JACKY ICKX
A look at the life of a motorsport hero.
You have to be pretty special to have a 911 styled in your honour. Make no mistake, superstar racing driver, Jacky Ickx, is pretty special. In a dazzling career that saw him win the 24 Hours of Le Mans no fewer than six times, he also managed to rack up eight wins and twenty-five podium finishes in Formula One (after proving himself as winner of Formula Two), took the 1979 Can-am Championship’s top honours, won the Bathurst 1000 and secured victory at the punishing 1983 Paris-dakar Rally. No wonder Porsche saw fit to honour him with the recently launched 992-generation 911 Belgian Legend Edition.
Despite being regarded as part of the fabric of Porsche by the close-knit community of engineers who worked with him in Weissach for the best part of a decade, Ickx made his name racing for Ferrari and Ford. He was first introduced to motorsport by his father, motoring journalist and racing driver, Jacques Ickx, but showed little interest until being presented with a Zundapp 50cc motorcycle, which led to participation in local speed trials. His performances were so great that national championships in his native Belgium beckoned, as did rivalry with future motorcross world champion, Roger De Coster. Impressively, Ickx won eight of thirteen races in his first season, bagging the European 50cc motorcycle trials title.
Two further motorcycle championship wins followed, before Ickx began racing on four wheels shortly before his twentieth birthday. His chariot of choice was a Lotus Cortina, which he used to great effect in the 1965 Belgian National Saloon Car Championship, winning the competition outright. Meanwhile, his older brother, Pascal, took top honours in the same year’s 24 Hours
of Spa, driving a BMW 1800 TI. Not to be outdone (and somewhat driven by a healthy dose of sibling rivalry), Jacky took up residence behind the wheel of a BMW 2000 TI for the following year’s repeat of the same event, held as part of the 1966 European Touring Car Championship. Following in his brother’s footsteps, he finished the race in first place.
Participation in Formula racing arrived following an invitation from Tyrrell to drive a Matra Ms5-cosworth in Formula Two. It wasn’t to be the greatest start Ickx and his family had hoped for in the next chapter of a promising professional motorsport career— disaster struck when, on the first lap of his first race (the 1966 German Grand Prix, hosted at the Nürburgring) for Tyrrell, he collided with Formula One stalwart, John Taylor. Both drivers were forced to retire, with Taylor immediately hospitalised because of injury caused by devastating burns inflicted upon him in the crash. Sadly, he died a month later.
BLUE OVAL
1966 also saw Ickx participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time. Driving a Ford GT40 for the American Essex Wire Corporation team, a strong start ended with a DNF after 154 laps, but served to give the young Belgian a taste of things to come, as demonstrated by a return to Sarthe in 1967 (driving a Mirage M1 for future Porsche collaborator, John Wyer) and being back in Formula Two action with Tyrrell at the Nürburgring. Another frustrating DNF — this time,
after only twenty-nine laps — was the best he could achieve at Le Mans, though fortune favours the brave, as highlighted by Ickx’s numerous podiums in Formula Two, contributing to his win of the championship at the very last race of the season and in the face of stiff competition from star drivers, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart.
In 1968, save for a brace of Formula Two outings, Ickx concentrated all his efforts on Formula One, driving for Ferrari. A good season saw him make his way to the podium four times and take the win at a very wet French Grand Prix in Rouen, but an accident at Circuit Mont-tremblant in St. Jovite, Quebec, home to the year’s Canadian Grand Prix, resulted in a broken leg. Lack of recovery in time to catch up with the frontrunners meant a fourth-place finish (behind Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Denny Hulme, though ahead of Bruce Mclaren, Pedro Rodriguez, Jo Siffert and John Surtees) was all that could be achieved, but success would return to Ickx in 1969, when he won his first 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Another outing at the invitation of John Wyer, Ickx’s start at Sarthe that year is now regarded as one of the most significant moments in Le Mans history. Anyone who has watched the excellent Ford vs Ferrari movie (titled Le Mans ’66 for European audiences) or has knowledge of historic motor racing will be able to bring to mind vivid images of drivers running across the track to their patiently waiting cars. Getting away quickly could save valuable time, leading many drivers to hop in and head off without fastening their seat belts. Another safety concern — and one highlighted in the aforementioned flick’s depiction of Ken Miles’ experience of Le Mans — was the very real possibility of a car’s door not closing properly, leading to dangerous on-track behaviour from drivers. This is exactly what had happened at the 1968 endurance racing extravaganza in France, when Willy Mairesse crashed on the first lap whilst trying to close the door of his car at high speed on the Mulsanne Straight. The accident would have been avoided had it not been for the traditional Le Mans start.
