1968 German Grand Prix

  1968 German Grand Prix

Race details
Date	4 August 1968
Official name	XXX Großer Preis von Deutschland XXVIII Grand Prix d'Europe
Location	Nürburgring, Nürburg, West Germany
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	22.835 km (14.189 mi)
Distance	14 laps, 319.690 km (198.646 mi)
Weather	Hazy, Wet
Pole position
Driver	Jacky Ickx	Ferrari
Time	9:04.0
Fastest lap
Driver	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford
Time	9:36.0 on lap 8
Podium
First	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford
Second	Graham Hill	Lotus-Ford
Third	Jochen Rindt	Brabham-Repco

Winner Jackie Stewart in a Matra MS10

Pedro Rodriguez in a BRM P133

BMW's Formula Two car and driver Hubert Hahne during practice

The 1968 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Nürburgring on 4 August 1968. It was race 8 of 12 in both the 1968 World Championship of Drivers and the 1968 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. The race was held in extremely wet and foggy conditions, and British driver Jackie Stewart, racing with a broken wrist, won the race by a margin of four minutes in what is widely considered to be one of the greatest victories in the history of Formula One.^[1][2]

The race is also notable for Dan Gurney's choice of a full face helmet, making him the first driver to do so in Grand Prix racing.^[3]

Report

Background

After Jo Siffert had surprisingly won the previous race at Brands Hatch, the paddock arrived at the Nürburgring almost unchanged. Equally unchanged was the weather: with rain over the entire weekend, this was to be the fifth wet race in a row. BMW entered a Lola-built Formula Two car driven by Hubert Hahne in order to evaluate their competitiveness in Formula One.^[4]

Practice and qualifying

On Saturday, conditions were so poor, with visibility down to mere ten yards, that the organizers scheduled an additional practice session for Sunday morning. Still many drivers slid off the track during the morning session.^[1] Eventually, Jacky Ickx took pole positions by a full 10 seconds from second placed Chris Amon, both in a Ferrari. Jackie Stewart in his Matra MS10 was down in sixth place on the grid.^[4] At the time, Ickx became the youngest person ever to sit on pole, a record beaten 14 years later when Andrea de Cesaris achieved pole position at the 1982 United States Grand Prix West.

Race

Even with the conditions treacherous, 200,000 spectators turned up for the race on Sunday afternoon.^[1] The race turned out to be a one-man show by Scotsman Jackie Stewart. While Graham Hill took the lead at the start, by the end of the first lap Stewart had moved into first place and built a nine-second lead. He put his superior Dunlop wet tires to great effect and by the end of lap 2, had extended his lead to 34 seconds. When the race ended after 14 laps, Stewart crossed the line more than 4 minutes in front of second placed Hill. The eventual World Champion had spun on lap 11, but was able to get out of the car, push it into the right direction and keep going before third-placed Jochen Rindt could catch up.^[4] Chris Amon had battled with Hill for 11 laps over second place, rarely having more than a second between the two, until Amon spun out of the race on the same lap as Hill did.^[1]

Reactions

Stewart described the race as a "teeth gritting effort" in his autobiography. About the first lap he wrote:

Visibility is so pathetically poor I can't even see Chris' car in front of me [...] I am simply driving into this great wall of spray. I pull out to pass him but the spray is dense and I'm driving blind.

— Jackie Stewart, Winning Is Not Enough

The race has been described as Stewart's best drive ever, with the Scot later confirming he felt the same way.^[5]

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	6	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford	14	2:19:03.2	6	9
2	3	Graham Hill	Lotus-Ford	14	+ 4:03.2	4	6
3	5	Jochen Rindt	Brabham-Repco	14	+ 4:09.4	3	4
4	9	Jacky Ickx	Ferrari	14	+ 5:55.2	1	3
5	4	Jack Brabham	Brabham-Repco	14	+ 6:21.1	15	2
6	10	Pedro Rodríguez	BRM	14	+ 6:25.0	14	1
7	1	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Ford	14	+ 6:31.0	11
8	22	Piers Courage	BRM	14	+ 7:56.4	8
9	14	Dan Gurney	Eagle-Weslake	14	+ 8:13.7	10
10	18	Hubert Hahne	Lola-BMW	14	+ 10:11.4	18
11	21	Jackie Oliver	Lotus-Ford	13	+ 1 Lap	13
12	17	Kurt Ahrens, Jr.	Brabham-Repco	13	+ 1 Lap	17
13	2	Bruce McLaren	McLaren-Ford	13	+ 1 Lap	16
14	11	Richard Attwood	BRM	13	+ 1 Lap	20
Ret	8	Chris Amon	Ferrari	11	Accident	2
Ret	12	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	Matra	8	Accident	12
Ret	16	Jo Siffert	Lotus-Ford	6	Ignition	9
Ret	19	Lucien Bianchi	Cooper-BRM	6	Fuel Leak	19
Ret	7	John Surtees	Honda	3	Ignition	7
Ret	20	Vic Elford	Cooper-BRM	0	Accident	5
DNS	23	Silvio Moser	Brabham-Repco		Oil Pump
Sources: [6][7]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Graham Hill 30 1 2 Jackie Stewart 26 1 3 Jacky Ickx 23 4 Denny Hulme 15 5 Pedro Rodríguez 11

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Lotus-Ford 44 2 2 Matra-Ford 29 1 3 Ferrari 28 1 4 McLaren-Ford 22 5 BRM 18

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

Further reading

• Lang, Mike (1982). Grand Prix! Vol 2. Haynes Publishing Group. pp. 74–75. ISBN 0-85429-321-3. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1968 German Grand Prix.

• "German Grand Prix 1968". motorsport-stats.com. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 26 September 2015.