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Stewart wins in a… Lotus!

05. Dec 2023 
by Ziv Knoll
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Jackie Stewart (picture above) on his way to winning his first F1 race during the Rand Grand Prix weekend at Kyalami in December 1964, in a … Lotus 33-Climax – standing in for an injured Jim Clark. The car broke a driveshaft at the start of the first heat, but repaired, he won the second.

The story of Jackie’s first F1 win is rarely told. During the 1960s it was common, in the run up to the South African Grand Prix, for the ‘works’ teams to take part in the non-championship Rand Grand Prix at Kyalami, as a prelude to the ‘real’ Grand Prix at East London.

However, in 1964 the organisers of the Rand Grand Prix, held on 12 December were in for a great disappointment. Or so they thought… Their star attraction and 1963 World Champion, Jim Clark, was forced to withdraw after injuring his back in a snow-ball fight at Cortina in Italy, where he was celebrating his victory in the British Saloon Car Championship in a… Lotus-Cortina!

An arrangement was made for another Scot, the promising Jackie Stewart, who had had a phenomenal F3 season and had been contracted to BRM as number 2 driver in F1, to take his place for this event, driving both Lotus 33 and the Ford Cortina.

Stewart was somewhat of an unknown quantity and needed two cushions of sponge to enable him to fit into the cockpit of Clark’s Lotus 33, but there was soon no doubt about his talent, when he outpaced his experienced team mate, Mike Spence, and put his car on pole position.

Two weeks later on 1 January 1965, the opening Grand Prix of the year, Stewart made his world championship debut at the wheel of a BRM (picture below). While Jim Clark went on to win the race in his Lotus, Jackie’s sixth place finish earned him his first Championship point.

 

 

Source: DR

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