Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  Nowadays, both drivers would have hired lawyers, but there just wasn’t the spare money to do so. Friends and family would have to suffice. So Hunt asked Hogan to help organise his defence for the hearing.

  Before the tribunal convened, Morgan, Hunt and Hogan went to the BBC studios at White City to view the film of the incident. Afterwards, neither man recognised their initial version of events from the film. Hunt discovered that what he thought had happened was at total odds with what television pictures showed, as he explained: “It’s like a lot of people involved in these sorts of scuffles or whatever: his take on what happened is totally at odds with the television.”

  After viewing the tapes, Morgan maintained that Hunt should have been charged with dangerous conduct, as he had walked through cars, which were still racing at full speed, to reach him at the side of the pit straight. Morgan said: “I was amazed he wasn’t run over.”

  John Hogan was pleased to be able to help his friend and provide moral support, but he says now that his role in the proceedings was exaggerated. Hogan says he simply accompanied Hunt to the tribunal and gave informal advice. He remembers the hearing itself being the first of its kind and the tribunal panel consisting of the most serious people the RAC could muster, including Jack Sears and Dean Delamont. Hogan recalls: “The tribunal committee were the judge, juror and executioners of the RAC. They all had the black caps on before you walked into the room.”

  Hunt was in fine form for the hearing, as Hogan remembers: “It was one of the few occasions where I saw James actually use the old school tie to full effect. He used his public school background to influence the old fuddy-duddies on the RAC. Dave Morgan was just a regular guy, but James impressed them with his presence, his accent and his articulation.”

  Hogan advised Hunt to forget his own version and go with the cameras, which he did. Hogan says: “All I did was to say: ‘Listen, look at the television and talk to that, not to your mind because otherwise they’re going to screw you.’ And that was it really. I just told him to stick to the picture and not to fantasise about it.”

  Morgan had arrived at the tribunal with a box of papers and a borrowed briefcase, so as to look the part. At the hearing, he found himself on the front bench hunched right up to Hunt. But he could not get the briefcase to open. Either he had the wrong combination for the lock or it was jammed. Morgan asked Hunt for help opening it. It was almost comical, as Morgan remembers: “I couldn’t open the thing, and I asked James if he could and he did.”

  Hogan sat on Hunt’s other side but couldn’t give evidence, as in those days expert witnesses were not allowed to be heard. So Hunt simply followed his mentor’s advice to the letter, and Hogan pulled on his jacket if he started to wander.

  The film of the race was played on special monitors provided by the BBC for the day. The tribunal heard evidence from both drivers and from a spectator witness on behalf of Morgan. Hunt had also gathered together a large number of witnesses who testified on his behalf. The TV recording clearly showed that Morgan had run into him, and three other drivers testified that Morgan had overtaken in a dangerous manner.

  Inevitably, the tribunal cleared Hunt of wrongdoing and forgot about the punch he had thrown. Not so with Morgan, who they said was guilty of dangerous driving. They handed him a 12-month ban from racing, the heaviest penalty ever given to a driver, and, almost as an afterthought, he was fined UK£25 for “over-exuberant driving.”

  Everyone was shocked at the penalty. Morgan may have been at fault, but not to the extent of that sort of penalty, which would effectively mean the end of his career. Even Hunt, who was jubilant at the overall result, conceded that Morgan’s 12-month ban was “a total injustice.”

  At the time, no one agreed with the severity of the sentence of the tribunal and felt that Morgan had been made a scapegoat to discourage the wild driving prevalent in Formula 3 at the time.

  Early in 1971, justice was finally done when Morgan appealed the 12-month ban and the RAC agreed that it was too harsh and gave him back his licence. Aside from all the drama, Morgan was a talented and capable driver. But the affair had stalled his career and he never quite recovered from it.

  John Hogan has the last word, saying: “When I look back at it, it’s quite a lot of fuss over nothing.” Indeed it was.

