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.
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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Reactions Stewart described the race as a "teeth gritting effort" in his autobiography. About the first lap he wrote:
The race has been described as Stewart's best drive ever, with the Scot later confirming he felt the same way.
Classification Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap1 9 Jacky Ickx Ferrari 9:04.0 — 2 8 Chris Amon Ferrari 9:14.9 +10.9 3 5 Jochen Rindt Brabham-Repco 9:31.9 +27.9 4 3 Graham Hill Lotus-Ford 9:46.0 +42.0 5 20 Vic Elford Cooper-BRM 9:53.0 +49.0 6 6 Jackie Stewart Matra-Ford 9:54.2 +50.2 7 7 John Surtees Honda 9:57.8 +53.8 8 22 Piers Courage BRM 10:00.1 +56.1 9 16 Jo Siffert Lotus-Ford 10:03.4 +59.4 10 14 Dan Gurney Eagle-Weslake 10:13.9 +1:09.9 11 1 Denny Hulme McLaren-Ford 10:16.0 +1:12.0 12 12 Jean-Pierre Beltoise Matra 10:17.3 +1:13.3 13 21 Jackie Oliver Lotus-Ford 10:18.7 +1:14.7 14 10 Pedro Rodríguez BRM 10:19.7 +1:15.7 15 4 Jack Brabham Brabham-Repco 10:23.1 +1:19.1 16 2 Bruce McLaren McLaren-Ford 10:33.0 +1:29.0 17 17 Kurt Ahrens Jr. Brabham-Repco 10:37.3 +1:33.3 18 18 Hubert Hahne Lola-BMW 10:42.9 +1:38.9 19 19 Lucien Bianchi Cooper-BRM 10:46.6 +1:42.6 20 11 Richard Attwood BRM 10:48.2 +1:44.2 21 23 Silvio Moser Brabham-Repco Source:
Race 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 8 Chris Amon Ferrari 11 Accident 2 12 Jean-Pierre Beltoise Matra 8 Accident 12 16 Jo Siffert Lotus-Ford 6 Ignition 9 19 Lucien Bianchi Cooper-BRM 6 Fuel Leak 19 7 John Surtees Honda 3 Ignition 7 20 Vic Elford Cooper-BRM 0 Accident 5 23 Silvio Moser Brabham-Repco Oil Pump 15 Jo Bonnier McLaren-BRM Sources:
Notes
This was the 100th race for a Lotus. In those 100 races, the British constructor had won 33 Grands Prix, had achieved 52 podiums, 43 pole positions, 35 fastest laps, 12 Grand Slams and had won 2 Driver's and 2 Constructor's World Championships.
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 11Source:
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 18Source:
Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
References
Further reading
External links