Jacky Ickx Quotations

The fact that I am still alive after 100,000 laps is my championship.

My school achievements remained bad and my parents said : Each person has their abilities. You only have to tease them out. They urged me to find an area, where I could beat the others.

But due to the present regulations the other drivers have better chances again. This brings back the tension.

Fortunately, in the place where I went out, they had set up a little previously a fence which prevented me finally from smashing against trees. I went out with a broken leg only. A small price to be paid at the time for an accident of this kind.

What will have seduced me, it was to have the possibility of winning, while at the school, everybody said to me that I was bad everywhere.

Happy to see that the Automobile Club of Monaco, opened its doors to the public to attend a considerable event. The promotion of this event will be made by the image and by the text, but still by word of mouth.

Historic Grand Prix is a collective nostalgia in the discipline which becomes more and more hermetic to those who are not a part of it.

Without the affection and the passion of the witnesses who revolve around this sport, this one would not exist, the drivers either!

What fascinated me, it was not the glory, but the contact with the public.

To be here recovers from a state of soul, from a state of mind. I have the memory of the heart. I know what I received. I must have the will to give back to others.

Besides, the races simply became a branch of the entertainment industry. I wasn't comfortable with that any more. I didn't want to become an old fool.

At the beginning of the year, my program with Porsche was reduced to the minimum. I did not have either a seat in Grand Prix. In brief, I had time.

Everything was magnificent so far, even if I knew my part of dramas.

That is why, as soon as I felt a real attraction for my first passion which was the motorcycle, and in spite of the danger it could represent, they encouraged me.

Nevertheless during these two seasons, Chapman impressed me a lot because he had the faculty to pull himself out of the most critical situations.

In this sport luck and tragedy are only a few hundredths of seconds apart from each other.

In this kind of situation, we tend to cling to his convictions, we believe that, by magic, we are going to recover. Then we agree to drive less good cars and we are fatally more exposed. It is what finally happened to me with Ensign.

In Africa every three months just as many people die as lately died during the Tsunami. The public should be aware of this. I love Africa.

Before the season begins, I had even damaged some frames, but Ken did not hold it against me and kept all his confidence. He was the one who incontestably changed my life, because without his help, I do not know what I will have become.

For that a driver can give the full measure of his talent, he must be surrounded by people who appreciate him and who rely on him.

The margin between success and drama is fractional.

I am infinitely grateful to the life which privileged me.

The existence is a tremendous curiosity, with in the course of the years, the discovery of yourself in your inmost evolutions. With the age you feel better than you are, what you represent. Which means a little at the planet's scale.

I drove long distances like the 24 hours of Le Mans for years. But even this racing is now over. I retired.

My father was a motorsports journalist and a motorbike fan. He gave me my motocross bike.

In the past, two colleagues died each season. It was generally accepted this could happen.

I believe to have been one of the rare drivers to have returned to Ferrari.

In the end I didn't get a top car any more. I had no toughness left. That was the reality.

The fact that I am still alive after 100,000 laps is my championship.

And luckily, therefore the good old days return. The traditional art of driving counts again, and it is all about good tactics, skills and reflexes instead of simple power.