Jacky Ickx

Jacky Ickx is a Belgian racing driver widely regarded as one of the most versatile and gifted competitors of his era. Born in Brussels in 1945, he excelled across every discipline he tried, but it was in Formula 1 and sports car racing that he built his legend. A master of the wet, he combined raw speed with mechanical sympathy and tactical intelligence that made him formidable across long-distance events.

In Formula 1 he took 8 wins, 25 podiums, 13 pole positions and 181 points across 116 starts. Driving for Ferrari he finished championship runner-up twice, in 1970, when he challenged the late Jochen Rindt for the title, and again in 1969 with Brabham. He also raced for Team Lotus, McLaren, Williams (then Iso Marlboro), Ligier and Ensign over a career that spanned from the late 1960s into the late 1970s.

Beyond grand prix racing, Ickx became one of the greatest endurance drivers in history, winning the Le Mans 24 Hours a record six times and taking the Paris-Dakar Rally. His all-round mastery has secured his place among the most complete racing drivers the sport has produced.

Ickx married outright pace with a smoothness and consistency that made him devastating over a race distance, and his command of the wet drew comparisons to the very best. Famously, he protested the dangerous standing-start Le Mans tradition by walking calmly to his car in 1969, a gesture of principle that helped change safety practice. His breadth of achievement, spanning Formula 1, endurance racing and rally raid, marks him as one of motorsport's true all-rounders.