Clark won two Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles with Lotus, and—at the time of his death—held the records for most wins (25), pole positions (33), and fastest laps (28), among others.

Born in Fife and raised in the Scottish Borders, Clark started his racing career in road rallying and hillclimbing.

After immediately impressing in Formula Two, Clark was promoted to Formula One with Lotus for the remainder of the 1960 season alongside Surtees and Innes Ireland, making his debut at the Dutch Grand Prix and scoring his maiden podium four races later in Portugal; Clark finished third overall at Le Mans that year.

After winning a then-record seven Grands Prix during his 1963 campaign, Clark won his maiden title, earning widespread acclaim for his dominant performances.

Lotus then struggled to adapt to the 3-litre engine era, with Clark only able to win the United States Grand Prix during his second title defence.

While leading the 1968 World Drivers' Championship, Clark died as a result of an accident during a Formula Two race at the Hockenheimring.

Driving a Lotus Elite, he finished second to Colin Chapman in a ten-lap grand touring race at Brands Hatch.

[2] Driving a Lotus Elite, Clark finished tenth at the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans; he partnered with John Whitmore and the ex-Bruce Halford Lister Jaguar, winning the Bo'ness Hill Climb.

[4] Clark had made an earlier FJ appearance in a one-off race at Brands Hatch on Boxing Day, 1959, driving a Gemini-B.M.C.

Lotus had lost Surtees, who took part to the Isle of Man TT series; alongside Innes Ireland and Alan Stacey, Clark was one of the acceptable substitute.

His second Formula One race was the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, held at the extremely fast and dangerous Spa-Francorchamps circuit; there, he got a taste of reality when two fatal accidents occurred (Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey).

In the 1961 Italian Grand Prix on 10 September at Monza, Wolfgang von Trips in his Ferrari collided with Clark's Lotus.

[13] At the time, Clark described the accident by saying: "Von Trips and I were racing along the straightaway and were nearing one of the banked curves, the one on the southern end.

Before the race, United States Auto Club (USAC) officials had told the drivers that they would black flag any car that was seen to be leaking oil onto the track.

With the track surface already being slippery this resulted in a number of cars spinning and led to popular driver Eddie Sachs crashing into the outside wall.

Colin Chapman later accused USAC officials of being biased because Clark and Lotus were a British team with a rear-engine car.

Many, including journalist and author Brock Yates, believed that had it been an American driver and car in second place instead of Clark in the British built Lotus, officials would have black flagged Jones.

Other drivers, including Graham Hill, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Jacques Villeneuve, also won both crowns but not in the same year.

Their first car, the Lotus 49 featuring the most successful F1 engine in history, the Ford-Cosworth DFV, won its first race at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix, driven by Clark.

The 1968 Tasman Series and Australian Grand Prix would prove to be his last major wins before his untimely death, which occurred on 7 April 1968.

[26] In what would be the first of seven victories for Clark and Team Lotus that year, he won the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in extremely foggy and rainy conditions.

[27][28] In the 1967 Italian Grand Prix at Monza after starting from pole, Clark was leading in his Lotus 49 (chassis R2), when a tyre punctured.

Although the race has sometimes been described as a "minor race meeting", the entry list was impressive with top-running Matras for the French drivers Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Henri Pescarolo, Tecnos for Carlo Facetti and Clay Regazzoni, Team Brabhams for Derek Bell and Piers Courage, a Ferrari for Chris Amon, and McLarens for Graeme Lawrence and Robin Widdows.

The 1968 F1 Drivers' Championship was subsequently won by Hill, his Lotus teammate, who pulled the heartbroken team together and held off Stewart for the crown, which he later dedicated to Clark.

There is also a large memorial to Clark at Hockenheim today; because the track has been reduced in length and the old course reforested, the actual location of the crash is in a heavily wooded area.

People reckoned that the rear tyre had deflated, and there is another theory that the mechanical metering unit on the Cosworth FVA engine had seized and caused Clark to crash.

[44] Although many of his records in total numbers were later eclipsed in part due to more races started and improved reliability, Clark's percentage-related ones remain either unbeaten or near the top.

He took part in a NASCAR event, driving a 7-litre Holman Moody Ford at the American 500 at the banked speedway at Rockingham on 29 October 1967.

[58] A memorial stone can be found at the Hockenheimring circuit, moved from the site of his crash to a location closer to the modern track,[42] and a life-size statue of him in racing overalls stands by the bridge over a small stream in the village of his birth, Kilmany in Fife.

[66] Objective mathematical models,[67][68] such as Eichenberger and Stadelmann (2009, 2nd), original F1metrics (2014, 1st),[69] Bell et al. (2015, 2nd), FiveThirtyEight (2018, 12th), and updated F1metrics (2019, 6th), put Clark consistently among the greatest Formula One drivers ever.