James Hunt - Part 3

David Parkinson continues his tale of the life of one of Britain's most flamboyant F1 drivers.

After the race, at the inevitable celebrations, JH advised that he believed it was madness to start the race in the conditions that prevailed. He also agreed with the decision of Niki Lauda to retire and wished they could somehow share the title as he, Lauda, was the bravest man he’d ever met.
In the months that followed JH attended dinners, spoke at functions, was introduced to everyone and his brother and felt more like a ping pong ball than a person. He went to many functions and generally drank and smoked far to much.

The 1977 season opener was in Argentine. JH had secured pole and regained the lead on lap 10 after a poor start. He held the lead until the 32nd lap when the car flew off the circuit into the barriers due to a broken bolt in the suspension. The next race in Brazil was notable for an all night backgammon session. It started on Thursday afternoon and continued until Friday morning. One of the participants was Bernie Ecclestone who organised two waiters to supply the needs of the players. At the finish of the game JH was transported to the circuit with a police escort for the first practice session. The sessions were notable because JH came in at regular intervals to answer calls of nature. He secured pole position yet again in the final qualifier and despite a poor start finished second to Carlos Reutemann with Niki Lauda in third. Both being in Ferraris.

Back in London in February, JH attended a glittering bash at the Europa hotel, where over 300 members of the British racing fraternity had gathered to honour the most successful in British motor sport. JH picked up several cheques and awards, the most prestigious being the Tarmac Trophy which was presented by HRH, The Duke of Kent. The formally attired audience were not surprised when JH arrived in jeans and T-shirt to accept the award and give a gracious and humorous acceptance speech. Several of his peers, including Jackie Stewart, admonished him for his lack of respect.

The next grand prix of the year was South Africa. JH found on his late arrival to check in that economy, which was how he normally travelled was full, as was business class. He was upgraded to First Class but did not endear himself to his fellow travellers when he persisted in singing well into the night. He also took full advantage of the free bar and was not in the best of shape when he arrived in SA to be confronted by Customs officials who found a copy of Penthouse in his baggage. This magazine contravened the SA obscenity laws but JH pointed out an article about himself and Niki Lauda at which the customs gave him the relevant pages and confiscated the rest of the magazine.

Testing the new McLaren M26 for the first time he was involved in a 170mph crash through the catch fencing when a loose brake caliper holed a tyre. Questioned by journalists on why he was going so fast he advised that that was the only way to test a new car. Further. Taking it easier and crashing at 150mph would kill you just as easily as an accident at 170mph.

He secured pole for the third time in succession. JH led the race for the first seven laps before he was overhauled and passed by Lauda in the more powerful Ferrari. Schecter in the Wolf also passed JH but not without a struggle and some wheel banging. He later said in reply to a journalist’s question that wheel to wheel was ok. The danger was when one wheel got between the others. Depailler also passed him and he was relegated to fourth where he finished. Lauda’s victory celebrations were subdued however when it was discovered that Tom Pryce had been killed. A marshal running across the track with a fire extinguisher to an incident involving Renzo Zorzi was hit by the Shadow of Pryce. The Shadow, travelling at 160mph then collided with Jacques Laffite wrecking both cars. It was discovered that Pryce had been killed by the fire extinguisher. The marshal also died. This incident renewed the call for professionally trained marshals.

Much of 1977 was set aside for making some money. He made various commercials for assorted companies. One of these was with Morecombe and Wise who were possibly the most popular comedians of the day. A relationship with Jane Birbeck also seemed to be gathering pace.
JH won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. Unfortunately it was a non-championship event but it was always good to win in front of the home crowds.

The next grand prix was in the USA at Long Beach but it didn’t go well as a start line incident and contact with another car gave him handling problems which resulted in a seventh place finish. No points as at that time only the first six finishers scored.

The Spanish Grand Prix followed but a miss-firing engine caused him to retire after just ten laps. Monaco was next but engine failure half way through the race gave him another DNF. A wrong tyre choice in Belgium, gambling on slicks to start the race in the wet, left him trailing in seventh when the rain didn’t stop. In Sweden a pit stop in the poorly handling car to change tyres saw him finish the race in twelfth position.

