1967 German Grand Prix : 1967 German Grand Prix: Ickx Just Playing with the Big Boys
By Jeremy McMullenAs the usual immense crowd gathered around the Nuburgring for the 1967 German Grand Prix, just a casual glance at the grid would not tell the real story. However, it wouldn't take too long before the crowd would begin to take notice of a Formula 2 car being driven by some young Belgian with a short, but interesting, last name. From that moment on, nearly everyone would know the name Ickx.
Jacky Ickx's talent was quickly gaining recognition and praise. However, at the beginning of the 1967 season, the Belgian was still a relative unknown to the general public. There were certainly signs of things to come. At Silverstone in 1966, while driving a Formula 3 Cooper, Jacky would go from the back of a 30-car grid to finish 3rd. It had been raining that day and Ickx put in a master class of how to drive in the wet while he was yet just 21. One year later, this time at the German Grand Prix, Ickx would put in yet another startling performance that would prove the Belgian a talent of the future.
In 1967, Jacky Ickx would be hired to drive for Ken Tyrrell's Matra team. His teammate for that season would be future multiple World Champion Jackie Stewart. So Ickx would find himself paired up against an incredible talent. He would need to respond and demonstrate his own talents behind the wheel. This he would do over the course of the season winning races at Crystal Palace, Zandvoort and Vallelunga. However, the race that would truly demonstrate Ickx's prowess would come in the Eifel Mountains of western Germany.
Ickx had cut his teeth in motor racing in Sportscar and Touring Cars. He would win the Belgian Touring Car Championship and would soon be hired by Alan Mann to race Mustangs. By the time he came to join Tyrrell's Matra Formula 2 team in 1967 he had already been around the Nurburgring a number of times. By his own admission, Ickx was comfortable with the circuit knowing just about every 'centimeter of the track'. This would be important and would come in very handy as he prepared for the German Grand Prix.
Formula 2 cars, with their 1.6-liter engines, needed to be driven smoothly and could not afford to scrub off too much speed, or else, a lap time would suffer terribly as a result of the car's inability to quickly accelerate back up to speed. So, knowing the circuit, any circuit, intimately was vitally important. Around a circuit as long and as arduous as the Nurburgring it was of utmost importance. Believing to know every square foot of the circuit then offered Ickx a great deal of confidence and would also be of great advantage to him.
Circuits like Spa-Francorchamps and the Nurburgring were rather normal for the man from Brussels, Belgium. Being born and raised just a couple of hours to the west of both circuits, and, being the son of a motor racing journalist, Jacky would be well acquainted with the areas around both of the circuits long before he even took part in any kind of race. The racing just provided experience to those particular circuits.
Full of confidence and experience, Ickx would roll out of the pits for practice leading up to the '67 German Grand Prix. Ickx would take to the circuit in the Cosworth-powered Matra MS5 and would be almost immediately on the pace. Getting airborne no less than 15 times over the course of the 14 mile lap, Ickx would be flying in more ways than one and would go on to set a lap time of 8:14.0. This would be an incredible time, even for a Formula One car, let alone a Formula 2 machine.
Lap after lap and minute after minute would pass and still Ickx's time would stand at the top of the time sheets. It was remarkable. Certainly, a Formula 2 car couldn't be the fastest around the Nurburgring? In time, the Formula One cars would find their footing around the circuit and the lap times would begin to fall. By the time practice would come to an end it would be Jim Clark on pole in the Lotus with a best lap of 8:04.1. Denny Hulme would end up 2nd with a time of 8:13.5. Amazingly, Ickx would end up the third-fastest qualifier with a time just a half a second slower than Hulme starting in 2nd place! It was beyond belief and it would have made for an incredible sight to see the Formula 2 car along the front of the grid at the start of the race, the 6th of August.
Nobody expected any of the eight Formula 2 cars to qualify that far forward in the grid and it would bring about a bit of consternation with some of the Formula One entrants. Jacky had made a statement, and it wasn't well received. He was playing amongst the big boys and all the Formula One drivers saw the Formula 2 car more like the annoying little brother that needed to go away.
