Top 10 Can-Am drivers

The original Canadian-American Challenge Cup is largely remembered for its amazing, ground-shaking sportscars. But the series also attracted some of the best drivers from around the world, partly thanks to the impressive prize money on offer.

For this list of the top 10 Can-Am drivers of the 1966-74 period, we’ve taken into account their performances, the opposition they faced, their level of success in the series (results scored elsewhere are not included) and their impact on Can-Am itself.

Watch: Top 10 Can-Am Drivers | Autosport Retro

Nobody outside this list scored more than one victory, though we have included one non-winner. An honourable mention goes to Can-Am loyalist Lothar Motschenbacher, who was a consistent presence and contested both the first and last races of the era – he scored podiums but never a win.

10. Jim Hall

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Wins: 0
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 3
Titles: 0

Sixteen drivers won a Can-Am race in the championship’s first era and Hall should have been among them. He did score six podiums and topped qualifying four times, but the cards never quite fell for the Texan.

A trained engineer, Hall’s impact on the championship went far beyond his efforts as a driver, his Chaparrals often bringing innovation. Sometimes his ideas were ahead of Formula 1, including high-mounted rear wings and fan cars, even if not all were perfect.

Chaparral wasn’t ready for the 1966 season opener, but Hall qualified fastest for round two at Bridgehampton. Except, with team-mate Hill’s 2E struck by problems in practice, Hall stepped aside and pole fell to Dan Gurney.

At Mosport Park, Hall was again fastest in practice but didn’t start on pole due to an odd procedure that placed nine cars that had set times the day before (in the wet) ahead of him.

Hall finally got his first official pole at Laguna Seca and followed Hill home for a Chaparral 1-2 in heat one. He then led for much of heat two but it was Hill who took aggregate victory.

Once Bruce McLaren had gone out at Riverside, Hall battled John Surtees for the lead until fuel starvation set in and he had to settle for second. And Hall then took pole for the Stardust finale – 0.9 seconds clear of his 1961 world championship-winning team-mate – only to pit early with spoiler trouble.

Hall ran a revised 2E, dubbed the 2G, in 1967 and again finished fifth in the championship, but McLaren had moved things on. Hall did nevertheless star against Bruce McLaren in a thrilling duel for victory at Riverside, falling just 3s short.

Hall was part of a fine lead battle at Bridgehampton in 1968, too, only to lose power, again finishing second. His final podium came at Riverside before a terrible clash with Motschenbacher at the Stardust finale, which put both in hospital. Hall, who had broken both legs, fractured his jaw and damaged a knee, was being pulled out when a fire broke out.

Hall focused on his team thereafter but ended up quitting Can-Am completely once the 2J ‘sucker car’ was banned. He had nevertheless shown that he could live with the best drivers the series had to offer and brought more fresh thinking to Can-Am than any other.

9. Jackie Stewart

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Wins: 2
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 2
Best championship: 3rd (1971)

Compared to most on this list, Stewart’s time in Can-Am was brief, but could anyone else have squeezed two wins out of the Lola T260 – a car the Scot has described as the worst of his career and Autosport reporter Gordon Kirby wrote had “legendary power understeer” – against the might of McLaren?

Few had challenged the orange cars coming into 1971. Tony Dean’s surprise success in a race of attrition at Road America in 1970 had been the only non-McLaren win since 1967. But Stewart, who had briefly appeared in Can-Am before, immediately beat the factory M8Fs of Denny Hulme and Peter Revson to pole at the Mosport opener and led the way until the Lola’s gearbox failed.

The roles were reversed at Mont-Tremblant, Mosport winner Hulme feeling ill and falling back as Stewart won. There was another pole at Watkins Glen (followed by a puncture and then vibration in the race) and a calculated, conservative second victory in Mid-Ohio on a punishing day when neither McLaren finished.

The Lola sprouted an ungainly front wing later in the season as the Carl Haas team searched for front-end grip. Stewart remained the biggest threat to McLaren and managed two more podiums but could not prevent Revson and Hulme finishing 1-2 in the drivers’ standings.

