Race and classic pictures

Jim Clark's claim to December fame

These days we've come to accept that the Formula 1 world championship has run its course by December. By now, teams, drivers and their cars are all snuggly wrapped up nice and warm over the off-season.

It wasn't always that way, however. Back in the early 1960s, the final race of the year was twice held right at the end of the year, in the heat of South Africa.

The last time that happened was in 1963. Jim Clark was victorious at the 23.4km Prince George Circuit in East London on December 28. His Lotus beat Brabham's Dan Gurney to the line by over a minute. Graham Hill and Bruce McLaren were over a lap down on the lead pair.

It capped a particularly shining year for Clark. The Scot won seven of that season's ten races, including the British Grand Prix at Silverstone (pictured hereunder) He won the first of his two championships that year, with almost twice Hill's total tally of points.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.