The Nurburgring is situated right in the heart of the Eifel Mountains of western Germany and forms, it could be said, something of a protective wall around the village and the castle of Nurburg. In the words of Jackie Stewart, the 14 mile long Nordschleife was nothing short of a 'Green Hell', and the fact a car would get airborne more than a dozen times around a circuit replete with blind corner entries and exits seems a thoroughly adequate description. This would be especially true of the circuit in 1967 that had only added a chicane as its only change since it pretty much came into being during the 1920s.
The circuit boasts of more than 170 corners and an overall elevation difference of around a 1,000 feet per lap. This constant change in direction and other aspects of the character of the circuit certainly didn't seem to favor the Formula 2 cars, especially over the course of 15 lap race. And, seeing that the Formula 2 cars could not compete for the big prizes, it seemed Ickx's Matra would just get in the way of the Formula One cars. Therefore, although Jacky would run fast enough to start from the front row of the grid, he would end up on the 5th. Jackie Oliver would set the second-fastest time amongst the Formula 2 field and he would be nearly 21 seconds adrift of Jacky's best. As a result of the demotion, Ickx would find himself starting next to Guy Ligier in a Brabham Repco. Ligier would start 17th having posted a lap time of 9:14.4.
This seeming slap across the face, Ickx would admit, would be a good thing for him and his racing career as it provided him the opportunity to come from the back of the grid and demonstrate his true talents as he dispatched a number of Formula One cars over the course of the day.
The 212 mile race approached, the cars were wheeled out to their places on the dummy grid. The drivers' meeting would take place right there at the head of the field right in front of the large grandstands filled with thousands upon thousands of racing fans. The time of the race was drawing close.
The drivers would take their places and the engine would come to life. The cars rolled forward to their places on the grid. The tension within and around the cockpits heightened. And with the drop of the German flag, the race would be on. Immediately, Clark would power his way into the lead followed by Hulme and Bruce McLaren. Graham Hill would spin just prior to entering the south curve and this would drop him all the way to the back of the field. Meanwhile, Ickx would already be on a charge. Having lapped the circuit much quicker than most of the Formula One field, Jacky would already be ahead of Hahne, Siffert, Bonnier and others from the Formula One field, let alone the whole of the Formula 2 field. If he could make it the whole way through the race it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility he could be amongst the top five overall.
At the end of the first lap it would be Clark leading the way and beginning to pull out a healthy margin over Hulme. The first two had broken away from the rest of the field over the course of the first lap but Dan Gurney would be quickly catching up on Hulme. However, not all was well at the front either. Clark had a slow puncture of his rear tire and the car was becoming increasingly unstable through the corners. So just about the time he began to pull away, he would also begin losing.
Clark would lead the first couple of laps of the race but would end up having to pit to have the tires replaced on the Lotus. This would drop him down outside of the top ten when he returned to the race. Despite losing all those positions it seemed entirely possible Clark could power his way back into the lead. However, one lap after rejoining the race he would be out. His out lap would be a slow one as he would come to realize that one of the wheels was not sitting at the right angle. He would limp back to the pits, well down in the field. There it would be found that the rocker arm was badly bent. His race was over.
Prior to Clark making his pitstop the first time, his slow pace was holding everyone up except for Ickx who would go on to set the fastest lap of the race, in a Formula 2 car! His lap time of 8:21.8 meant that, by the 4th lap the order was Gurney, Hulme, Brabham, Stewart and Ickx. It was an amazing sight to behold and many in and around the circuit would wonder just who this Belgian was and what a champion he was likely to become.
Ickx's fastest lap time would be short-lived as Gurney would set the lap record with a time of 8:18.2 during the race. Still, Jacky's time, in a Formula 2 car, was only about 3 seconds slower. As a result, Ickx remained in 5th place at the conclusion of the 5th lap. His position, however, would improve as Stewart would retire at the end of the next lap as a result of a pinion problem with one of his wheels. The race wasn't even to the halfway point and Ickx was already up to 4th place. He had earned the position as a result of talent and attrition. It was clear the upstart Belgian belonged.