1977 was going badly. Half of the season over and the reigning world champion was in ninth place in the championship standings. Niki Lauda and Jody Schecter were battling at the top and JH felt he should have been with them.

He was becoming increasingly irate with the press. He had never been good and had on more then one occasion answered questions with, “That’s a bloody stupid thing to ask. Don’t you know anything about motor racing”. Since becoming world champion he also had a group of friends with him at each race meeting. Several journalists stated that if you interviewed JH in front of these so called friends then any interview became a nightmare full of caustic remarks. Yet the same people admitted that if you caught him on his own he was as articulate and friendly as ever.

Improvements to the car led to him leading the French Grand Prix for the first four laps but a cock up with gear selection dropped him to third where he began to feel ill from a previously upset stomach. Not feeling well he slowed down to ensure that he held on to the third place. He did but was quite ill on the podium which he shared with Mario Andretti and John Watson. The latter having been leading until running out of fuel on the last lap.

Next was Silverstone and for the first time in a while JH secured pole position for the race. John Watson got a better start however and led the race for three quarters of the distance before a fuel pressure problem stopped the car and allowed JH his first win of the year. This race was the debut race in a McLaren for Giles Villeneuve But for a pit stop to check a faulty gauge he would have finished in fourth place.
In the next four races JH failed to finish. Germany and Austria were down to mechanical failures whilst Italy and Holland were due to a crash of one sort or another. At Watkins Glen, a pole position and a win in wet conditions, gave JH a win but Niki Lauda’s fourth gave him the 1977 driver’s title.

The Canadian Grand Prix was next and it was notable for Niki Lauda storming out of the Ferrari team. He said he was sick of the Ferrari internal politics, sick of the Italians, who had called him a snivelling coward when he’d dropped out of the Japanese Grand Prix the year before, sick about the sacking of his mechanic and sick that Ferrari were going to run three cars in the grand prix. The third one being for Villeneuve who would replace him the following year when he joined Brabham. McLaren had not taken up the option to retain his services. He believed that Ferrari couldn’t give optimum support to three cars. JH was leading the Canadian Grand Prix after passing Andretti and came up to lap Jochen Mass in the sister McLaren. Jochen was on the right so JH went to the left when Jochen suddenly pulled to the left, braked and waved him past. The timing was bad and JH in his own words, “Hit him up the arse” and then spun into a concrete retaining wall at over 100mph. Another DNF. JH then stood by the side of the track waving his fist at Mass every time he went past until he decided to cross the track and head back to the pits. A marshal attempted, quite rightly, to stop him crossing the circuit whilst a race was ongoing but got flattened for his trouble. A deed which cost him almost $3,000 in fines although he quickly apologised.

JH won the final race of the year in Japan after leading from start to finish. A sour note was that an incident with Peterson and Villeneuve led to the latter’s car flying into the crowd and killing two of them.

The first race of the year in 1978 was the Argentine Grand Prix in which JH came fourth. In Brazil he spun into a sand trap and the race was over. The South African Grand Prix ended after five laps when the engine blew up. At Long Beach he clipped a barrier and the race was over. Another no finish happened in Monaco when he again clipped the barrier. His Belgium race lasted just a few seconds after Ricardo Patrese ran into the back of him.

The next race was in Spain and prior to the event James and Jane along with nine other drivers and companions were invited for dinner to the private home of King Juan Carlos. The arrangements had been made by Jackie Stewart but when JH appeared in jeans the plans were hastily changed to an informal buffet by the swimming pool where the Kings pet cheetah roamed. JH was fascinated by the big cat but all it wanted to do was play with Jane’s skirt which it soon had down to her knees as its claws got caught in the material. He finished sixth in the race with a badly bruised hand attained during a practice crash.

