Jacky Ickx was born in Brussels on New Year’s Day 1945, the son of a motoring journalist, and started on motorcycles in trials. He was fast in everything he tried: he won eight Formula One Grands Prix for Ferrari and Brabham and was runner-up in the championship in 1969 and 1970. But it is at Le Mans that his name is written largest.
In 1969 the race still began with the famous Le Mans start: drivers ran across the track to their cars, jumped in and drove off, most of them without doing up their belts. Ickx thought it absurd and dangerous. When the flag fell, he walked across the track, got into his Ford GT40, fastened his harness properly and set off last. That afternoon a driver was killed on the opening lap. Twenty-four hours later Ickx won, by about a hundred metres, after a duel with Hans Herrmann’s Porsche in the closing laps. The running start was dropped the following year.
He won Le Mans five more times — in 1975 with Derek Bell in a Mirage, then with Porsche in 1976, 1977, 1981 and 1982, the last two again with Bell. Six wins made him the record holder for more than twenty years.
He also won the Paris–Dakar in 1983, and in 1986 finished second there in a Porsche 959, behind a sister car — both the GT40 and the 959 are in this catalogue.
Ickx remains one of the most respected figures in the sport: elegant, outspoken, and still remembered for the day he refused to run.
Foto: Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
The cars
Cars in the catalog he drove, won in, or that were named after him.