Gurney would lead the way for more than 8 laps of the race and was absolutely flying in the Eagle. He would continue to break the lap record just about every time he circulated. This would be frustrating to Hulme sitting in 2nd place. But, Gurney still needed to finish. And though he led the way at the conclusion of the 10th lap, there were still five laps in which problems could arise and snatch victory from the American.
Hulme sat still and let the race come to him. Brabham, on the other hand, would have no such luxury. Ickx would not get the message that he wasn't supposed to show-up the Formula One cars and he would hound the Australian lap after lap. It would be a remarkable sight seeing the big Brabham bothered by the small Formula 2 car. In many respects, Brabham was getting a dose of the medicine he handed out in the late-1950s while he was at the wheel of the rear-engined Cooper chasing after the likes of Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn.
Just past the halfway point in the race it would still be Gurney in the lead with a comfortable margin over Hulme. Ickx would come under pressure from Chris Amon in the Ferrari. Throughout the first half of the race the Ferrari was not to Amon's liking with a heavy fuel load. But much lighter than before, Amon started to feel confident and harried the Belgian until he got past for 4th place. Ickx was now back down in 5th place, but still an incredible run for the Formula 2 car.
Gurney was in control and was not pressing his Eagle at all. However, on lap 13, the universal joint on the Eagle would fail. It would then cut a hole in the oil pipe leaving Gurney with nothing to do but pull to the side of the circuit out of the race. The bitterly disappointed American had led more than half of the race, but it would all come to naught as the patient Hulme took over the lead with Brabham barely holding on to 2nd place over Amon.
Ickx could have taken advantage of Gurney's departure from the race had he still been there. Over the course of a lap, and especially through the Karussel, the whole of the car would be shaken and stirred and thoroughly tested. Any weak point, or wound, would be isolated and pressed. Jacky had been running an incredible race, but with each passing lap his Matra was being beaten to death by the Norschleife. And, on the 13th lap of the race, the weak spot would be found. As with Gurney's car, the joint on the Matra would suffer a failure. The front suspension on the car would fail. Ickx's incredible and demonstration run would come to an end. He had played with the big boys and had been playing for most of the race. He was now out, but he had made his point.
Hulme would inherit the lead from the ailing Gurney. He would be comfortably ahead of his teammate and boss Jack Brabham. As the fuel load lessened, Amon would become more and more confident at the wheel of the Ferrari. He would press and press the Australian. He would look for any opportunity to get by, or for any moment when Brabham would make a mistake. He would make none.
Hulme would go on to victory completing the race distance in just under two hours and six minutes. His margin over Brabham in 2nd place would be nearer to 39 seconds. Amon would push Brabham hard from the moment he pushed his way by Ickx. However, Brabham would pick up his pace just enough that Chris was never able to get close enough to even try and make a pass. Furthermore, Brabham would make no mistakes over the closing stages of the race to even given the Ferrari driver a sniff of 2nd place. Therefore, Amon would have to settle for 3rd place, just a half second behind Brabham at the end.
The 1967 German Grand Prix would be bitterly disappointing for a number of drivers, but perhaps none more so than Jacky Ickx. He was shoved to the back when he deserved to be at the front. He had fought his way to the front when everyone believed he belonged in the back. He was within sight of a just reward but would end up being beaten, not by the competition, but by the circuit. But that would be the pessimistic view one could take.
There was another way of viewing the race for Ickx. Over the course of nearly the entire weekend the Matra Formula 2 car had done nothing but played with most of the big Formula One cars. He would embarrass more than a handful of drivers throughout practice and the race. If it was intention to show just what talent he possessed, he would achieve that aim easily. In one race he would prove he had the talent to compete. In just one race, one performance, Jacky would make sure the name 'Ickx' would never be forgotten. At Le Mans, some six times, he would just reinforce the point.