Jim Clark’s sublime 1965 World Championship: 60 years later

By 1965, Jim Clark was already considered the very greatest racing driver of his time. All of his competitors accepted that he was the best, and respected his talent above all others. His aura was such that the idea he could make a mistake behind the wheel of a racing car was inconceivable. The likes of Jackie Stewart, who himself would go on to eclipse Clark’s success, idolised him and dedicated his career to emulating his smooth driving style.

Despite his unquestioned superiority, Jim Clark still only had a single World Championship to his name. His title win in 1963 was almost unprecedented in its dominance, as he scored maximum points with seven victories to win the Championship by a massive margin. With 13 victories by the end of 1964, he had matched the great Alberto Ascari’s tally, outdone only by Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of 24, yet it still felt as though his record was an unfair reflection of his genius.

In equal measures, it was the Lotus machinery that he drove for the entirety of his F1 career that could be attributed to both his success and his lack thereof. While fast, and no faster than when under the spell of Clark’s considerable skill, Colin Chapman’s creations were inherently fragile. Mechanical failures would cost his star driver several opportunities to win races, and arguably two World Championships.

Beginning the year in style

There would be no such difficulties in 1965, though. The Lotus 33, which had suffered a poor start to life when it was introduced mid-way through the 1964 season, arrived at the Prince George Circuit in South Africa on 1^st January as, in the hands of Clark at least, the class of the field.

Clark, as he so often did, qualified on pole position, almost a second quicker than the reigning World Champion John Surtees and raced away to a sublime and comfortable victory, eventually finishing almost half a minute ahead of Surtees and Graham Hill. In sixth place on his World Championship debut, was another young Scotsman by the name of Stewart.

It was almost five months until the second round of the season in Monaco, but that didn’t stop Clark from taking victories at two non-Championship races in the meantime, first the Syracuse Grand Prix, and then the Sunday Mirror Trophy at Goodwood, the race where he and Jackie Stewart set the joint lap record that remains to this day. He also dominated that year’s Tasman Series, winning four of the seven races.

A sidestep to Indianapolis

Clark would never take the start at the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix because Lotus, in protest of a decision made by the race organisers to only guarantee one place on the grid for each factory team, withdrew from the event.

All was not lost, however, because Lotus opted to compete in the Indy 500 that weekend instead. Having become the first driver to break the 160mph barrier over single and four-lap runs, Clark lined up second on the grid, and after a brief skirmish with A.J. Foyt raced away into a distant lead. After leading 190 of the 200 laps, and having finished second two years prior, Clark achieved a stunning victory at Indianapolis at the third time of asking to further cement his status as the greatest driver in the world.

Back to business, and a Championship charge

Following that historic performance at Indy, Clark’s attention returned to F1 and the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. Graham Hill had won in Monaco in his absence, and put his BRM on pole position in Belgium. But weather conditions for the race were poor, and as drivers around him struggled to tread the line between risk and reward, Clark’s talents came to the fore when he took the lead from Hill with a remarkable manoeuvre at the Masta Kink on the opening lap.

There would be no stopping the Lotus driver from that point on, and he stretched out an 80-second lead over Jackie Stewart as he lapped a long list of drivers including his team-mate Mike Spence, Bruce McLaren and Hill. Even as he eased off dramatically in the closing stages, Clark retained a 45-second lead at the chequered flag to complete one of the most dominant wins of his career.

An inaugural visit to the fearsome Circuit de Charade was next for the French Grand Prix, a five-mile rollercoaster featuring 48 corners and several violent elevation changes that gave this venue a reputation similar to that of the Nürburgring. Not one to shy away from a challenge, Clark, who was back in the Lotus 25 for that weekend, qualified on pole position ahead of Stewart and Lorenzo Bandini. His closest rival, Graham Hill, could only manage 15^th on the grid with a lap time more than five seconds slower.

In his typical style, Clark’s performance in the race was unmatched, as he set the fastest lap on his way to his third victory of the season. With 27 points, he held a ten-point lead over Hill and Stewart.

Five in a row

At this point, all the momentum was with Clark, and there didn’t look to be anyone with the tools to stop him. Next up was Silverstone, and again he put the Lotus on pole, but this would be the first time that season a Grand Prix victory was in doubt. Things started well enough, and Clark led for much of the race in his typical imperious fashion as Hill behind struggled to keep up.

At two-thirds distance, it looked again as though Clark would simply be able to cruise to the chequered flag, but his Lotus developed a misfire. By lap 63, he had begun to lose oil pressure, and the Championship leader was forced to undertake desperate measures in an attempt to bring the car home. Coasting through corners and managing the throttle on the straights, he somehow managed to keep going at a reasonable speed, but his lead was decimated, and he eventually crawled over the line just three seconds ahead of a hard charging Hill.

We’ve heard of Senna’s exploits in Brazil, or Schumacher’s heroics in Spain, and Clark’s performance at Silverstone in 1965 falls very much into that same category of brilliance.

A week later, Clark and Hill were again the leading drivers in qualifying, but it was Hill this time who started from pole. The pair were once again in a league of their own, although Clark once again had the advantage as he took the lead on lap six and began to stretch out a gap. He would suffer no repeat of the mechanical issues from Silverstone, and led home Jackie Stewart to take his fifth World Championship victory of the season, meaning one more win would clinch him the title.

His first opportunity came at the German Grand Prix, and the hallowed Nürburgring, and Clark got the weekend off to the perfect start when he set an 8:22.7 second lap which was good enough for pole position, 3.4 seconds quicker than Stewart. The speeds the drivers were carrying in 1965 were nothing short of phenomenal compared to previous years – just 12 months prior John Surtees had set an 8:38.4 second lap in practice.

The official lap record was broken from a standing start on race day, as Clark led away and immediately went round in 8:36.1 on the opening tour. That was enough to gain him a three-second lead from Hill, who again was pushing as hard as he could simply to keep up with Clark. The Scotsman’s driving had reached a whole new level during 1965. He was perhaps as close to perfection as it’s possible to be, and his relentless speed was simply too much for anyone else on the grid to compete with.

Hill was the only driver who was able to get close, and he was actually matching Clark through the early part of the race, but the Lotus driver would eventually prove superior, and once again began to edge out a six-second lead by the end of lap four. His advantage continued to extend by around three seconds per lap as he improved on his lap record, cutting down to an 8:24.1 on lap ten.

With a 23 second lead as he began his final lap, Clark was comfortable and could cruise round to claim his sixth victory of the season and become the World Drivers’ Champion for the second time.

Jim Clark had entered six races in the 1965 F1 World Championship, and won six. He’d won the Tasman Series, the Indy 500, and become World Champion. He was undeniably the best racing driver in the world.

Such dominance has rarely been seen since. Only Alberto Ascari shares the distinction of having scored the maximum number of points available in a season, but no one other than Jim Clark has done it twice. His crowning on the 1^st August was also the earliest in F1 history, and remained so until Michael Schumacher won his fifth title on the 21^st July 2002.

When you consider just how good Jim Clark was, it’s difficult to comprehend that he was ‘only’ a two-time World Champion. His talent was worthy of so much more, and who knows how many he could have won were it not for his accident at Hockenheim in 1968?

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