When it comes to naming great Belgian racing drivers, you cannot avoid mentioning Jacky Ick,x one of the great all-rounders in motor racing. His father, Jacques Ickx, was well known in racing circles as Belgium’s leading motor sport journalist, who also competed and, with Belgian racing driver Johnny Claes, won the 1951 Liege-Rome-Liege rally driving a Jaguar XK120.
It was obvious that both Jacky Ickx and his brother Pascal would become involved in racing.
Like many, he started out on motorcycles and in particular trials before switching to cars and in particular a Lotus-Cortina, which he used to win the Belgian National Saloon Car Championship in 1965. His great chance came in 1966 when Ken Tyrrell ran two Matra MS5 BRMs in the European Formula 2 Championship, making his debut at Goodwood, sharing his car with Jackie Stewart to finish 6th. That same year, Formula 2 cars were allowed to race in the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring and Ken Tyrrell entered Jacky alongside Hubert Hahne in Formula 2 Matras, but was retired in a tragic accident when British driver John Taylor hit the back of Ickx’s Matra. The following year he returned to the Nurburgring again, driving a Matra but this time an MS7, and created a sensation by qualifying third fastest in a Formula 2 car against all the Formula 1 cars. His time of 8 minutes 14 seconds was 20 seconds faster than the next Formula 2 car ( Oliver in the Lotus 48) and just half a second behind Denis Hulme’s Brabham BT24.
In 1967, he made his proper Formula 1 debut driving one of John Cooper’s Cooper Maseratis at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, finishing 6th, which led to him joining Scuderia Ferrari for 1968.
Despite retiring in the first two races, he finished third in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa and won his first Formula 1 grand prix in the French Grand Prix at Rouen. A year later, he finished the 1959 season 2nd in the championship, driving for Brabham and second again in the Championship in 1970, back with Scuderia Ferrari. He drove in Formula 1 for John Player Team Lotus, Matra, Williams, Wolf, Ensign and Ligier
Jackie Ickx driving the Ligier JS11 Ligier in the British Grand Prix of 1969 his last season in Formula 1 ( Photo Grand Prix Library/Gauld)
When it came to sports car racing, Jackie Ickx proved to be one of the greatest, winning the first of his six at Le Mans in 1969, driving the Ford GT40 of JW Automotive with Jackie Oliver. What made this remarkable was that he did not like the Le Mans-type start, where the drivers ran across the road and jumped into their cars to start the race. At that rac,e he walked to his car and set off behind all the leading group and yet ended up the winner. Amongst those Le Mans wins he recorded another record in 1977 when, with Gijs van Lennep, he became the first Le Mans winner to drive a car with a turbocharged engine, the Porsche 936.
The Grand Prix Drivers’ Club welcomes Jacky to the club.