2013: If you want to understand what April 7, 1968 did to the motorsport world, you can keep these two events in mind.
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56 years ago today, Jim Clark died in a serious accident at the Hockenheimring. Like Senna and Schumacher, he was probably the best racing driver of his generation. Like Senna and Schumacher, the two-time Formula 1 world champion had an aura of invulnerability around him – which made his fate all the more shocking for fans and companions.
“We all thought the same thing: If it can get Jimmy, what chance do the rest of us have of getting out alive?” said New Zealander Chris Amon, summing up what many fellow racers were thinking at the time.
Jim Clark coined the Formula 1 Lotus myth
James Clark, as the Scot born on March 4, 1936, was actually called, took the premier class by storm in the 1960s.
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The farmer’s son Clark, who was privately shy, was an instinctive driver, fast, skilful and with a great feel for the car. It turned out to be the greatest possible stroke of luck for the mythical Lotus team around the legendary team boss Colin Chapman.
In 1963 and 1965, Clark led Lotus to the Formula 1 World Championship title, and in the year of his second title he also made history as the first European winner of the 500-mile race in Indianapolis.
With 25 wins in 72 races, Clark set a new record, surpassing five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio. For that time, with significantly fewer races and, above all, a much higher failure rate due to the less predictable vehicles, Clark’s rate was gigantic.
Jim Clark in his 1968 Lotus Ford
Hours before the crash, ZDF presenter wished: “Break your neck and legs!”
In 1968, Clark tackled his third world title, but in April – which was also a peculiarity of the time – he took a detour to another racing class, the Germany Trophy as part of the Formula 2 European Championship.
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Tragic irony: Clark had actually preferred to take part in a sports car race at Brands Hatch in England instead and was already officially registered for it. Under pressure from its tobacco sponsor, employer Lotus had at short notice expressed its wish that Clark should instead compete in Hockenheim for advertising purposes.
Part of the promotional tour also included an appearance by Clark on German television; on the evening of April 6, 1968 – a few hours before his death – he was a guest on the ZDF sports studio. Moderator Werner Schneider said goodbye to him with the phrase “broken neck!”
ZDF presenter Werner Schneider (l.) during a later TV appearance with Helmut Schön and Franz Beckenbauer in 1973
The cause of Jim Clark’s accident? Still unclear to this day
The day after, the Hockenheim race was on the agenda, under difficult conditions in several respects: the weather was cold and rainy, Clark’s Lotus was already plagued by material problems in qualifying – in which he only finished 7th.
“The car has hardly any grip, don’t expect too much from me,” mechanic Dave Simms quoted Clark’s last words before the start. On the fourth lap of the race, disaster began: At a speed of around 250 km/h, Clark left the track at 12:39 p.m. and crashed into the trees.
Clark was dead before first responders arrived. None of the competitors – including the later FIA boss Max Mosley, who died in 2021 – saw what had happened. Only two marshals were eyewitnesses to the accident, which was not recorded by TV cameras.
The cause of the accident remains unclear to this day; the local public prosecutor’s office is now investigating allegations that two children ran across the track. It turned out to be a hoax. Mechanic Simms assumes that loss of air in the tire was the immediate trigger. The exact process remains a mystery to this day.
Death was always present in Formula 1 back then
The Clark tragedy was not an isolated incident at a time when driving safety in racing was not very advanced: on May 7, 1968, exactly a month after Clark, Mike Spence, the driver who replaced him at Lotus, also had an accident while training Indianapolis fatal. Exactly two months later, the Frenchman Jo Schlesser died at the French Grand Prix.
Two years after Clark’s death, Formula 1 was shaken by the fatal crash of Lotus driver Jochen Rindt, who was posthumously crowned world champion. Five years later, Graham Hill, who had become world champion instead of Clark in the Lotus in 1968, also suffered a tragic fate: he died in a plane crash.
Death was a constant companion of the drivers of that time. The fact that he also caught Clark when he was only 32 years old was – see above – a particular trauma for the generation of racers at the time.
Clark’s friend, 1969 world champion Jackie Stewart, who survived the dark years, was only able to explain the impact of the news by resorting to a particularly violent metaphor. “The death of Jimmy,” his Scottish compatriot once said, “was the motorsport equivalent of dropping the atomic bomb.”