A former F1 world champion and racing legend died in a horrific 170mph crash after a tragic sliding doors moment put him in the wrong place at the wrong time
British F1 world champion Jim Clark lost his life in brutal and tragic circumstances when he was killed in a 170mph crash.
On this day in 1968, 32-year-old Clark got behind the wheel of a race car for the final time as the legendary racer and two-time F1 world champion would be killed in a shocking Formula Two race at Hockenheim, plunging the world of motorsport into mourning.
Remembered as one of the best to ever grace the sport, the Scottish driving hero’s memory is immortalised in F1 and many fans have been left wondering today would he could have gone on to achieve had his life not been so devastatingly cut short.
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The 1963 and 1965 world champion boasted the record for the most wins (25), pole positions (33) and fastest laps (28) in F1 history. Clark also won the Indianapolis 500 in 1965 – the first non-American winner of the race in 49 years. His 60-year record for leading the highest percentage of laps in a season was finally taken by Max Verstappen in his dominant 2023 campaign.
However, his fame and popularity on the track would ultimately prove to be a catastrophic sliding doors moment in his death. Sponsored by two motorsport giants, Ford and Lotus, Clark was wanted by the former to drive its new sports car at Brands Hatch, while Lotus wanted him to drive in the Formula 2 event in Hockenheim.
Lotus won and Clark travelled to Germany to race around the daunting circuit in the Deutschland Trophae. An unfortunate twist of fate that ultimately claimed his life.
Racing in eighth and unhappy with his progress and machinery, Clark tried to push the car before tragedy struck on the sixth lap. Clark’s Lotus-Cosworth skidded off track from the Shrimps Head curve and somersaulted into a wood at 170mph.
A policeman said the car smashed broadside into the trees, leaving the Scot with a broken neck and skull fractures. He died before reaching hospital.
Crash investigators concluded the most likely cause of the crash was a deflating rear tyre. While fellow British racer Chris Irwin, who was driving about 250 yards behind Clark, said: “Suddenly Jim’s car broke out. It looked like something mechanical.”
No definitive cause of the crash has ever been given, but Clark’s fellow competitors Jack Brabham and John Surtees were insistent that driver error was not to blame, because they believed he was simply too good to make such a mistake.
His untimely passing hit the sport hard as his team-mate Graham Hill went on to win the Championship and dedicate the title to him. Clark was leading the championship at the time of his death.
The Kilmany driver died three world titles behind five-time champion Juan Manuel Fangio, who raced during the 50s. However, the Argentine legend told Clark’s team member Cedric Selzer that he was the greatest ever.
“I went to a cocktail party and Fangio was the guest of honour,” Selzer recalled. “He was speaking to me about Jim Clark, obviously via an interpreter. And he said ‘in my opinion Jim Clark was the greatest racing driver ever’. And coming from Fangio, what else can I say?”
Clark had previously been part of another fatal driving disaster, but avoided death himself in that harrowing incident. In the 1961 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Wolfgang von Trips was fatally injured when his Ferrari became airborne and crashed into a side barrier after colliding with Clark’s Lotus.
Von Trips was ejected from the car and died of his injuries, along with 15 spectators. Clark was initially accused of manslaughter before the charges were dropped.
Aside from his F1 success, Clark was also a three-time champion of the Tasman Series, a two-time race winner of the American open-wheel discipline Champ Car, 13 F2 race winner and the British Saloon Car Championship champion in 1964.
Clark wasn’t just an F1 legend, but a motorsport icon through his incredible versatility to compete in various disciplines.
That one tragic decision could have reshaped the entire motorsport landscape today had Clark continued to race and used his innovation on the other side of the garage following his eventual retirement.