Ickx is no fool. He recognised the danger and staged a one-man protest at the beginning of the 1969 24 Hours
of Le Mans. While every other driver dashed across the track, jumped into their car and sped off, Ickx stood still. Then, when his GT40 was the only car left, he casually entered the cockpit, took time to fasten his seat belt and joined the race. At the same time, privateer, John Woolfe, who had rushed to release, flipped his Porsche 917 near Maison Blanche on the first lap. Not strapped in, he was killed when the car split to pieces. Ickx, typifying the ‘less haste, more speed’ mantra, went on to win the event. One can only imagine Henry Ford II’S wildly changing mood at the start and end of what is now considered one of the most exciting races in the Le Mans history.
Following Ickx’s actions, the sprint-and-start beginning of races at Le Mans was banned, a move which undoubtedly saved lives. This is, arguably, a much stronger achievement than any of Ickx’s championship victories or Le Mans wins, the next arriving in 1975. Formula One stints with Ferrari, Mclaren, Williams, Lotus, not to mention sportscar racing for BMW and Wyer, were sandwiched between his first two Le Mans victories, the latter achieved with co-driver Derek Bell in a Gulf-mirage GR8. Alongside Gijs van Lennep, Ickx won his third Le Mans race a year later, driving a Martinidecorated 936 for Porsche. His third consecutive win in the world’s most famous motor race was achieved 1977, again racing for Porsche, this time in the 936 with Jurgen Barth and Hurley Haywood serving as teammates. The same season, Ickx teamed up with Allan Moffat to debut at the Bathurst 1000, racing a modified Ford XC Falcon Group C touring car. Lapping quicker than drivers who raced nothing other than Australian muscle machines, Ickx won the race.
FRENCH FANCY
Winning Le Mans three times on the bounce is an extraordinary achievement, but Ickx wasn’t done there. After a second-place finish for Porsche at the same circuit in 1978 and his win in the 1979 Can-am Championship for HAAS, not to mention coining another runner-up spot for Porsche at Le Mans in 1980, he went on to win at Sarthe twice more. Both victories were realised with his familiar co-driver, Derek Bell, and were scored in 1981 and 1982, driving the 936/81 and the then new 956 respectively. His win at the Paris-dakar
rally occurred in the hot seat (literally) of a Mercedesbenz 280 GE G-wagen in 1983, prompting Porsche’s motorsport department to begin its desert programme and invite Ickx to compete in a 911. He finished sixth for the team in 1984, which doesn’t sound remarkable until you realise he drove to the end point from 139th position. Following retirement in the mighty 959 at the arduous event in 1985, he finished second in the same all-pawed Porsche in 1986.
Ickx’s final 24 Hours of Le Mans would come in 1985, when he finished in tenth place for the Rothmans Porsche team driving a 962 C in partnership with Jochen Mass. The Belgian speed merchant’s Formula One career had ended at the turn of the decade — as demonstrated at Sarthe in 1969, Ickx is very much safety conscious, leading him to walk away from Grand Prix driving when ground effect cars (which he considered dangerous) were being campaigned. After a hugely successful career in a variety of motorsport disciplines, Ickx retired to the historic racing scene, now regularly appearing at celebratory events as a guest driver, ordinarily at the invitation of Porsche or Ferrari. He is Clerk of the Course for the Monaco Grand Prix and, now in his seventy-sixth year, enjoys a quiet life with his second wife, Burundian singer and musician, Khadja Nin. His daughter, Vanina, has followed family tradition and entered into the world of motor racing, piloting single seaters, as well as competing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times (including five starts in LMP1), Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Rally Raid, DTM, Porsche Supercup, Ferrari Challenge and the 24 Hours of Spa, finishing the latter in third place for Renault in 2000, the same year she persuaded her father to dust off his driving gloves and partner with her in the Dakar Rally. Her son, Ado, was born in April 2013. No prizes for guessing the career he’s most likely to pursue!