Stewart was initially slated to join McLaren for 1972 but the deal fell through at the 11th hour, leaving Revson once more alongside Hulme and the reigning F1 world champion with just a brace of Can-Am successes.

8. Dan Gurney

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Wins: 3
Poles: 5
Fastest laps: 3
Titles: 0

Prior to 1970, Gurney suffered an unbelievably poor finishing record with Ford-powered Lolas and McLarens in Can-Am and only scored one victory – at Bridgehampton during the inaugural season – despite invariably running at the sharp end and taking more poles than all but the top five on our list.

Though being near the end of his career, Gurney was called up by McLaren in the wake of Bruce McLaren’s death in testing ahead of the 1970 Can-Am season. With team stalwart Hulme nursing hand injuries, Gurney stepped up, winning the opening two rounds from pole.

Thereafter, sponsorship conflicts prevented Gurney running the full season. He then retired from driving but is one of the few to have scored Can-Am victories for different constructors, in his case Lola and McLaren.

7. Jackie Oliver

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Wins: 4
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 4
Titles: 1 (1974)

Oliver’s four wins came in 1974, as the original Can-Am started to die, but he had been a frontrunner since 1970. He’d chased the pacesetting McLarens and scored podiums with the unusual Autocoast Titanium Ti22 – including a brilliant second just 1.2s behind Hulme at Laguna Seca in 1970 – and then Shadow.

Oliver also worked through the development and reliability troubles of the early Shadows – he never finished more than three Can-Am races in a season prior to 1974! His patience was rewarded with Tony Southgate’s DN4, which arrived as Can-Am introduced a fuel formula to essentially outlaw the turbocharged Porsches.

Shadow team-mate George Follmer was more of a problem in 1974 than the results suggest, but Oliver still won all but one of the five rounds. That included coming out on top in the one visit from the (admittedly restricted) Porsche 917/30 that had dominated the 1973 series.

6. John Surtees

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Wins: 4
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 1
Title: 1966

When Surtees clinched the inaugural Can-Am title in November 1966, driving a Lola T70 run by his own team, he was one of the finest drivers in the world. Just three weeks earlier, he had won the Mexican Grand Prix and finished second in the F1 standings.

Having won the Mont-Tremblant opener from pole, Surtees suffered two car problems and an accident over the next three rounds – he almost left the series. But no one else could stamp their authority on the championship either, and victory at Riverside put him into a title fight with Mark Donohue, Bruce McLaren and Hill heading into the Stardust finale in Las Vegas.

Surtees only qualified fourth but charged to the front at the start in a field that included Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones and Stewart as well as the regulars. Despite slowing due to a vibration, Surtees beat McLaren and Donohue home to take the crown by six points.

Victory at the same venue a year later ensured Surtees finished third in the standings at the end of a campaign dominated by McLaren. Thereafter, the 1964 F1 world champion contested rounds in the 1969 Can-Am, driving for Chaparral, and invariably ran towards the front but he was not a fan of the radical 2H and struggled to make an impact.

5. Peter Revson

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Wins: 5
Poles: 5
Fastest laps: 6
Titles: 1 (1971)

Revson had been a frontrunner in Lola and McLaren machinery, even challenging the dominant M8Ds in 1970 in Haas’s Lola T220, but had never quite scored a Can-Am victory when he was called up alongside Hulme in the works McLaren team for 1971.

Despite opposition from Stewart in a Lola, Jo Siffert’s Porsche and even the occasional Ferrari, the M8Fs of Revson and Hulme battled for the crown. They often drove M8Fs to different specs so judging them was tough, as Autosport reporter Pete Lyons pointed out: “It is impossible to single out one occasion when Denny and Revvie were on the track at the same time with equal cars. They have never had a head-to-head driving match on equal terms. If one’s engine was exactly right, the other’s busy schedule had prevented him sorting his suspension, and so on.”

Hulme perhaps had the bigger share of McLaren’s bad luck. In the end, Revson’s five wins helped him defeat three-time winner Hulme by 10 points.

