Jackie Stewart’s final season at BRM was in 1967. Enzo Ferrari had expressed an interest as he sought to find a suitable replacement for Lorenzo Bandini, who had died in terrible circumstances at Monaco. Despite his rising stock Stewart opted instead to drive for his friend Ken Tyrrell in 1968. It would be Tyrrell’s first season in Formula 1 and a massive gamble for the Scottish driver.
F1 with Tyrrell and Matra
Armed with a French Matra, Stewart and Tyrrell soon silenced any doubters. At the Nurburgring, in terrible visibility, Stewart produced one of the greatest wet weather drives of all time to win by over four minutes.
1968 was also a tragic season for the sport. On April 7th Stewart’s friend and sometime mentor Jim Clark, lost his life during an insignificant Formula 2 race at the Hockenheim circuit in Germany. In another example of the inadequacy of the circuits, Clark’s car had slid off the wet track and struck an unprotected tree. The loss of the greatest driver of his generation was keenly felt amongst Clark’s contemporaries.
Jackie Stewart, 1969 F1 World Champion
In only their second Formula 1 season together, Stewart and Tyrrell won the World Championship in 1969. The title was clinched in a thrilling Italian Grand Prix at Monza. In one of the closest finishes in history Stewart’s Matra-Ford just edged out Jochen Rindt, Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Bruce McLaren. Such was the furore surrounding the Scot’s victory that he and his wife Helen had to escape the crowd through a toilet window.
Tyrrell, March and F1 Safety
For 1970 Tyrrell opted to use a March chassis, powered once again by the ubiquitous Ford DFV. March, in their first year, had produced a tidy car, but it was no match for Rindt’s groundbreaking Lotus 72. It was during this year that Stewart was teamed with the dashing young Frenchman, François Cevert. The two men would go on to become great friends, with Cevert happy to learn his trade from Stewart.
1970 was a terrible year for the sport. In June, McLaren was killed while testing a Can-Am car at Goodwood. Shortly after, Piers Courage died in a fiery crash at Zandvoort. Although Rindt won the title, the Austrian did not live long enough to find out. He perished at Monza when a brake shaft failed on his Lotus. Stewart was still advocating strongly for safety improvements, but support for his ideas was not always forthcoming. During an interview on the BBC show Parkinson in 1971, he spoke on the subject;
“There’s an enormous amount of objection to what I do in motor racing to try and make it safe. I just can’t understand it.”
In particular, Stewart pushed for crash barriers produced by the American company Armco to be installed at circuits, to protect drivers from unneccessary risks. There was considerable discontent among the motorcycle racing fraternity at the thought of having metal barriers lining tracks, but the alternative was considerably worse. It was still common to see unprotected walls, telegraph poles, trees and even houses around Grand Prix circuits.
1971 World Champion in a Tyrrell
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