Formula 1 season #19 🏁 1968 Part 1

Formula 1 season #19 🏁 1968 Part 1 The 1968 Formula One season featured the 19th World Championship of Drivers, the 11th International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, and three non-championship races open to Formula One cars. The World Championship was contested over twelve races between 1 January and 3 November 1968. Great Britain driver Graham Hill, driving a Lotus-Ford Cosworth, won his second Drivers' Championship, six years after his first. Lotus were awarded the Manufacturers' Cup for the third time. Repco produced a more powerful version of their V8 to help Brabham's compete against Ford's new Cosworth DFV, but it proved very unreliable: Jochen Rindt qualified on pole position twice, but also only finished twice. Hill's main rivals were Jackie Stewart at Tyrrell Matra and 1967 champion Denny Hulme at McLaren. The 1968 season turned out to be a turning point in terms of safety, with four Grand Prix drivers being involved in fatal crashes: two-time World Champion Jim Clark, Mike Spence, Jo Schlesser and Ludovico Scarfiotti. It was the last year where all the races were run on tracks with almost no safety modifications. In this season, After receiving offers from every team bar two, Jochen Rindt signed with 1967 champions Brabham. Reigning drivers' champion Denny Hulme moved to Bruce McLaren's team. After Lotus lost its exclusive right to use Cosworth DFV engines, McLaren also started using Cosworth instead of BRM. Scuderia Ferrari ran Chris Amon as their only full-time driver in 1967, but attracted Jacky Ickx for this year. Ken Tyrrell entered F1 with Matra International, a joint-venture between Tyrrell Racing and car manufacturer Matra. They signed 1967 runner-up Jackie Stewart. Matra kept running their factory team as well, powered by their own V12s. BRM signed Pedro Rodríguez to replace Stewart. With Rindt, Ickx and Rodríguez gone, Cooper needed a complete new driver line-up, which they found in Formula Two driver Brian Redman and long-time Ferrari employee Ludovico Scarfiotti. The team switched from Maserati engines to take over McLaren's contract with BRM. Jim Clark was killed in a racing accident during the 1968 Deutschland Trophäe Formula Two race. A devastated Colin Chapman drew in F2 driver Jackie Oliver to fill the seat. Chapman lost his Indianapolis 500 driver Mike Spence when he crashed during practice for the 1968 event. In F1, Spence had been driving for BRM, who signed Richard Attwood to replace him. Later in the year, Bobby Unser, winner of that year's Indy 500, took the seat. Both of Cooper's drivers were involved in serious crashes: Redman exited the Belgian Grand Prix with a broken arm, while Scarfiotti would suffer a fatal crash at a hillclimbing race in Germany. The team then hired Lucien Bianchi and Vic Elford. Jo Schlesser was signed by Honda to drive the experimental air-cooled RA302, which works driver John Surtees had refused. In just his debut race, the French Grand Prix, local hero Schlesser crashed on the second lap. The fully-fueled car exploded instantly. Both Matra teams expanded to two cars near the end of the year. The French team promoted F2 driver Henri Pescarolo and the British team went for F3 driver Johnny Servoz-Gavin. Dan Gurney, founder and driver from Anglo American Racers, switched from his own Eagle chassis to a customer McLaren chassis, powered by a Cosworth DFV. On the topic of technology, the 1968 headlines were dominated by the wings introduced by Lotus's owner Colin Chapman. He installed modest front wings and a rear spoiler on his Lotus 49B at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix. Brabham and Ferrari went one better at the 1968 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 re-design of the 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. Dan Gurney became the first driver to wear a full-face helmet at the 1968 German Grand Prix. He had helped to invent it with the Bell Helmets company and had already used it at the 1968 Indianapolis 500. Within some years, it became the obvious choice among drivers and was later deemed mandatory. All cars had to be fitted with a rollbar that stretched out to at least 5 cm above the driver's helmet, an electrical circuit breaker, an oil catch tank and a reverse gear. And the cockpit had to allow easy evacuation… to be continued