F1 Championships: Runners-Up of the 1960s Quiz

Answer: Bruce McLaren

Bruce McLaren raced in F1 between 1958 and 1970, competing for his own team, McLaren, from 1966 onwards. Although his runners-up spot in the drivers' championship in 1960 was the best result of his career, the team bearing his name went on to take eight constructors' titles during the course of the 20th century.

In 1960 he raced for the Cooper team, who dominated the season; McLaren and his team-mate, Jack Brabham, won six of the eight races that they entered and finished one-two in the championship.

However, since McLaren was only responsible for one of those six victories, it was Brabham who took the world title. The two races that the Cooper team didn't enter were the Indianapolis 500 and the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the latter of which was boycotted by almost all of the main teams over safety concerns.

Answer: Wolfgang von Trips

The 1961 Italian Grand Prix will be remembered for one of the worst accidents in both F1 and motor racing history. It was the penultimate round of the season and prior to the event four drivers were still in contention for the world title: Ferrari's Phil Hill, Wolfgang von Trips and Richie Ginther, plus Stirling Moss of Rob Walker Racing.

Although the previous year's event had been boycotted by most of the top F1 teams due to concerns about the safety of racing on Monza's concrete banking, the 1961 race went ahead.

However, the pole-sitter von Trips crashed on lap 2 and his Ferrari ended up hitting a fence close to a crowd of spectators, causing the deaths of 15 people in addition to von Trips himself. Unbelievably, the race continued despite the carnage near the famous Parabolica corner and Phil Hill claimed both the race win and the world title. Ginther and Moss both failed to finish the race, so von Trips was confirmed as the sport's first posthumous world championship runner-up.

Answer: Jim Clark

Scotland's Jim Clark won the F1 drivers' world championship title in 1963 and again in 1965. His death at Hockenheim in 1968 cut short the career of one of the best drivers to ever race in the sport. Clark had also been in contention for the 1962 title, but his challenge was scuppered by the reliability issues suffered by his Lotus - which proved to be fast, but extremely fragile. Clark, who was in his third season in the sport, won the Belgian, British and US Grands Prix, but retired with mechanical issues in Monaco, France, Italy and South Africa.

His team-mate, Trevor Taylor, had a miserable season with only one podium finish, five retirements and several other races blighted by problems with his car. Clark eventually finished the championship 12 points behind champion, Graham Hill, who had taken four victories in his BRM.

Answer: Graham Hill

In a reversal of the previous year's result, Graham Hill of BRM finished as the runner-up behind Jim Clark and the Lotus team. However, it wasn't a close competition as Clark won seven of the ten grands prix held, with Hill taking two wins in Monaco and the US, plus three third-place finishes.

The only other driver to stand on the top step of the podium was Ferrari's John Surtees. In total, Hill managed to score a total of 29 points, compared to Clark's 73 - although the rules dictating that only a driver's top six scores could count towards the championship meant that Hill missed out by the slightly less embarrassing margin of just 25 points.

Answer: Graham Hill

In 1964, the rule regarding counting only a driver's best six results for the championship was the deciding factor in who won the title and who ended up as the runner-up. Graham Hill won two races, finished second three times and claimed a fourth and a fifth place for a total of 41 points - but had to drop the 2 points he gained from his fifth place at the Belgian Grand Prix. Meanwhile, John Surtees also won two races, finished second three times and had one third-place for a total of 40 points. As the Ferrari driver only had six scoring finishes he didn't have to drop anything and duly won the championship by a single point - the difference between finishing third and fourth... Hill had to settle for being the runner-up for the second consecutive season.

Answer: Graham Hill

As it turned out, 1965 was third time unlucky for Graham Hill as he finished as the F1 world championship runner-up for the third year in succession. The title went to his fellow Briton Jim Clark by a margin of 14 points. However, one of the highlights of Hill's season was his third consecutive win at the Monaco Grand Prix.

He also won the event again in 1968 and 1969 and his prowess at navigating his car around the streets of the principality earned him the nickname "Mr. Monaco". In fact, Hill's motorsport career was inextricably linked with the Monaco Grand Prix; in addition to winning it five times, it was the scene of his F1 debut in 1958 and the location of his last attempt to compete in an F1 race in 1975.

He was also the first driver to complete the "Triple Crown" of motor racing - victory at the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix (although sometimes the F1 world championship is substituted for this final leg).

Answer: John Surtees

John Surtees wasn't just a former F1 world champion, but also a former motorcycle racing world champion. He won the 500cc class four times - 1956 and 1958-1960. In 1966, he only managed to finish four of the nine F1 races, but each time he did manage to get his car to the end of the race, he finished on the podium.

He started the season with Ferrari (with whom he had raced since 1963), but after winning the second race of the season in Belgium, Surtees quit the team following a row about the team's participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

He moved down the pit-lane to drive for Cooper instead and, after a string of reliability problems, took two podium finishes and won the last race of the season in Mexico to secure the runners-up spot behind Jack Brabham.

Answer: Jack Brabham

Defending champion Jack Brabham may have ended up as the runner-up in 1967, but he had some consolation because it was his team-mate (and employee) Denny Hulme who took the title for the Brabham team. Both Jack Brabham and Hulme won two races during the course of the season, compared to the four won by third-placed Jim Clark.

However, greater reliability and consistency meant both recorded multiple podium finishes to beat Clark and secure the constructors' competition (then known as the International Cup for F1 Manufacturers) for the Brabham team. Jack Brabham retired from driving his cars at the end of the 1970 season, but his team went on to record two drivers' championship wins for Nelson Piquet in 1981 and 1983 as well as finishing as constructors' runners-up in 1975 and 1981.

Answer: Jackie Stewart

Jackie Stewart made his F1 debut in 1965 and finished the season in third place in the championship. He then endured two less successful seasons, before challenging for the title again in 1968 after moving from BRM to the new Tyrrell team, who were racing cars built by Matra. Stewart won three races - the Dutch, German and US Grands Prix - but missed two races due to injury, both of which were won by the eventual champion, Graham Hill of Lotus. The most dramatic of his victories was the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, when Stewart pulled out a massive lead in wet and foggy conditions and finished over four minutes ahead of Hill, despite being hampered by a broken wrist.

The 1960s were a particularly successful period in F1 history for British drivers and teams - Hill and Stewart's one-two finish in the championship in 1968 was the fifth time that decade that British drivers had claimed both of the top two spots, while British teams won the constructors' championship seven times.

Answer: Jacky Ickx

The 'defending' runner-up, Jackie Stewart of the Tyrrell-Matra team, became the champion in 1969, leaving the former position available for his (almost) namesake, Jacky Ickx of Brabham. The Belgian driver won two races in Germany and Canada in the second half of the season, but it proved to be too little, too late as Stewart had already recorded five victories and took the championship (with three races to spare) by the comfortable margin of 63 points to 37. Three other drivers also managed to win a race in the last season of the 1960s - Graham Hill won the Monaco Grand Prix for Lotus, his team-mate Jochen Rindt won the US Grand Prix, and McLaren's Denny Hulme finished off the season with a win at the Mexican Grand Prix.