  CHAPTER 12

  Character building and no Plan ‘B’ 1972

  The options run out, it’s nearly over

  James Hunt entered Formula 3 in 1969, and it was now the start of 1972. He had already spent three years in a Formula, when he should have done only two. He was now 25 and getting too old. In short, he was going nowhere fast. By now, he should have been an experienced Formula Two campaigner, readying himself for the start of the Formula One season as a new rookie – as was Niki Lauda. Lauda was only 23, yet he was already established in Formula One racing for the works March team alongside Ronnie Peterson. He also had a Formula Two seat with March.

  This grated on Hunt, as he considered Lauda an inferior talent. Lauda was also displaying superior sponsorship getting talent whereas Hunt was displaying none. Lauda had managed to raise US$70,000 to pay for his March drive and was being sponsored by a Viennese bank. The sponsorship was by way of a long-term loan in which the interest element was the sponsorship fee, and the bank expected Lauda eventually to pay back the capital. He had also taken out a life insurance policy that would eventually pay back the loan should he be unable. It was an ingenious solution to an age-old problem.

  In comparison, a penniless Hunt was staring at a fourth year in Formula 3, which was not a very inviting prospect. The only bright spot on his horizon was that, at least, he had the offer of a drive for which he would not have to pay. Max Mosley had offered him the number one seat at the new works run March F3 team, which was being sponsored by STP, March’s Formula One sponsor.

  Hunt pitched Mosley for the drive very early on and was surprised when Mosley said ‘yes’ without asking for any cash. Hunt had written an impassioned letter to Mosley asking for the drive, as Mosley remembers: “It basically said: ‘I’ll win’ and James was always very sure of himself and a very quick driver, though certainly not an obvious candidate for world champion.”

  Mosley had known Hunt since they had raced together in the junior formulae, and he genuinely liked him. But, like everyone else in motor racing, he was worried about offering him the drive. It was plain to almost everyone that Hunt had great ability, but they disliked his general attitude and his propensity to crash cars. The nickname Mosley had given him of ‘Hunt the Shunt’ had well and truly stuck. On the plus side, Hunt was, even from a longevity perspective, the undoubted star of Formula 3. He was acknowledged as its fastest driver, notwithstanding the fact that every other driver of note had moved on. On that basis, Mosley decided to take a chance on Hunt.

  The relationship with Mosley would be a key one in Hunt’s early life, and their paths would cross regularly until the day he died. Mosley was one of the four founders of the phenomenon called March Engineering Ltd which, by 1972, had become an established force in motor sport. March was an acronym of the four founders: Mosley; Alan Rees; (Graham) Coaker; and (Robin) Herd. All four were very clever men in their own right, but they had tried to do the impossible by not only setting up a new two-car Formula One team from scratch with a new car of their own design, but also by becoming manufacturers of F3, F2 and F1 race cars for sale to customers.

  They set the company on an industrial estate in the small town of Bicester, in Buckinghamshire, right in the heart of an area of England that would later come to be known as Motorsport Valley. They had hardly any equity capital so were totally reliant from the start on sponsorship and revenue from selling race cars. The cars were designed by Robin Herd, fresh from McLaren and Cosworth, and built by the factory manager, Graham Coaker. Mosley was the salesman and Alan Rees the team manager of the works teams run by March in F3, F2 and F1.

  Mosley is an extraordinarily intelligent man which, combined with great
charm, can be devastatingly effective. But back then, he had no experience at all of running a business. In fact, he knew literally nothing about business at all. But his instincts were good and, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he knew what he didn’t know. There is no question that this combination of talents kept March alive in its early years. His timely interventions also kept James Hunt’s career alive.

  His parents were Sir Oswald Mosley and Lady Diana Mitford. Whatever one thought of them and their political views, the line of parentage was unrivalled. Mosley received a very loving but disciplined upbringing during the difficult war years, when his parents were interned as dangerous aliens by Winston Churchill’s wartime coalition government.

