Mike Spence is a racing driver from United Kingdom who last raced in Formula 1 for BRM. Spence has recorded 0 wins and 1 podium from 36 starts.[1]
A Racer Rating of 4,975 ranks Spence 337th of 15,348 indexed drivers, on an Elo scale where the strongest reach the low five figures. It is built from every indexed race in the driver's file, decayed for time since their last race.
| 1968-01-01 | Kyalami | DNF | −111 |
| Season | Series | Team | Races | Wins | Podiums | DNFs | Poles | Points | Pos | Gain/Loss | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | ▸Formula 1 | BRM | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | P25 | −111 | 5,150 |
| 1967 | ▸Formula 1 | BRM | 11 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 9 | P10 | −70 | 5,261 |
| 1966 | ▸Formula 1 | Lotus-BRM | 8 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 4 | P12 | −62 | 5,331 |
| 1965 | ▸Formula 1 | Lotus-Climax | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 10 | P8 | +307 | 5,393 |
| 1964 | ▸Formula 1 | Lotus-Climax | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | P12 | +266 | 5,086 |
| 1963 | ▸Formula 1 | Lotus-Climax | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | P18 | +19 | 4,819 |
| Rival | Rating | Raced | Ahead | Behind | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇬🇧 Jim Clark | 5,692 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 20% |
| 🇬🇧 Graham Hill | 5,097 | 13 | 2 | 11 | 15% |
| 🇨🇭 Jo Siffert | 5,058 | 12 | 10 | 2 | 83% |
| 🇺🇸 Dan Gurney | 4,902 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 50% |
| 🇮🇹 Lorenzo Bandini | 5,294 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 55% |
| 🇦🇺 Jack Brabham | 5,211 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 27% |
| 🇬🇧 John Surtees | 4,899 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0% |
| 🇺🇸 Richie Ginther | 5,503 | 9 | 2 | 7 | 22% |
| 🇳🇿 Bruce McLaren | 5,136 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 44% |
| 🇬🇧 Jackie Stewart | 5,923 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 25% |
Mike Spence was a British Formula 1 driver who raced between 1963 and 1968, accumulating 36 starts for BRM across six seasons. He scored a single podium finish and averaged a sixth-place classification across his career. His Racer Rating of 4,975 places him in the upper half of a professional field, though he never won a Grand Prix and failed to sustain points-scoring consistency despite racing in an era when the sport's elite were within reach.[1]
Spence spent most of his time competing against multiple world champions. He faced Jim Clark and Graham Hill repeatedly, both former or future multiple-time title winners, finishing ahead of Clark three times in fifteen shared races but trailing him in twelve. Against Hill he won only two of thirteen head-to-heads. More positively, he held a strong record against Jo Siffert, beating him in ten of twelve encounters, and went evenly with Dan Gurney across a dozen races. He also finished ahead of Lorenzo Bandini six times in eleven races and occasionally beat Jackie Stewart, a much stronger driver who would dominate the sport in the following decade. These mixed results against champions and front-running professionals define his standing as a capable mid-field competitor rather than a consistent threat to the top tier.[2]
His primary drive came through Lotus-Climax, which fielded him in sixteen of his starts. The team itself was competitive, having produced multiple race wins and having developed Jim Clark, one of the era's best drivers. Spence's tenure there and his scattered wins against established rivals suggest a driver of reasonable calibre who operated effectively in professional racing but lacked either the consistency or the singular pace required to convert opportunities into victories. He retired from competition after 1968.