JACKIE Stewart has only ever had one answer when asked who was the finest driver he raced against in Formula One: Jim Clark.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the sport’s all-time greats, in a Formula Two crash at Germany’s Hockenheim circuit on April 7, 1968.
While millions around the world were plunged onto mourning by the death of Brazil’s triple world champion Ayrton Senna at Imola in May 1994, the Scot’s accident left a previous generation just as stunned.
That afternoon, like the one in Italy a quarter of a century later, had similarly far-reaching consequences for driver safety.
“If Jim Clark could die, anybody could die,” Stewart, who had shared an apartment with his compatriot and close friend, said.
“Jimmy’s death at Hockenheim was the beginning of us really driving home the reality that has changed the entire world of Formula One ... in regards to track safety,” added the triple world champion.
Smooth
“He was almost bullet-proof,” said the 78-year-old. “He drove in such a smooth and calculated way that he never over-drove. He was never a driver anybody would have ever thought would have died in a racing car.
“And suddenly the sport allowed that to happen, because there were no barriers and no protection from those trees that the car catapulted into.”
Clark, as quiet and indecisive out of the car as he was commanding in it, lost control at speed, possibly due to a deflated rear tyre on his Lotus, and somersaulted into trees.
There were no television images, no photographs other than of the wreckage.
The 1963 and 1965 world champion, who had won more Grands Prix than any driver at that time, including seven victories in a single season and a total of 25 from 72 starts, died instantly of a broken neck. He was 32.
Stewart was in Spain at the time carrying out a track inspection at the Jarama circuit near Madrid for the Grand Prix drivers’ association.
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