Jacky Ickx is one of the true greats of motor racing. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, he was both highly successful and hugely versatile, racing at the highest level in a wide variety of categories — including Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars and rally raids — and winning throughout.
Ickx spent his best Formula 1 years with Ferrari, achieving eight wins in the period 1968–72.
| Publication Information |
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| ISBN: 9781910505809 |
| RRP: £95.00 |
| Format: Hardback, 608 pages, 280mm x 235mm, November 2022 |
| Photos/Illustrations: Over 900 images, including much colour |
| Subject: Motorsport, People |
| Publisher: EVRO Publishing |
| Author: Jon Saltinstall |
Jacky Ickx: His Authorised Competition History by Jon Saltinstall
Jacky Ickx is one of the true greats of motor racing. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, he was both highly successful and hugely versatile, racing at the highest level in a wide variety of categories — including Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars and rally raids — and winning throughout.
Among many accolades, he won the Le Mans 24 Hours an unprecedented six times and twice finished runner-up in the Formula 1 World Championship.
This exhaustively researched book has been written with his full co-operation and outlines every one of the 573 races that he contested in cars and on motorcycles, forming a detailed and insightful record of his racing life supported by over 900 images, many of which have never been published before.
This is a racing driver’s biography of exceptional depth that all motorsport enthusiasts will treasure.
It must require a genuine passion for motorsport in order to tackle a subject as vast as my career with such precision and so exhaustively. Honestly, to the best of my knowledge, no one but Jon Saltinstall has had the guts to undertake such a mammoth task before.
Indeed, “Jacky Ickx: His Authorized Competition History” isn’t a typical biography; it’s a true encyclopedia about my sporting life. During the process of fact-checking Jon’s draft, I carefully searched my memory to make sure everything was as accurate as possible. But I didn’t have to change anything. Jon’s research was impeccable and I couldn’t have chosen better words than his. Thank you, Jon, for your tremendous effort! This is a book I will treasure.
Jacky Ickx
More Information
• Starting in motorcycle trials, Ickx was twice crowned Belgian champion before switching to four wheels; he immediately proved himself a winner in touring cars and single-seaters, becoming European Formula 2 Champion in 1967. • From 1967, he established himself as a star in sports cars, driving blue-and-orange Gulf Mirages and Ford GT40s to numerous successes, culminating in his first Le Mans victory in 1969 with its famously close finish. • Snapped up by Ferrari for 1968, he achieved a heroic first Formula 1 victory in that year’s rain-soaked French Grand Prix, confirming his career-long reputation for peerless driving in wet weather. • Other than one season with Brabham, Ickx spent his best Formula 1 years with Ferrari, achieving eight wins in the period 1968–72, and twice finishing second in the World Championship standings, with Brabham (1969) and Ferrari (1970). • Post-Ferrari, his Formula 1 fortunes waned but he thrived in sports cars, claiming three successive Le Mans victories, with Mirage in 1975, then with Porsche. • After his fifth Le Mans win in 1981, the rebirth of sports car racing in the Group C era from 1982 saw Ickx as anchorman in the all-conquering works Porsche team, a four-year period that brought his record sixth Le Mans victory, 12 wins in total, and two World Champion titles. • After retirement from circuit racing, his later career took him into entirely different motorsport adventures in rally raids, where his Paris–Dakar record includes victory in 1983 (driving a Mercedes-Benz) and second places in 1986 (Porsche) and 1989 (Peugeot).
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