Like Hulme, Revson put up a fine rearguard action against the turbocharged Porsche onslaught in McLaren’s M20 in 1972, taking a stunning pole at Watkins Glen. It was the Kiwi rather than Revson who managed a couple of wins before the Porsche 917/10 really got up to speed but there were still three podiums in the American’s final Can-Am campaign.

4. George Follmer

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Wins: 6
Poles: 6
Fastest laps: 7
Titles: 1 (1972)

Follmer may have been fortunate to inherit the Penske-run Porsche 917/10 for 1972 following Donohue’s massive Road Atlanta accident, but his was not an easy gig. Donohue had done the development on the laggy turbocar, which remained a tricky machine and required a lot of adapting from the driver to deliver its best.

Despite the late start, missing the opening round and tough opposition from the hitherto dominant McLaren team, Follmer managed three poles and five wins on his way to the crown, becoming the first non-McLaren driver to take the title since 1966.

“George had mastered a difficult car and a raw shotgun of an engine,” said Peter Morgan in his book, Porsche 917: The winning formula. “He had confirmed he had been the right choice for the job that needed to be done.”

Follmer drove the same 917/10 for Bobby Rinzler in 1973 and scored another victory on his way to second in the points, but he was no match for Donohue in Penske’s remarkable 917/30.

Follmer then lined up alongside Oliver at Shadow for the final, weak season of Can-Am’s first era. Oliver’s record of four wins from five races belies the needle that sometimes existed between the pair and the unlucky Follmer’s pace – he scored three poles to Oliver’s one.

Unlike most of the drivers on this list, Follmer also appeared in Can-Am’s second era, winning at Mont-Tremblant in 1978, though that’s not counted in our stats above.

3. Bruce McLaren

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Wins: 9
Poles: 13
Fastest laps: 7
Titles: 2 (1967, 1969)

Few individuals had a bigger impact on Can-Am. Bruce McLaren’s eponymous team was the category’s benchmark, reeling off five consecutive drivers’ crowns, and the Kiwi took two titles himself before his untimely death testing an M8D at Goodwood in June 1970.

Assessing McLaren’s pace relative to team-mate Hulme is tricky because they often indulged in team orders, taking it in turns to hit the front or ‘playing to the crowd’. Across their three seasons together, McLaren was fractionally ahead in qualifying, though Hulme tended to have an edge when it came to racing.

Either could have won the 1967 title. In the Stardust finale, Hulme lost a lap early on with a puncture while McLaren retired after an oil leak. Hulme charged back and was on course to take the title, only for his engine to fail, handing success to his team boss by three points.

Hulme won the 1968 crown with three wins to McLaren’s one and in 1969 the M8Bs were so far ahead of the opposition the team could pretty much decide who would win each round.

For the Texas finale – with the two each on five victories but with Hulme ahead on points – the plan was for McLaren to win and Hulme clinch the title. Hulme took pole, fought off an early challenge from Mario Andretti and then duly backed off to allow Bruce ahead. So far so good, until Hulme’s engine blew 11 laps from home and McLaren took an unexpected second crown by five points.

That was Bruce McLaren’s last Can-Am race. His squad remained the team to beat after his death, but he had more than made his mark as a driver, too. Across his four seasons in the championship, McLaren finished third, first, second and first in the drivers’ standings.

2. Mark Donohue

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Wins: 9
Poles: 11
Fastest laps: 9
Titles: 1 (1973)

Not only did Donohue ultimately match Bruce McLaren’s win tally, it could be argued his impact was even greater. While Bruce’s team dominated Can-Am for five seasons, it was Donohue’s personal efforts with Porsche and Penske that got the turbocharged 917 to work – not only did that end McLaren’s supremacy and then its participation, the programme ultimately changed Can-Am forever.

Donohue won Can-Am races with three different constructors despite always being with Penske. His first victory came during the inaugural season in a Lola T70 and he took a second success in a McLaren M6B at Bridgehampton in 1968 before the Porsche project came along.

