Racer - AUGUST 2017

ICKX AND BELL: GO, BUT NO EGO

Jacky Ickx won far more races with Jochen Mass than he did with Derek Bell. Their victory tally together in world championship events hit 20 in the Belgian’s final season before retirement in 1985. They won together in Porsche 935s, 956s and 962s, but what they didn’t do was win the big one at Le Mans.

Compared with the Ickx-Bell alliance, theirs was a “different relationship,” says former Porsche motorsport boss Manfred Jantke. “Jochen was much less serious than Jacky,” he continues.

“Maybe he enjoyed life a bit more.”
That victory haul for Ickx and Mass
is remarkable, given that only two
other drivers, Bell and Henri
Pescarolo, topped 20 wins in the

40-season history of the original World Sportscar Championship.

Bell enjoyed two great partnerships during his career. The other was with Al Holbert in the IMSA Camel GT series in the mid-1980s, which yielded 16 race wins. All but three came as a duo and two were at the Daytona 24 Hours.

Pescarolo was similarly successful with Gerard Larrousse at Matra. They didn’t just have a 100-percent record together at Le Mans aboard the French marque’s MS670 derivatives in 1973 and ’ 74, but notched up seven more wins in the World Championship of Makes (one sharing with Francois Cevert).

Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien can claim the same hit rate at Le Mans as Ickx and Bell. They started the race together at Ferrari four times, won three times in 1958, ’ 61 and ’ 62, and were even more deserving of a fourth victory, being some four laps up after

19 hours in ’ 59 when overheating put their 250 Testarossa out.

(ABOVE) Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill (at the wheel) celebrate the first of their three Le Mans wins together in 1958.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

ever-dependable Bell who managed to heave off the tail section and fix the problem. They were within a half lap at the end as Bell, fading brakes or no, chased down the ailing sister Porsche shared by Al Holbert, Hurley Haywood and Vern Schuppan.

Surprisingly, Ickx and Bell teamed up only a handful of other times. They shared a Gulf Mirage once in 1974 and a 956 only twice outside of Le Mans in ’ 82, although Bell helped his teammate to the World Endurance Championship crown at the Brands Hatch finale. Totally forgotten is their very first outing together, in a BMW 3.0CSL in a European Touring Car round at the Nurburgring in ’ 74.

Quite rightly, they’re remembered for success where it mattered most – Le Mans.

(ABOVE) Ickx (seated) and Bell look suitably suave in deference to Porsche’s 1981 sponsor, a pungent cologne called Jules. (BELOW) The ’ 82 start: 956s to the fore, with Ickx/Bell on pole.