Jacky Ickx recalls 86‑hour Nürburgring marathon with 17 jumps

Jacky Ickx, an eight‑time Grand Prix winner and six‑time Le Mans champion, sat down with RacingNews365 to talk about his two‑year stint in the 86‑hour Nürburgring endurance race. The 81‑year‑old recalled a circuit that once featured 17 jumps, cars that literally left the ground, and a racing culture where fear was optional.

Why it matters:

• The event tested driver stamina and car durability long before modern F1’s focus on hybrid efficiency.
• Ickx’s stories expose how minimal safety—straw bales, open fields, and bare electricity poles—shaped today’s stringent circuit standards.
• Understanding this raw era highlights why driver choice and mental toughness remain core to motorsport, even as technology evolves.

The details:

• Ickx competed in 1965 and 1966, each run lasting roughly 86 hours of continuous racing.
• He partnered with Belgian rally star Gilbert Staepelaere once and with Jochen Neerpasch the next.
• The cars: a Lotus Cortina in one year, a Ford Mustang the following—both had to survive the jumps.
• The Nürburgring’s “17 jumps” could lift an F1 car 40–50 cm off the ground, sometimes on all four wheels.
• Ickx recalled averaging 263 km/h on the 13‑km Spa circuit in a 1973 Ferrari that was far from a modern machine.
• Safety was limited to straw bales; drivers faced electricity poles, ditches, and nearby houses with little protection.

What's next:

• The full interview is archived on RacingNews365, preserving first‑hand insight into a bygone era.
• Ickx’s reflections are feeding into podcasts that compare historic endurance feats with the upcoming 2026 F1 regulation changes.
• As modern circuits tighten safety nets, the legend’s message—racing is a free choice, not a forced bravado—remains a guiding principle for new generations.