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James Clark OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British racing driver from Scotland who won two Formula One World Championships in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars, and in the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 1965. He was particularly associated with Team Lotus, driving for the team his entire Formula One career between 1960 and 1968. Clark was killed in a Formula Two racing accident in April 1968 in Hockenheimring, West Germany. At the time of his death, aged 32, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more pole positions (33) than any other driver. Into the 21st century, he maintains several Formula One records, such as Grand Chelem and percentage-related ones. His record of highest percentage of laps in the lead in a season was only broken in 2023. Early years James Clark was born into a farming family at Kilmany House Farm, Fife, the youngest child of five, and the only boy. In 1942, the family moved to Edington Mains Farm, near Duns, Berwickshire, in the Borders. He was educated at primary schools in Kilmany and then in Chirnside. Following three years of preparatory schooling at Clifton Hall School in Edinburgh he was sent to Loretto School in Musselburgh, East Lothian. Although his parents were opposed to the idea, Clark started his racing in local road rally road rally and hill climb events driving his own Sunbeam-Talbot, and proved a fearsome competitor right from the start. On 16 June 1956, in his very first event, he was behind the wheel of a DKW sonderklasse at Crimond, Scotland. By 1958, Clark was driving for the local Border Reivers team for Ian Scott-Watson, racing Jaguar D-Types and Porsches in national events, and winning 18 races. On Boxing Day 1958, Clark raced against the man who would launch him to superstardom. Driving a Lotus Elite, he finished second to Colin Chapman in a ten-lap grand touring race at Brands Hatch. Driving a Lotus Elite, Clark finished tenth at the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans; he partnered with John Whitmore and the ex-Bruce Halford Lister Jaguar, winning the Bo'ness Hill Climb. Chapman was sufficiently impressed to give Clark a ride in one of his Formula Junior (FJ) cars. In March 1960, the first race for the newly introduced FJ took place at Goodwood. Clark finished first ahead John Surtees and Trevor Taylor. Clark had made an earlier FJ appearance in a one-off race at Brands Hatch on Boxing Day, 1959, driving a Gemini-B.M.C. for Graham Warner of the Chequered Flag garage, Chiswick. Clark and Lotus Clark made his Formula One (F1) Grand Prix debut, part-way through the 1960 season, during the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on 6 June. Lotus had lost Surtees, who took part to the Isle of Man TT series; alongside Innes Ireland and Alan Stacey, Clark was one of the acceptable substitute. He retired on lap 49 with final drive failure. His second Formula One race was the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, held at the extremely fast and dangerous Spa-Francorchamps circuit; there, he got a taste of reality when two fatal accidents occurred (Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey). Clark, who finished fifth and scored his first points finish, was later quoted as saying in a 1964 interview: "I was driving scared stiff pretty much all through the race." In 1961, Clark was involved in one of the worst accidents in the history of F1 racing. In the 1961 Italian Grand Prix on 10 September at Monza, Wolfgang von Trips in his Ferrari collided with Clark's Lotus. Von Trips's car became airborne and crashed into a side barrier, fatally throwing von Trips out of the car and killing fifteen spectators. Clark and his car were subjected to an investigation; he was initially accused of manslaughter, before the charges were dropped. At the time, Clark described the accident by saying: "Von Trips and I were racing along the straightaway and were nearing one of the banked curves, the one on the southern end. We were about 100 metres from the beginning of the curve. Von Trips was running close to the inside of the track. I was closely following him, keeping near the outside. At one point von Trips shifted sideways so that my front wheels collided with his back wheels. It was the fatal moment. Von Trips's car spun twice and went into the guardrail along the inside of the track. Then it bounced back, struck my own car and bounced down into the crowd." In his later testimony, he recalled the collision had become unavoidable, saying: "Trips was head of me, driving on the center of the track. Suddenly he slowed down. Since my Lotus was faster than the Ferrari, I tried to overtake him. In the same instant the Ferrari surprisingly pulled to the left, and a collision became unavoidable..." Clark's first Drivers' World Championship came driving the Lotus 25 in 1963, winning seven out of the ten races and Lotus its first Constructors' World Championship. The 1963 Indianapolis 500 saw Clark's debut in the series; he finished in second position behind Parnelli Jones and won Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honours. The 1963 Indy 500 result remains controversial. Before the race, United States Auto Club (USAC) officials had told the drivers that they would black flag any car that was seen to be leaking oil onto the track. Late in the race, Jones' front-engined roadster developed a crack in the oil tank and began to leak oil. With the track surface already being slippery this resulted in a number of cars spinning and led to popular driver Eddie Sachs crashing into the outside wall. USAC officials were set to black flag Jones after the Sachs crash until his car owner J. C. Agajanian ran down pit lane and somehow convinced them that the oil leak was below the level of a known crack and would not leak any further. Colin Chapman later accused USAC officials of being biased because Clark and Lotus were a British team with a rear-engine car. Many, including journalist and author Brock Yates, believed that had it been an American driver and car in second place instead of Clark in the British built Lotus, officials would have black flagged Jones. Despite this, neither Lotus nor their engine supplier Ford protested the result, reasoning that winning as a result of a disqualification when Jones had led for 167 of the races 200 laps (Clark led for 28 laps) and had set the lap record speed of 151.541 mph (243.9 km/h) on lap 114, would not be well received by the public. In 1964, Clark came within just a few laps of retaining his World Championship crown. Just as in 1962, an oil leak from the engine robbed him of the title, this time conceding to John Surtees. Tyre failure damaging the Lotus's suspension put paid to that year's attempt at the 1964 Indianapolis 500. He made amends and won the Championship again in 1965, and also won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 in the Lotus 38. He had to miss the prestigious 1965 Monaco Grand Prix to compete at Indianapolis but made history by driving the first mid-engined car to win at the fabled.... Discover the Jim Driver popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jim Driver books.