A distant eighth in Sweden was followed by a well deserved third in France. It was to be his last visit to the podium and indeed the last points he scored in his career. A mistake put him out of the British Grand Prix where people were wondering if he still had interest in the sport. Others suggested that he was suffering from substance abuse. He was a very heavy pot smoker. He claimed it relaxed him. He was disqualified from the German Grand Prix and spun off in the wet on the first lap of the Austrian race. A tenth place finish in the Dutch Grand Prix left him dispirited and he considered retiring at the end of the season. He changed his mind when offered a new challenge for 1979 plus a fee of one million dollars. The offer came from Walter Wolf who was about to lose the services of Jody Schecter.

There was however three more races in 1978. The first was in Italy where JH started the race from the fifth row of the grid. After the warm up lap the cars were slotting into the grid positions when the red light came on even though only the first couple of cars had actually stopped. When the green came on most of the cars towards the back were still moving so got a much better start then normal. As the track narrowed and the cars bunched all hell broke loose. The McLaren of JH had been hit several times by other cars but he was uninjured and climbed out of the wreckage to see a burning fireball that was the Lotus of Ronnie Peterson. A marshal was spraying an extinguisher into the fire and James dashed in to help get Ronnie out. Helped by Regazzoni he got Ronnie out of the shattered Lotus but his legs had been severely damaged in the accident. Fortunately he hadn’t suffered any burns and though serious his injuries didn’t appear to be life threatening. Brambilla was also hurt. He’d been hit by a flying wheel and was unconscious but would make a full recovery. Ten cars had been damaged in the accident and it was more than two hours before the race was restarted. JH was shaken and talked of retiring there and then but got into the car at the start and burnt the clutch out and retired. Mario Andretti won the race and though he was demoted to sixth place for jumping the start the single point was sufficient to give him the title. Something which had been expected as this Colin Chapman Lotus with its ground effect skirts was clearly the future. Bad news was to come very quickly when it was learnt that Ronnie Peterson had died in hospital from a blood clot.

The death of Peterson hit JH hard as they had been friends since the F3 days but the world moves on regardless. In this case to Watkins Glen for the US Grand Prix. After a mid race argument with his team he finally finished in seventh position. The Canadian grand prix was next but a loose wheel put James into a field and he retired from the race. It was also his last race for McLaren.

1979 and JH was to drive the Wolf. He had told anyone who would listen that it was to be his final year because he’d pushed his luck to much and death was always waiting in the wings. The 79 Wolf was not a great handling car. He retired from both the Argentine and Brazilian races. In South Africa he was eighth but Rob Walker, working with the team as an advisor, had to persuade him to get back into the car after an incident in qualifying. He, Rob, said that James appeared frightened out of his mind. DNFs followed in California, Belgium and Monaco. When the Monaco race was over he walked out of motor racing.

JH moved back to England. He’d been a tax exile in Spain during his racing career.His relationship with Jane Birbeck ended though they remained good friends and he signed up to commentate on the 1980 grand prix. In spite of being offered £1.4 million by McLaren to make a come back. Later on in 1982, Bernie Ecclestone, then with Brabham, offered him £2.6 million to return. This offer was also rejected.
James married twice more, the third marriage lasting to his death. He suffered terrible bouts of depression, particularly between his second and third marriages. When married for the third time he stopped drinking and using drugs and in his own words was happier then he’d ever been previously.

He died on the 15th June 1993 from a heart attack.

David Parkinson

M26 at Silverstone British Grand Prix, July 1977

With a JPS girl at the 1978 Britsih Grand prix, Brands Hatch

M26 at Clearways, Friday practice

Rare M26E in practice

Probably less embarrassing than Schuey advertising a Fiat van...

Not for nothing was he known as "Hunt the Shunt"

Hunt had a long working relationship with Murray Walker on BBC's GP coverage. Here they are appearing on Wogan

After ill-advised ventures in karting at Milton Keynes, a night club in Marbella and in Lloyds underwriting, Hunt lost much of his wealth. As a result his 450SEL went up on bricks and he used the "Wallace and Gromit" A35 van behind it.

With the budgerigars which he bred.

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