The 1968 Formula One season included the 19th FIA Formula One World Championship season, which commenced on January 1, 1968, and ended on November 3 after twelve races.

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 car 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 sports 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 15 kg 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.

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 third driver to win a race in a car manufactured by his own team - Jack Brabham having done it in 1966 and Dan Gurney in 1967 at Spa Francorchamps. 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.

Season review

Rnd	Race	Date	Location	Winning driver	Constructor	Report
1	South African Grand Prix	January 1	Kyalami	Jim Clark	Lotus-Ford	Report
2	Spanish Grand Prix	May 12	Jarama	Graham Hill	Lotus-Ford	Report
3	Monaco Grand Prix	May 26	Monaco	Graham Hill	Lotus-Ford	Report
4	Belgian Grand Prix	June 9	Spa-Francorchamps	Bruce McLaren	McLaren-Ford	Report
5	Dutch Grand Prix	June 23	Zandvoort	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford	Report
6	French Grand Prix	July 7	Rouen-Les-Essarts	Jacky Ickx	Ferrari	Report
7	British Grand Prix	July 20	Brands Hatch	Jo Siffert	Lotus-Ford	Report
8	German Grand Prix	August 4	Nürburgring	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford	Report
9	Italian Grand Prix	September 8	Monza	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Ford	Report
10	Canadian Grand Prix	September 22	Mont-Tremblant	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Ford	Report
11	United States Grand Prix	October 6	Watkins Glen	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Ford	Report
12	Mexican Grand Prix	November 3	Hermanos Rodriguez	Graham Hill	Lotus-Ford	Report

1968 Constructors Championship final standings

Place	Constructor	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

1968 Drivers Championship final standings

Championship points were awarded on a 9-6-4-3-2-1 basis to the top six placegetters in each race. Only the best five results from the first six races and the best five results from the remaining six races were counted towards a driver's total.

Pos. Driver RSA ESP MON BEL NED FRA GBR GER ITA CAN USA MEX Pts. 1 Graham Hill 2 1 1 Ret 9 Ret Ret 2 Ret 4 2 1 48 2 Jackie Stewart Ret 4 1 3 6 1 Ret 6 1 7 36 3 Denny Hulme 5 2 5 Ret Ret 5 4 7 1 1 Ret Ret 33 4 Jacky Ickx Ret Ret 3 4 1 3 4 3 DNS Ret 27 5 Bruce McLaren Ret Ret 1 Ret 8 7 13 Ret 2 6 2 22 6 Pedro Rodríguez Ret Ret Ret 2 3 NC Ret 6 Ret 3 Ret 4 18 7 Jo Siffert 7 Ret Ret 7 Ret 11 1 Ret Ret Ret 5 6 12 8 John Surtees 8 Ret Ret Ret Ret 2 5 Ret Ret Ret 3 Ret 12 9 Jean-Pierre Beltoise 6 5 Ret 8 2 9 Ret Ret 5 Ret Ret Ret 11 10 Chris Amon 4 Ret Ret 6 10 2 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 10 11 Jim Clark 1 9 12 Jochen Rindt 3 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 3 Ret Ret Ret Ret 8 13 Richard Attwood 2 Ret 7 7 Ret 14 6 14 Johnny Servoz-Gavin Ret Ret 2 Ret Ret 6 15 Jackie Oliver Ret 5 NC Ret 11 Ret Ret DNS 3 6 16 Ludovico Scarfiotti Ret 4 4 6 17 Lucien Bianchi 3 6 Ret Ret NC Ret Ret 5 18 Vic Elford 4 Ret Ret Ret 5 Ret 8 5 19 Brian Redman Ret 3 Ret 4 20 Piers Courage Ret Ret Ret Ret 6 8 8 4 Ret Ret Ret 4 21 Dan Gurney Ret Ret Ret Ret 9 Ret Ret 4 Ret 3 22 Jo Bonnier Ret DNQ Ret 8 Ret 6 Ret Ret 5 3 23 Jack Brabham Ret DNS Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 5 Ret Ret Ret 10 2 24 Silvio Moser DNQ 5 NC DNQ 2 25 Henri Pescarolo Ret DNS 9 0 26 John Love 9 0 27 Hubert Hahne 10 0 28 Kurt Ahrens, Jr. 12 0 — Jackie Pretorius NC 0 — Derek Bell Ret Ret 0 — Mario Andretti DNS Ret 0 — Bobby Unser DNS Ret — Andrea de Adamich Ret 0 — Dave Charlton Ret 0 — Mike Spence Ret 0 — Basil van Rooyen Ret 0 — Sam Tingle Ret 0 — Robin Widdows Ret 0 — David Hobbs Ret 0 — Bill Brack Ret 0 — Moisés Solana Ret 0 — Frank Gardner DNQ 0 Pos. Driver RSA ESP MON BEL NED FRA GBR GER ITA CAN USA MEX Pts.

Place	Driver	Country	Points	Wins	Podiums	Poles
1	Graham Hill	Britain	48	3	6	2
2	Jackie Stewart	Britain	36	3	4
3	Denny Hulme	New Zealand	33	2	3
4	Jacky Ickx	Belgium	27	1	4	1
5	Bruce McLaren	New Zealand	22	1	3
6	Pedro Rodríguez	Mexico	18		3
7	Jo Siffert	Switzerland	12	1	1	1
8	John Surtees	Britain	12		2	1
9	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	France	11		1
10	Chris Amon	New Zealand	10		1	3
11	Jim Clark	Britain	9	1	1	1
12	Jochen Rindt	Austria	8		2	2
13	Richard Attwood	Britain	6		1
14	Johnny Servoz-Gavin	France	6		1
15	Jackie Oliver	Britain	6		1
16	Ludovico Scarfiotti	Italy	6
17	Lucien Bianchi	Belgium	5		1
18	Vic Elford	Britain	5
19	Brian Redman	Britain	4		1
20	Piers Courage	Britain	4
21	Dan Gurney	USA	3
22	Jo Bonnier	Sweden	3
23	Jack Brabham	Australia	2
24	Silvio Moser	Switzerland	2
25	Henri Pescarolo	France
26	John Love	Rhodesia
27	Hubert Hahne	Germany
28	Kurt Ahrens, Jr.	Germany
—	Jackie Pretorius	South Africa
—	Derek Bell	Britain
—	Mario Andretti	USA				1
—	Bobby Unser	USA
—	Andrea de Adamich	Italy
—	Dave Charlton	South Africa
—	Mike Spence	Britain
—	Basil van Rooyen	South Africa
—	Sam Tingle	Rhodesia
—	Robin Widdows	Britain
—	David Hobbs	Britain
—	Bill Brack	Canada
—	Moisés Solana	Mexico
—	Frank Gardner	Australia

Non-Championship race results

Other Formula One races held in 1968, which did not count towards the World Championship.

Race Name	Circuit	Date	Winning driver	Constructor	Report
III Race of Champions	Brands Hatch	March 17	Bruce McLaren	McLaren-Cosworth	Report
XX BRDC International Trophy	Silverstone	April 25	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Cosworth	Report
XV International Gold Cup	Oulton Park	August 17	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Cosworth	Report

References

External links

• 1968 Formula One season at www.f1-facts.com