zinetta 8 - teclux

Jacky Ickx
11 Oeuvre by Peter
Jacky Ikcx, born as Jacques-Bernard Ickx on the 1st of January 1945 and son of the respected Belgian
motoring journalist of the same name, Jacky began his career successfully in motorcycle trials events
and later raced a Lotus Cortina with great success in saloon car events. He exploded to prominence
at the age of twenty-two when he drove a Tyrrell F2 Matra MS7 with remarkable zest in the German
GP at Nurburgring, running amongst the leading F1 aces in the top half-dozen before the French
machine broke its suspension. Ickx scored a Championship point on his first GP outing at Monza that
same year at the wheel of a Cooper-Maserati, but it was his success in winning the 1967 European
F2 Championship for Matra that secured this very formal young gentleman a place in the works Ferrari
team the following year. He drove brilliantly to win the French GP at Rouen and was in the running
for the World Championship right up the Canadian GP where a stuck throttle in practice resulted in
a broken leg.
For 1969 he switched to the Brabham team. But the team is focused on owner Brabham. His first
results are poor, but when Brabham breaks his foot, Ickx gets the first car and things immediately start
to improve. winning the German and Canadian Grand Prix, but this move had been massaged by the
Gulf Oil Corporation who wanted to have Ickx driving their GT40 sports cars; it was a worthwhile
move, however, for he won Le Mans for them! In 1970 he returned to Ferrari where he used the superb
new flat-12 312 to win the Austrian, Canadian and Mexican Grand Prix, only just failing to exceed the
points total accumulated by Jochen Rindt prior to his death at Monza. The 1971 season yielded no
victories for Ickx, but 1972 saw him win the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring, the last such success
of his career. In the middle of 1973 he quit Ferrari and transferred to Team Lotus alongside Ronnie
Peterson the following year, but apart from a fine wet weather win in the non-title Brands Hatch Race
of Champions, Ickx now found himself locked into a gradual decline.
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He quit the team mid-way through 1975 and then squandered what was left of his prestigious
reputation with a disastrous foray with the Wolf- Williams team during the first half of 1976. A brief
foray with Ensign in the second half of 1976 went some way to restoring his reputation, but his F1
career petered out in 1979 after he deputised for the injured Patrick Depailler in the Ligier squad. He
subsequently became Clerk of the Course for the Monaco Grand Prix, but had his licence withdrawn
in absolutely outrageous circumstances following the 1984 race when he was obliquely accused of
favouring Alain Prost's Porsche-engined McLaren which had just emerged victorious as he flagged
the race to a premature halt in monsoon conditions.
Ickx's links with Porsche made him partial, so the critics said. Truth be told, it was a ludicrous reflection
on FISA inability to administer the sport even- handedly. Gentlemen who know their stuff like Ickx were
rare gems and badly needed on the administrative side. He was married for many years to Catherine
Blaton, daughter of the wealthy Belgian industrialist Jean Blaton, a regular Ferrari privateer at Le mans
in the 1960s who raced under the pseudonym of 'Beurlys'. Ickx continued with sports cars for several
more years, winning Le Mans five times.
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