  Mosley was educated as a trilingual in England, France and Germany, and gained an honours degree in physics at Oxford. He was secretary of the Oxford Union and called to the bar in 1964. His specialism was patent and trade mark law, which he practiced for three years. During the early to mid sixties, he dabbled in motor racing, reaching Formula 2 in 1968. But like so many others, he may have been a brilliantly fast driver but there were too many others who were faster, and, in 1969, he retired from active driving and started March Engineering with his three friends.

  By 1972, March Engineering had been operating for two years. It was being run on a shoestring and clever ideas were needed to bring cash in to pay the wage bill at the end of every month. Hunt knew this when he signed on for the team. He didn’t get a salary or expenses, but everything else was paid for. It was a great deal even if Hunt didn’t realise it at the time. And no one else wanted him by then.

  He was partnered in the STP-March team by his old friend Brendan McInerney, who was paying March around US$10,000 for the seat on an installment basis race-by-race.

  Hunt should have known how lucky he was to have been given the drive by Mosley, but his appreciation often seemed to waver. There was also pressure on him as, after Hunt had been signed, the up and coming German driver Jochen Mass made March a good cash offer for the drive. To Mosley’s credit he turned down the offer and honoured the contract with Hunt. Mass was very attractive to March and had backing from Ford of Germany. But Hunt didn’t seem to appreciate this either.

  Hunt started the season dismally, competing in seven races in the British Formula 3 championship in March and April. In 1972, there were just two championships, the Shell and the Lombard North Central, and Hunt raced in both. But the Shell was the dominant championship and Hunt made his biggest effort yet to win it, realising belatedly that he had neglected the British series to his own detriment.

  The new March 723 looked good with its low nose and side radiators and red livery, but it was unsorted and slow. The old March 713M of the previous year was clearly a faster car. During that period, Hunt went to Brands Hatch and Silverstone twice, and Snetterton, Oulton Park, Mallory Park once each. He managed to have two accidents, and his best result was a third at Mallory Park. For the so-called star of F3, this was a terrible start to the season and Hunt knew he could not do a fifth year in F3 without becoming a joke, and he soon became very depressed about his future.

  Alan Rees and Mosley at March were equally depressed. They did not like Hunt’s attitude in adversity. He had been publicly criticising the car. As March relied for its income on selling customer versions of the March 723, his comments had hurt sales. Far from putting his head down and developing the car as March had done to great effect in the previous season – effectively turning the 713 dog into the 713M race winner – Hunt had effectively given up. And as much as Mosley had affection for Hunt, he had given up as well and now wanted him out of the team. Mosley remembers: “James said the 1972 car wasn’t as good as the 1971 car, which I think was completely true, but it wasn’t good for sales. So I said to him: ‘You’re a works driver, you can’t say things like that. You know, keep quiet.’ But he was right and we were right, but I couldn’t afford to have people saying that. I didn’t design the car, that was down to Robin, but I had to defend it. And James was just saying what he thought. We never actually fell out in any way; we always got on very well.”

  Ian Phillips remembers it as a dark time: “By the middle of 1971, there was obviously some talent there but he was completely out of control.”

  And so it came to the annual F3 race supporting the Monaco Grand Prix, ominously scheduled to be run on Saturday 13th May. Mosley’s problem was that he had a watertight contract with Hunt, with no get-out clause. It would be difficult to sack him without a pay-off, and March had no cash to do that.

  So a stand-off emerged. Mosley hoped Hunt would throw his toys out of the pram and leave, while Hunt hoped Mosley would sack him with a payoff, enabling him to buy a drive in a more competitive car.

  But neither came to pass.

  The Monaco Grand Prix support race was a shop window for Formula 3, more important than all the other races combined. Hunt wanted to impress the Formula One team principals and March wanted to sell cars to customers. Prior to Monaco, at Silverstone on 23rd April, Hunt crashed his March 723. The accident removed all its wheels and crumpled the chassis, and it would cost over US$2,000 to repair.

