The 1968 Tasman Championship for Drivers was a motor racing series contested over eight races during January, February and March 1968, with four races held in New Zealand and four in Australia. [1] The championship was open to Racing Cars fitted with unsupercharged engines with a capacity equal or inferior to 2500cc. [1] It was the fifth annual Tasman Championship.
The championship won by Jim Clark, driving a Lotus 49T. [2]
It was the third and final Tasman Championship win for Clark who was killed in a Formula 2 crash on the ultra fast Hockenheim circuit in West Germany just over a month after the series concluded. Clark won the last of his twelve career Tasman Series wins when he won the 1968 Australian Grand Prix at the Sandown Raceway in Melbourne, only 0.1 seconds in front of the Dino 246 Tasmania of Chris Amon after a famous duel between the pair.
Reigning 1967 Formula One World Champion Denny Hulme finished equal seventh in the series in his Formula 2 Brabham with a best finish of third in Round 3 for the Lady Wigram Trophy, his first race of the series.
Round | Name | Circuit | Date | Winning driver | Winning car | Winning team | Report | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New Zealand | 1 | New Zealand Grand Prix | Pukekohe | 6 January | Chris Amon | Dino 246 Tasmania | C.Amon | Report |
2 | Levin International | Levin | 13 January | Chris Amon | Dino 246 Tasmania | C.Amon | Report | |
3 | Lady Wigram Trophy | Wigram | 20 January | Jim Clark | Lotus 49T | Team Lotus | Report | |
4 | Teretonga International | Teretonga | 27 January | Bruce McLaren | BRM P126 | Owen Racing Organisation | Report | |
Australia | 5 | Surfers Paradise 100 | Surfers Paradise | 11 February | Jim Clark | Lotus 49T | Team Lotus | Report |
6 | Warwick Farm International | Warwick Farm | 18 February | Jim Clark | Lotus 49T | Team Lotus | Report | |
7 | Australian Grand Prix | Sandown | 25 February | Jim Clark | Lotus 49T | Team Lotus | Report | |
8 | South Pacific Trophy | Longford | 4 March | Piers Courage | McLaren M4A | P.Courage | Report |
Points were awarded at each race on the following basis: [1]
Position [1] | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Points [1] | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Championship placings were determined by the total number of points scored by a driver in all races. [1]
James Clark OBE was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 1965. He was particularly associated with Team Lotus and drove for them during his entire Formula One career, between 1960 and 1968.
Denis Clive Hulme was a New Zealand racing driver who won the 1967 Formula One World Drivers' Championship for the Brabham team. Between his debut at Monaco in 1965 and his final race in the 1974 US Grand Prix, he started 112 Grands Prix, resulting in eight victories and 33 podium finishes. He also finished third in the overall standing in 1968 and 1972.
Christopher Arthur Amon was a New Zealand motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One racing in the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely regarded as one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix. His reputation for bad luck was such that fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying". Former Ferrari Technical Director Mauro Forghieri stated that Amon was "by far the best test driver I have ever worked with. He had all the qualities to be a World Champion but bad luck just wouldn't let him be".
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The Lotus 49 was a Formula One racing car designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe for the 1967 F1 season. It was designed around the Cosworth DFV engine that would power most of the Formula One grid through the 1970s. It was one of the first F1 cars to use a stressed member engine combined with a monocoque to reduce weight, with other teams adopting the concept after its success. It also pioneered the use of aerofoils to generate downforce.
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The BRM P261, also known as the BRM P61 Mark II, is a Formula One motor racing car, designed and built by the British Racing Motors team in Bourne, Lincolnshire, England. The BRM P261 was introduced for the 1964 Formula One season, and its design was an evolution of Tony Rudd's one-off BRM P61 car of 1963. The P261 had a relatively long racing career; variants of the car were still being entered for Formula One World Championship Grands Prix as late as 1968. During the course of their front-line career, BRM P261s won six World Championship races, in the hands of works drivers Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart, and finished second in both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship standings in 1964 and 1965. Stewart, Hill and Richard Attwood also used works P261s to compete in the Tasman Series in 1966. The BRMs dominated, with Stewart winning four, Hill two, and Attwood one of the 1966 Tasman Series' eight races. Stewart also won the title. The works-backed Reg Parnell Racing team returned in 1967 with Stewart and Attwood, where Stewart added another two wins to his tally. In terms of races won and total championship points scored, the P261 was the most successful car in BRM's history.
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The 1967 Tasman Series was a motor racing competition open to racing cars complying with the Tasman Formula. Officially known as the Tasman Championship for Drivers, it was organised by the Motorsport Association, New Zealand Inc. and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport and was contested over six races in New Zealand and Australia between 7 January and 6 March 1967.
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