Jim Clark's final Formula One victory, also the first race where a team used sponsor livery instead of national colours.
Key Facts
- Race length
- 80 laps
- Winner
- Jim Clark (Lotus-Ford)
- Clark's career race wins
- 25
- Pole positions record set
- 33 pole positions
- First sponsor livery team
- Team Gunston (Brabham & LDS entries)
- Championship round
- Race 1 of 12
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The 1968 Formula One season opened on New Year's Day at Kyalami Circuit in South Africa, with Jim Clark on pole position driving for Lotus-Ford. Clark entered the race as a two-time World Drivers' Champion, bringing extensive experience and momentum into the new season.
Clark led the 80-lap race from pole position and claimed victory, his 25th Formula One win, surpassing Juan Manuel Fangio's long-standing record. Team Gunston made history by painting their cars in sponsor colours rather than national colours, a first in Formula One. Six of the top grid positions were occupied by former or future world champions.
Clark's win proved to be both his last and the last race he ever entered, as he was killed three months later at the Hockenheimring. Mike Spence, also a competitor, died shortly after at Indianapolis. Team Gunston's use of sponsor livery foreshadowed the commercial transformation of Formula One that would follow in subsequent seasons.