A few days after Christmas I had the pleasure of talking to Jacky Ickx for a book I’m writing about the history of Carl Haas and Newman/Haas Racing. Thirty years ago Ickx won the Can-Am championship driving a Lola for Haas’s team, and I wanted to talk to him about his 1979 season in America. Jacky celebrated his 65th birthday on New Year’s Day and he’s not only one of the most accomplished racing drivers but also a delightful, old school gentleman.
Ickx is proud that, much like Mario Andretti, he won races across a broad range of categories. Jacky won Le Mans six times, of course, but he also won 37 World Championship long-distance sports car races – more than any other driver – and two world sports car titles in 1982-83.
Ickx won sports car races driving Gulf Ford GT40s, factory Porsches, Ferraris and Mirages, and came to be celebrated as a maestro of Le Mans and endurance racing.
He also finished second to Jackie Stewart in the 1969 Formula 1 World Championship and was second again the following year to Jochen Rindt. He won eight Grands Prix between 1968-72 driving for Brabham and Ferrari, and claimed the European F2 championship in 1967 when he was just 22. Jacky retired from racing sports cars in 1985 but continued to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally until 1992, having won the gruelling event in ’83. “I had a career that was similar to Mario in a way because Mario did all kinds of racing successfully,” says Ickx. “He could go from a dirt track, to Indy, to long-distance racing or F1, and whatever he did he could do it well. And that’s what I did, too.”
Jacky says that over the years he’s gained a deeper appreciation for the people and teamwork that makes the sport happen. “When you’re older you don’t see things the way you did when you were a kid,” he says. “It’s a very individual sport and a selfish sport too for the drivers, and it takes time to understand that you don’t do anything without a large number of people – the engineers and mechanics and so on – who are working in the shadows with a lot of motivation and passion. Your success depends on their abilities and goodwill. They do their jobs with pleasure, but the only rewards they receive is when their driver wins.”
Jacky is also aware how lucky he’s been and how much richer his life has been made by racing. “In sport, your career is reasonably short,” he says. “Mine started when I was 16 in 1960 and I stopped in 1992. So it was very long and I was extremely lucky to survive 30 years of motor racing in those days. Today, when I meet Jackie Stewart or Carlos Reutemann or some people from that era, the first thing we say is how lucky we’ve been to survive such a big amount of racing miles in F1, long-distance racing, Can-Am, the Paris-Dakar and everything else without losing a wheel or having a major technical problem. It’s a miracle!
“That is why every day when I wake up I feel lucky. It’s also why I pay more attention to the human side than the score. To me, the score is not important – the fact that I won Le Mans six times, or that I won 50 long-distance races, the F2 championship or Paris-Dakar. What counts are the outstanding people I had the chance to meet.”
Jacky is also a devoted Motor Sport reader. “It’s the only racing magazine I buy,” he says. “You guys are doing a great job. Keep it up!”
Thanks for the compliment Jacky. Keep reading and we’ll keep writing.
Great Article – thanks for posting it!
Jacky Ickx is a true legend and he is indeed a lucky man. One question though, what is going on in the bottom picture? Is that Ford Transit Van F1′s first ever medical car?
I only saw Ickx drive once in F1 (in 76 at Brands) in that dog of a Wolf Williams but I was lucky enough to be in the UK and to see him win the BA 1000 and championship at Brands in 82. What a wet weather driving lesson he gave everyone that day and his charge at the end in the dark with a door hanging off was something I’ll never forget. He would make an excellent “lunch with” candidate for your magazine
u say he retired from sports cars in 1985, i wonder if the accident with Bellof had anything to do with that?
I don’t believe it had an impact. Jacky was not to blame for the Bellof incident. Stefan was just a bit too ambitious there at Eau Rouge. I think by that time Jacky had reached a point where he had done it all in the Porsches and lost his committment. The Bellof incident, sad as it was, I wouldn’t think would have made an impact on his decision at the time. By 1985, he had been competing for a mere 25 years!
agree with what say, Bellof’s loss was a great shame, i just found it curious he retired just a couple of months after that incident.
Jacky Ickx is rarely featured, which is a shame since he’s one of my favourite drivers of all time. The last big interview i remember reading of him was on Classic Cars mag, around 2001… Long time ago…
Ickx also won the Bathurst 1000 with Allan Moffat in a Falcon which is not to be sneezed at. There is only a minority of overseas drivers who where able to master the Bathurst track. Many big names came and went with their tails betweens their legs. Not Ickx.
No reason to explain to you how important was Jacky Ickx to me, to us, Belgians plus minus close to his age and… growing up at about 10miles away from Spa… He succeeded in anything he did on the track, certainly not the best way to count only friends… And most of all he did it his own way, just like in that beautiful song of Franck Sinatra… I mean he was free, nobody was obliged to appreciate him as a man, he was a racing driver not a public man. He was certainly lucky on the track but even more gifted. He was keen on accepting all kind of challenges even the very special ones. In 1984, for a charity meeting he sat on a racing horses’s sulky and brought the halfbred to the winning circle, telling everybody the horse did it on his own. He was happy as a kid… I do remember very well as I happened to organize that event.
Jacky Ickx was a born winner, a born sportman, not an opportunist nor a killer, he loved what he was doing, so did we….
Thanks to you Gentleman !
I had the honor of being passed by Jacky once. Had I been a racing driver it probably would have been on a road course somewhere. No, Jacky passed me one morning driving a 911 while I was on my way back to Mosport with more beer in my X1/9 ready to enjoy the rest of the F1 weekend in 1976. After parking and getting out of my car at my campsite on the outside of the Esses before the pit straight I saw him getting out of his 911 in the paddock. This was my first F1 race and I was in heaven because Jacky had passed me, and very easily I would think.
Years later, Jacky was very gracious when I got the chance to try to talk to him at Rennsport Reunion 2. I say “try” because I didn’t know where to start and can’t remember what words actuallly came out off my mouth because I was in such awe of shaking hands with and trying to communicate my respect for one of my all-time heroes. Thankfully, Jacky was very gracious and kind to this race fan.
Thanks again for the memories, Jacky.