On this week #22: the winner takes it all?

Perhaps the most coveted unofficial title in all of motorsport is the ‘Triple Crown': consisting of victories at the Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500, and Le Mans 24 Hours. It's so tough that only one driver has ever managed it: Graham Hill, who on this week 58 years ago, sealed the most tricky element of it all with a controversial victory in the Indy 500 at Indianapolis.

The driver who probably came closest to matching his achievement is Fernando Alonso, who led the Indy 500 on his first attempt in 2017, and is also a two-time winner at Le Mans and Monaco.

Hill famously won in Monaco five times, triumphed at Le Mans in 1972 (with Henri Pescarolo) and on May 30, 1966, won the 50th Indy 500 at Indianapolis. But even Hill was surprised to win at Indy, having failed to qualify the year before.

Back then, it was not especially uncommon for Formula 1 drivers to add the Indy 500 to their programmes: from 1950 to 1960 it actually formed part of the championship.

In 1966, there were just three drivers not from the American continent taking part: Hill, Jim Clark (who had triumphed in 1965, as the first non-American winner since 1916) and Jackie Stewart, in his rookie  year both in Formula 1 and at Indianapolis. Hill and Stewart were team mates for the John Mecom squad at Indy, driving a  Lola-Ford T90, while Clark was in a Lotus 38.

Clark had the advantage of a front row start (alongside Mario Andretti, who incidentally could have been another contender for the Triple Crown, having won Indy in 1969 and finished twice on the podium at Le Mans, but with a best result of fifth at Monaco).

But back to the 1966 Indy 500 – where a massive crash shortly after the start wiped out around a third of the field, which is ultimately  where the controversy started.

As usual at Indy, there was plenty of action throughout the race, and Stewart was voted ‘Rookie of the Year' by leading almost up to the flag, before he suffered an engine problem and was eventually classified sixth.

With the Lola-Fords seemingly on top form that year, this left the way clear for Hill to win by just under a lap from Clark. By his own admission, Hill had enjoyed a reasonably straightforward race with no significant issues; Clark by contrast had a much more adventurous time with a couple of spins – neither of which had any significant consequence. Or so it seemed.

Yet with the race featuring 200 laps and multiple changes in position, the scorers got confused and may have made a crucial mistake. When Clark spun, he was ahead of Hill, but he subsequently had to visit the pits to check for any damage. His crew maintained that when he came back out Clark was still a lap in front of Hill, but this was something that the timekeepers might have failed to register over the rapid and relatively short circuit. Throughout the course of the whole race, there had already been several adjustments and corrections in the manually-operated scoring tower – not that unusual at Indy – which caused some degree of frustration among drivers and teams. Back then though, such jeopardy was all considered just to be part of the show. Even though Hill himself questioned the result immediately after the finish, saying  he was “puzzled” to be declared the winner, a couple of independent scorers backed up the official result, and no protests were lodged.

Adding another twist to this convoluted tale is the theory that the rightful winner might actually have been the relatively unknown Gordon Johncock in fourth, who completed the designated 500 miles in less time than Hill, Clark, and third-placed Jim McElreath.

However, Johncock's car had suffered some minor damage during that first lap accident, and restarted the race in the pit lane. The officials failed to count his first lap out of the pits – considering him to be a lap down – which effectively meant that he completed the race with an unjustified one-lap handicap. Take that away, and Johncock could have taken his first Indy 500 win; although he would go on to triumph at Indianapolis on two subsequent occasions.

The real result of that race, nearly 60 years ago, is something that will almost certainly never be firmly established. Graham Hill's F1 world championship-winning son Damon (who still owns his father's bottle of milk, traditionally presented to the Indy 500 winner) sums it up well.

“It's a famous story, isn't it? There's still some confusion about the results after the race, and dad says, ‘Too late, I've already drunk the milk!'”

Not only that, but straight after the race Graham Hill took himself to the Cessna factory in Wichita, Kansas, to order a new plane. With the milk drunk and prize money spent, there was no way back…