Porsche had huge problems getting its early turbocharged engine to work and Donohue spent a lot of time at Weissach with the engineers until solutions were found just in time for the start of the 1972 season.

Donohue finished second to Hulme’s McLaren M20 in the Mosport opener but suffered an enormous crash testing at Road Atlanta when the rear bodywork flew off. That meant he missed four races and had to watch as Follmer set about ending McLaren’s domination of Can-Am.

By the time Donohue returned, Follmer was understandably the focus on his way to the title, but Penske’s star still won at Edmonton and finished in the top four of the final points for the fourth time.

It finally all came together in 1973 with the 917/30, a refined and more powerful version of Porsche’s turbocar. After an unfortunate start – a backmarker clash at Mosport and fuel union failure at Road Atlanta – Donohue reeled off six consecutive victories to win the eight-round series with more than twice the points of second-placed Follmer.

He was never beaten to pole during 1973. Yes, Donohue had a big car advantage but he had been instrumental in making that happen – and then obliterated the opposition. Given all his toil, the title was no more than Donohue deserved.

He announced his (sadly, temporary) retirement at the end of 1973, leaving Kirby to write that Donohue’s final campaign had been “a season in which his talents as a driver, an engineer and a craftsman were orchestrated into the racing of the most perfect machine that a man could hope for”.

The Penske Perfectionist could only really be beaten in this list by the King of Can-Am…

1. Denny Hulme

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Wins: 22
Poles: 22
Fastest laps: 26
Titles: 2 (1968, 1970)

Was Hulme the greatest talent to race in Can-Am? No. But he scored more than twice as many wins as anyone else, took the most poles and his sheer relentless presence for six years at the front of the field means he has to be number one.

From his arrival in 1967 until McLaren’s withdrawal at the end of 1972, Hulme started 52 Can-Am races and finished on the podium in two-thirds of them, winning 22 times. He also set fastest lap in half his appearances and never finished lower than second in the drivers’ table!

Yes, he drove for McLaren, which was the dominant force for all but one of those seasons, but Hulme repeatedly proved his worth and seemed at home in the big banger sportscars. Although in qualifying Bruce McLaren could often match or better his fellow Kiwi, Hulme usually had the race pace when he needed it.

Hulme was unlucky to lose both the 1967 and 1969 titles at the final round, and did win in 1968 and 1970. The latter was particularly noteworthy as he helped pick up the team after Bruce’s death and had to start the season still suffering with hand injuries from an Indianapolis accident.

Six wins from 10 rounds helped him to more than twice the score of second-placed Motschenbacher and it was often Hulme who raised his game in an attempt to match the pace of the Chaparral 2J fan car. “Yes, Can-Am lap times come down to that, Denny Hulme versus Chaparral,” wrote Lyons in Autosport’s Riverside report.

Hulme did lose out to new team-mate Revson in 1971 in an up-and-down campaign, but it was the 1967 F1 world champion who scored McLaren’s final two series wins in 1972 against the Porsche steamroller before the team withdrew and Hulme’s time at the top of Can-Am finally came to an end.

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Author Kevin Turner

Kevin Turner is Autosport’s Chief Editor. While studying History at the University of York, Kevin began covering UK club events as a freelance reporter for Autosport and Motorsport News. He joined the Autosport staff as Editorial Assistant on the magazine in 2006, winning what is now known as the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award. He became National Editor in 2008 and over the next few seasons covered a range of international events, including the Le Mans 24 Hours, as well as the British Touring Car Championship and British GT. Kevin became Features Editor before switching to edit Motorsport News in 2014.

He returned to Autosport in 2016 to become editor of the magazine, a dream job that is still part of his role.

He became Chief Editor in 2020, helping to plan content for autosport.com and Autosport’s podcast as well as seeing the magazine through the coronavirus pandemic. Kevin also led work on the special publication celebrating 70 years of Autosport and has been a judge on the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award, formerly known as the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award, since 2008. He lives in Warboys with his wife and two children.