Picture of the day – March 20
On this day 55 years ago, motor racing greats John Surtees and Jim Clark do battle during a soaked BARC Senior Service 200 at Silverstone.
On this day in 1965, Jim Clark – ahead of claiming his second Formula One world drivers’ championship later in the year – won the BARC Senior Service 200.
The race at Silverstone was curtailed by pouring rain but still Clark had enough about him to guide his Lotus Ford to the top step of the podium.
He was pushed by John Surtees, the defending F1 champion at the time, as the two Brits put on a spectacle – with Surtees spinning his Lola six times on the rain-soaked circuit before the race was stopped after 18 laps.
Later that year, Clark would storm to the title by winning six of the 10 races as Surtees finished back in fourth behind Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart.
Clark would die just over three years after this tussle with Surtees, killed following a crash at a Formula Two race at Hockenheim, Germany in April 1968.
“He was a great ambassador for the sport and you always knew you could compete with him honestly – you could race him closely and know what he was and wasn’t going to do,” Surtees said of Clark in a later interview with Autosport.
