On April 21, 1963, Jim Clark won the Imola Grand Prix at the Autodromo di Castellaccis. It was not a world championship round, but it was still the first Formula 1 race ever held at Imola, which gives the date a place in the circuit’s longer story.
On this day in 1963, Jim Clark added another win to a season he would go on to dominate. At Imola, he took pole position in his Lotus-Climax, won the 50-lap race, and led home Jo Siffert and Bob Anderson. Trevor Taylor set fastest lap, underlining Lotus’s strength at the event.
James Clark, Jr.
- Races (starts):72
- Wins:25
- Podiums:32
- Pole positions:33
- Fastest laps:28
- Driver of the Day:0
- World titles:2
- Points (total):274
Data source: F1DB (GitHub)
The race itself did not count for the Formula 1 world championship, which keeps it a little outside the sport’s better-known landmarks. But its historical value is obvious enough: this was Formula 1’s first visit to Imola, years before the circuit became a permanent fixture on the championship calendar under the Italian, San Marino and Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix banners.
That gives Clark a small but neat place in Imola history. When most people think of the circuit, they think of its later championship years, its fast, old-school character, Ferrari tifosi, or the weight of 1994. The first Formula 1 winner there, though, was Clark: typically elegant, typically fast, and typically a long way ahead of the fuss.
It also fits the wider shape of Clark’s 1963 season. He was already the outstanding driver in the field, and the Imola race sat inside a run of performances that helped define one of Formula 1’s great campaigns. Because the event was non-championship, it is easy to skip past it. Imola’s later history makes that understandable. Still, this was where Formula 1 first arrived, and Clark was the man who won on debut.
