Jim Clark dominated the race in the sixties as the British GP visited yet another new venue.
Jim Clark was again the class of the field in 1963, when the Grand Prix was held at Silverstone. Starting from pole he won from the Ferrari of John Surtees and Graham Hill’s BRM.
The Brands Hatch circuit in Kent became the venue for the race in 1964 and the undulating track suited Clark’s Lotus. As in 1962 he claimed pole, fastest lap and won the race. Graham Hill was the best of the rest while Surtees crossed the line in third. The top three would be exactly the same at Silverstone the following year as Clark scored his fourth consecutive British Grand Prix victory.
1966 brought a return to three litre engines and Lotus struggled. The surprise package of the season was the Brabham-Repco. The Repco engines were not the most powerful but they were extremely reliable. At Brands Hatch Jack Brabham used one to win the race from his team-mate Denny Hulme. Graham Hill again made the podium in third while Clark trailed home fourth. Once again Ferrari did not make the trip because of a strike in Italy.
Normal service was resumed at Silverstone in 1967 as Clark won in what turned out to be his final British Grand Prix appearance. Hulme in second did manage the fastest lap of the race, while Chris Amon finished third for Ferrari. Silverstone was also the scene of a tragedy that year when the highly regarded privateer Bob Anderson lost his life during private testing.
Brands Hatch in 1968 produced a memorable result as Jo Siffert won in a privately entered Lotus 49, followed by the Ferrari’s of Amon and Jacky Ickx. Brabham started his 100th Grand Prix although it was a short-lived affair. An engine failure meant that he didn’t complete a lap. Siffert’s win was all the more remarkable as he had destroyed his original race car in testing. In, ‘Formula 1, The Autobiography’, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2002 and edited by Gerald Donaldson, Siffert’s entrant, Rob Walker, recalled the aftermath of the incident:
“That was bad enough, but when the wreckage was taken back to our workshops in Pippbrook, a spark from one of the mechanic’s drills ignited fuel vapour, and the whole lot went up. I lost what remained of the Lotus… my ex-Seaman Delage, as well as scrapbooks and souvenirs… It was heartbreaking.”
Jackie Stewart became the second Scotsman to win the British Grand Prix in 1969 as he took his Matra to victory at Silverstone. Ickx, now with Brabham, finished second, while Bruce McLaren drove his eponymous car to third.
