 Lotus signed Graham
Hill to partner Jim Clark, as well as an exclusive deal to
use the new Ford DFV engine, which had been designed
and built by Cosworth and financed by Ford. It would become the most successful F1 engine
of all time, and Clark gave it a stunning debut at Zandvoort. The late introduction of the
new engine and some initial reliability problems meant that - despite his four wins -
Clark could not prevent the Brabham team repeating its
championship success. This time Denny Hulme beat his boss to
the title. The Kyalami circuit, hosting the South African GP for the first time, opened
the season and almost produced a shock win for Rhodesian John Love. Driving an old four
cylinder Cooper Climax, Love only lost
the lead to Pedro Rodriguez when he refuelled six laps from the flag. At Spa Dan Gurney gave his Eagle concern its only Grand Prix win when
Clark and Jackie Stewart were delayed. The Italien GP was a
classic example of Jim Clark's virtuosity: In an incredible display he regained a whole
lap lost by an early unscheduled pit stop and retook the lead - only to run low on fuel on
the very last lap. For Ferrari it had been a year of tragedy, Lorenzo Bandini dying after crashing in flames at Monaco's
chicane, and Englishman Michael Parkes injured at Spa. This put the young New Zealander Chris Amon into the spotlight as team leader, but his mature
performances never quite yielded a Grand Prix victory. Another youngster to impress was Jacky Ickx: While competing in the F2 class of the German GP he
ran fourth among the F1 cars only to retire. |
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Rang 1 |
Fahrer Denny Hulme |
Auto Brabham Repco |
Siege 2 |
Punkte 51 |