Dan Gurney is an overlooked legend | Thank Frankel it's Friday

And what an era it was. Just look at the names against whom Dan competed: Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill… was there ever a greater depth of talent on the grid? And of course there was Jack Brabham, a man who provides a useful yardstick with which to provide a perhaps more reliable guide to just how good was Dan. Because for three seasons they were in the same team, so there’s no blaming the machinery. That team was, of course, Brabham, and despite Black Jack being the one whose name was on the door, in all three years (1963-65) Dan ended up with more points than his boss. Ok, maybe Jack got unlucky in the races. But there’s no hiding from qualifying, and in the 25 races they did together, Dan was faster than Jack no fewer than 18 times, beating a man who already had two World Championships to his name and who would add a third the year after Dan left the team. No wonder Gurney was the driver Jim Clark most feared.

Something else Dan did for Jack was to provide his team with its first championship win, taking the flag at the 1964 French Grand Prix, some 24 seconds ahead of Graham Hill, with Jack back in third. And to win at Rouen required something truly special. If you’ve been there and seen the section of downhill corners after the pits you’ll know there was no greater challenge in Formula 1. David Purley, a former member of the Parachute Regiment who’d win the George Medal trying to save Roger Williamson’s life, said the only way he could go flat down that hill was to shout in his helmet. And he was talking about a Formula 2 car…

To the ever laconic Dan however it was business as usual because he’d also won the French Grand Prix the last time it had been held there, two years earlier. That time he was delivering the another maiden and, as it turns out, to date only win for another team, this time Porsche. His win there in the Brabham made him the only person ever to win twice at the highest level at this most terrifying of tracks. When I asked him about it, he referenced also the 1961 French Grand Prix at Reims which he lost by one scant tenth of a second and said ‘I don’t know, but I always seemed to have quite good luck in France.’ Which anyone who knew him will recognise as pure Dan – modest, the absolute opposite of the modern self-aggrandizing racing driver.

But back to the old Spa, another place which didn’t tend to favour wimps behind the wheel. To be fair, there was an element of luck here because had his new Cosworth DFV behaved itself, this would have been Jim Clark’s race all day long. But Dan was next to him on the grid. At half distance Jimmy dove into the pits for some new plugs, gifting the lead to Stewart in the cumbersome H16 BRM P83, who would have been easy meat for Dan because JYS was having to drive one handed to keep the car in gear. But Gurney was having problems of his own with variable fuel pressure and had to pit himself. But he was still in second when he rejoined, took the lead from Stewart with eight laps to go, recorded the fastest lap of the race at 148.9mph (it scarcely bears thinking about) and won the race a minute clear of the field.

What’s more, he did it all in his own car, the Anglo American Racers Eagle-Weslake, still to me the prettiest car ever to start a Formula 1 race. Which made it the third race in which he had scored maiden victories for his team. He may never have had the World Championship he so richly deserved, but that particular record seems likely to stand for all time.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.