1968 Formula One season
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| 1968 FIA Formula One World Championship season | |
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The 1968 Formula One season was the 19th FIA Formula One World Championship season. It commenced on January 1, 1968, and ended on November 3 after twelve races.
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[edit] Season summary
Although they had failed to win the title in 1967, by the end of the season the Lotus 49 and the DFV engine were mature enough to make the Lotus team dominant again. For 1968 Lotus lost its exclusive right to use the DFV. McLaren built a new DFV-powered car and a new force appeared on the scene when Ken Tyrrell entered his own team using a Cosworth-powered cars built by French aeronautics company Matra and driven by ex-BRM driver Jackie Stewart.
Unsurprisingly the season-opening 1968 South African Grand Prix confirmed Lotus' superiority, with Jim Clark and Graham Hill finishing 1–2. It would be Clark's last win. On 7 April 1968 Clark, one of the most successful and popular drivers of all time, was killed at Hockenheim in a non-championship Formula Two event.
The season saw two significant innovations. The first was the arrival of unrestricted sponsorship, which the FIA decided to permit that year after the withdrawal of support from automobile related firms like BP, Shell and Firestone. In May the Lotus Formula One team appeared at Jarama in the Red, Gold and White colors of Imperial Tobacco's Gold Leaf brand. The second innovation was the introduction of wings as seen previously on various cars including the Chaparral endurance car. Colin Chapman introduced modest front wings and a spoiler on Graham Hill's Lotus 49B at Monaco. Brabham and Ferrari went one better at the Belgian Grand Prix with full width wings mounted on struts high above the driver. Lotus replied with a full width wing directly connected to the rear suspension that required a redesign of suspension wishbones and transmission shafts. Matra then produced a high mounted front wing connected to the front suspension. This last innovation was mostly used during practice as it required a lot of effort from the driver. By the end of the season most teams were using sophisticated wings.
Despite the death of Jim Clark, Lotus won both titles in 1968 with Graham Hill, but Stewart was a serious contender, winning several Grands Prix in the Tyrrell-run Matra MS10. Stewart's winning drive during the rain and fog of the 1968 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, where he won by a margin of four minutes, is considered as one of the finest ever, even though his rain tires were probably better than those of the competition. The car's most innovative feature was the use of aviation-inspired structural fuel tanks. These allowed the chassis to be around 15kg lighter, while still being stronger than its competitors. The FIA considered the technology to be unsafe and decided to ban it for 1970, insisting on rubber bag-tanks (Which meant the effective end of spaceframe chassis in F1). Safety became a major issue in Formula One. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa did not take place due to the drivers boycotting the circuit after safety upgrades were not installed as demanded.
McLaren fielded a pair of Cosworth powered M7s for reigning Formula One World Champion Denny Hulme and team founder Bruce McLaren. McLaren won the non-championship Brands Hatch Race of Champions, then the Belgian Grand Prix was the scene of the team's first Championship win. In doing so, McLaren became only the second driver to win a race in a car manufactured by his own team - Jack Brabham having done it in 1966. Hulme won the Italian Grand Prix and Canadian Grand Prix later in the year.
Repco produced a more powerful version of their V8 to maintain competitiveness against Ford's new Cosworth DFV, but it proved very unreliable. The Brabhams were fast — Rindt set pole position twice during the season — but Brabham and Rindt finished only three races between them, and ended the year having scored just ten points.[1]
[edit] Season review
[edit] 1968 Constructors Championship final standings
| Place | Team | Chassis | Engine | Tyre | Points | Wins | Podiums | Poles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Lotus-Ford |
49 49B |
Ford Cosworth DFV | 75 | 5 | 9 | 5 | |
| 2 | McLaren-Ford |
M7A | Ford Cosworth DFV | 56 | 3 | 6 | ||
| 3 |  Matra-Ford |
MS7 MS9 MS10 |
Ford Cosworth DFV | 45 | 3 | 5 | ||
| 4 |  Ferrari |
312 | Ferrari 242C | 37 | 1 | 5 | 4 | |
| 5 | BRM |
P115 P126 P133 P138 |
BRM P142 | 28 | 4 | |||
| 6 | Cooper-BRM |
T86B | BRM P142 | 20 | 2 | |||
| 7 |  Honda |
RA300 RA301 |
Honda RA273E Honda RA301E |
14 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 8 | Brabham-Repco |
BT24 BT26 |
Repco 740 Repco 860 |
12 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 9 | Matra |
MS11 | Matra MS68 | 8 | 1 | |||
| 10 | McLaren-BRM |
M5A | BRM P142 | 3 | ||||
| 11 |  LDS-Repco |
Mk3B | Repco 620 | |||||
| 12 |  Eagle-Weslake |
T1G | Gurney-Weslake 58 | |||||
| 13 | Cooper-Maserati |
T81B | Maserati Tipo 10/F1 | |||||
| 14 | Cooper-Climax |
T79 | Climax FPF | |||||
| 15 | Brabham-Climax |
BT11 | Climax FPF | |||||
| 16 | Lola-BMW |
T102 | BMW M12/3 |
[edit] 1968 Drivers Championship final standings
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