  Mosley was furious, especially when Hunt didn’t seem to care about what had happened. So the two men had no communication between that Sunday 23rd April and Thursday 10th May, the start of qualifying for Monaco. Hunt said later that Mosley and Rees didn’t return his phone calls, but it’s not clear whether he ever called them. For the record, he called them “mysteriously uncommunicative.”

  That Thursday, when Hunt arrived in the makeshift F3 paddock in the car park in Monte Carlo, there was no sign of the March F3 transporter. He watched the first qualifying session in an angry mood. The transporter eventually turned up at midnight, but Hunt’s car was still in pieces from its rebuild. The chassis had been repaired but required hours of setting up, and a Monaco car park was not the best place to do it.

  The final qualifying session was scheduled for early Friday morning. But there was only one March mechanic and he was exhausted by the long drive from England. He told Hunt he was going to bed and there was nothing Hunt could do to persuade him otherwise. It looked hopeless.

  Hunt knew his car would not be ready with his mechanic in bed. He thought quickly and met up with Chris Marshall, his team manager from the previous year. Marshall, down on his luck, was now running a team called L’Équipe La Vie Claire. It had the old March cars from the previous year, with young French drivers and French sponsors. As it happened, one of Marshall’s French drivers had had his licence suspended and there was a spare March 713M car available and ready to race.

  Bizarrely, the two men decided to break Hunt’s contract with March and decided that he would drive that car for the final qualifying session. It was an unbelievably imbecilic decision to leave the works team, especially in view of the fact that it was Hunt’s fault that the car wasn’t ready after he had crashed it at Silverstone.

  Marshall should have told Hunt to pull himself together and helped him to get the March sorted for the race, thereby doing his best for his employer. But he didn’t and, with his misguided advice, he nearly derailed Hunt’s career.

  The F3 race at Monaco was so popular that it was run in two heats and a final on the Saturday before the Grand Prix. Hunt qualified Marshall’s car for the second heat.

  Mosley and Alan Rees were apoplectic when they heard what Hunt had done. They felt humiliated that their number one driver had defected to another team at the most prestigious race of the year. The two men huddled together that night and decided to give Hunt an ultimatum; he would either drive for them or leave the team.

  Hunt was in the car park waiting to take his Marshall-run March down to the grid when a letter was delivered to him from Mosley. It warned him that unless he immediately stepped out of Marshall’s car and into his STP-March works car for the heat, he would be sacked from the team.

  Hunt got out of his car and briefly conferred with Marshall. They then made another stupid
decision: Hunt decided to ignore the letter and race Marshall’s old March as planned.

  It seems incredible now how two supposedly intelligent men could mess up so badly. Hunt and Marshall, for all their years of experience, seemed to have learned nothing about motor racing in that time. Hunt was ready to toss away an extremely good contract on a whim. With the decision made, he had then to go out and finish high enough in his heat to qualify for the main race. But Hunt was also in no emotional condition to drive – especially around a difficult circuit like Monaco. He went straight out and put the car into the Armco guard rails that lined the circuit, thereby destroying the car’s suspension. He was out of the heat and the main race. And he would soon be out of motor racing altogether.

  It had been a catastrophic weekend, and the two men returned to England with their tails between their legs. Marshall was left with a crumpled car he had to pay to repair, and Hunt was left with no drive and no prospects of a drive.

  By driving for a rival team, Hunt had broken his contract in the most comprehensive way possible. Not only would he now certainly be sacked, March could sue him for breach of contract and would almost certainly win any legal case, thereby making Hunt bankrupt.

  A few days later, that is precisely what came to pass. Mosley sent Hunt a letter of termination followed by a press release formally sacking him. He was replaced by Jochen Mass. Mosley wanted a fresh start and Brendan McInerney’s contract was also ended. But Mosley, to his credit, did not put the knife into Hunt and was kind in his comments. He admitted March had delivered the car late to the circuit and didn’t have time to prepare it properly. Mosley stated that Hunt would probably thrive much better without the pressures of being in a works team.