In a career spanning nearly 40 years, Jacky Ickx proved himself to be one of the true greats of motor racing. Hugely successful and versatile, he raced at the highest level in a wide variety of categories — including Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars and rally raids — winning in all of them. His successes have entered motor racing folklore, not least his unprecedented six victories in the Le Mans 24 Hours (1969, ’75, ’76, ’77, ’81 and ’82) and his two runner-up positions in the Formula 1 World Championship (1969 and ’70). His reputation as an exceptional wetweather driver is virtually unequalled.
Choosing 10 key races from a career total of over 570 contests was never going to be an easy task, but equally I wanted to avoid simply re-telling the accounts of his most famous and well-documented successes. His 1969 win at Le Mans, by a matter of mere yards after 24 hours of racing; his dominant final grand prix victory at the Nürburgring in 1972 that made the others look like alsorans; his virtuoso triumph at the rain-soaked Race of Champions in 1974 that featured one of the greatest overtakes ever witnessed in F1 (on Niki Lauda’s Ferrari via the outside of Brands Hatch’s off-camber Paddock Hill Bend); mastering the 1983 Paris-Dakar to become the first F1 driver to win the marathon event; these glorious moments have entered racing legend. Instead, while revisiting some of Jacky’s most celebrated races, I have also selected a handful of key events where his stand-out performances had a significant bearing on the direction of his career or, indeed, ones that he himself considers among his best.
This latter point is a tricky one to draw out; as many journalists have discovered, getting Jacky to talk about his achievements is far from easy. Unlike most elite sportsmen, he is very self-effacing about the part his talents played in his remarkable career. He is much more focused on giving credit to the people away from the spotlight who made it possible; the team owners, designers, mechanics and crew members who built and ran the machines in which he competed. He expands on this philosophy at some length in the heartfelt preface he provided for the book on which I eventually persuaded him to collaborate, examining and illustrating every single event in which he took part.
Sharing his amazing recollections
