Credit: Saaleha Bamjee, Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Photo by Saaleha Bamjee, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The Spanish GP in 1970 at Jarama was meant to be just another race in that year’s championship battle, but for Jacky Inckx and Jackie Oliver, it became a fight for survival.
It was April 19, a warm spring day and as the lights went out the grid thundered down to the first corners.
Then in a split of a second, chaos erupted, Jackie Oliver who was driving for BRM suffered a sudden stub axle failure, part of suspension snapped at the worst possible moment.
His car veered off course, hard to control, sliding into the path of Ferrari driver Ickx.
Both cars collided, rapturing the fuel tanks almost instantly.
The next thing anyone saw was an orange wall of fire. Both cars were engulfed in seconds.
A Tale of Two Escapes
Oliver escaped quickly, the moment his BRM came to a halt, leapt from the cockpit and was out of danger almost immediately.
He would walk away unharmed, physically, but the sight of his friend in flames was something no driver forgets.
For the Ferrari driver, Ickx, it was far more desparated, the impact had soaked his overalls in fuel and as the fire caught, he became a human torch.
He was struggling, he took a little bit more to get free, by the time he climbed out, he was already ablaze.
Track marshals, joined by a soldier stationed nearby, rushed in with extinguishers, even with their help, Ickx suffered burns to his hands and face.
And yet, we remember him as warrior, this was not the end of his season, it did not took long, in just 17 days later, with bandages still covering his injuries, he was back in the cockpit for Monaco GP.
The Aftermath on Track
The two wrecked cars continued to burn long after the drivers were safe, it took time.
In those days, fire fighting equipment was minimal and the track response felt painfully slow compared to modern F1 standards.
Yet, in a typical fashion for the era, back in the day, the race was not stopped, today it would have been different.
The charred remains of the Ferrari and BRM sat as grim makers while the rest of the field carried on.
In the end, Jackie Stewart won the racing driving for March 701. It was historic day for the team, first win in F1 and the last ever achieved by a privately entered car in the championship.
But that achievement was overshadowed for many by the harrowing events of the opening lap.
Why This Crash Mattered Beyond the Race
The Jarama fire wasn’t just another racing accident, it became a catalyst for safety reform. Officials could no longer ignore how vulnerable drivers were to fire.
Over the following seasons, F1 moved to introduce fuel bladder tanks that could better withstand impacts, self-sealing couplings, and improvements to driver overalls.
Even so changes took time in 1970, fire was the biggest problem in F1 and watching driver in that situation, was something that F1 did not wanted to see anymore.
The sight of Ickx escaping the flames—partly thanks to luck, partly thanks to fast-acting marshals, was a reminder that without better safety measures, not every story would end with survival.
A Lasting Image
Today, black-and-white photos of the incident still circulate in motorsport history books.
You can see Oliver standing safely nearby, and Ickx being smothered in extinguisher foam, flames licking at the wreckage behind him. It’s a moment frozen in time,terrifying, raw, and impossible to forget.
It’s also a reminder that Formula 1’s greatest safety advances often come at the cost of moments like this: sudden, violent incidents that shake the sport into action.
At Jarama in 1970, the sport was lucky. Both Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver walked away. But the fire they survived lit the path to a safer future.
