Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  In six weeks, McLaren had almost ruined its world championship chances by its own hand. So much so that Hunt no longer considered himself in contention for the world championship title, as he said: “We lost Belgium, Monte Carlo and Sweden as a result of that, which was extremely crucial to the championship. We were totally uncompetitive.”

  Worse still, the team had a public relations problem on its hands. Caldwell and Mayer had told the world and the FIA that the two centimetres by which the car had been too wide had actually made no difference to its performance. But, since it had reduced the width of the car, the car had actually become uncompetitive. The discrepancy did not bode well for the team’s chances of winning its upcoming appeal against the disqualification. Between the Swedish and French races, there were scores of newspaper articles on the subject – most of them condemning McLaren.

  The French Grand Prix was scheduled for the 4th July, a three-week break after Sweden. It would be held on the 3.6-mile Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castellet. It left plenty of time for McLaren to prepare the car in its original spec. But Ferrari hadn’t been idle either. It had completed a major redesign of its flat 12 engine to get more power, despite the fact that it was already the most powerful engine on the grid.

  While he waited in France, Hunt checked into the Ile Rousse Hotel, which overlooked a beach full of topless bathers. He was in his element: inspecting his potential conquests by day, without the inconvenience of them being clothed, and bedding them by night. That carried on all weekend. But he overindulged in a French delicacy, then unknown in England, called pâté de foie gras and made himself ill. As a result, he was left feeling slightly off-colour all weekend.

  In the first qualifying session, Hunt was second fastest to Carlos Pace’s Brabham-Alfa Romeo. In the second session, he was fastest ahead of Niki Lauda’s Ferrari. The times were the fastest of qualifying and were carried through a slower final session to put Hunt on pole position. Ferrari was caught out as it had been increasing the rev limit of its new engine in every session. Without that, Lauda and Regazzoni would undoubtedly have been sharing the front row. They also might have had some prior notice of the problems they would encounter the following day. The sense of relief that permeated through the whole team that afternoon in France was almost palpable.

  Caldwell, free from the burden of an uncompetitive car, was now back at his best. In qualifying, he had noticed that the Goodyear tyres Hunt was using were behaving strangely. He spotted that once they had been on the car for a few laps, they were a lot quicker and more consistent. He also noticed that the new cold tyres were very unstable. So Caldwell gambled on starting the race with a set of part-worn tyres, which he thought would stay consistent throughout the race. For once, Hunt agreed with Caldwell’s technical analysis.

  None the wiser, Lauda started as usual with a new set of tyres. He made the best of the start and disappeared into the distance. Hunt bided his time in second and closed the gap gradually. Hunt could also see Lauda’s engine losing oil and water out of the back, and he knew it would be just a matter of time before it blew up. And indeed, on the eighth lap, Lauda coasted to a halt with a broken crankshaft. Then Regazzoni took over the lead, using every bit of power in the revised Ferrari engine on the long Paul Ricard straights. Eleven laps later, Regazzoni’s Ferrari suffered its own crankshaft failure.

  Hunt led comfortably from Depailler in the Tyrrell-Ford but, by lap 40, Hunt began to feel ill and was sick inside his helmet. He barely made it to the chequered flag, with Depailler 12 seconds behind in second place. John Watson came home third and Carlos Pace fourth, but Watson was initially disqualified after his rear wing was found to be too high. Hunt knew this was a lucky win, saying: “It was all rather depressing for the first laps of the race because of Ferrari’s special engines. They just disappeared from me and there was nothing I could do. It was simply just a matter of power as they whizzed off down the straight and they really got a big lead. But you have to give credit to their quality control because it handed me the race on a plate, and I absolutely needed it.”

  Hunt went back to his hotel with the mechanics and celebrated with the girls from the beach; although not as late as he would have liked because he and Mayer were due to fly to Paris for the appeal hearing against McLaren’s Spanish disqualification.

  At dawn the next morning, Hunt, Mayer and Lotus boss Colin Chapman, flew to Paris in Chapman’s plane. Chapman had generously agreed to testify on McLaren’s behalf concerning the invalidity of their disqualification from the Spanish Grand Prix. Dean Delamont, secretary of the Royal Automobile Club in London, was also a witness.

  Chapman and Delamont argued that the penalty had been too severe, and the five FIA-appointed judges seemed to agree. Maintaining that the punishment didn’t fit the crime, Mayer asked for a fine instead of disqualification. The five judges went away to deliberate for over 24 hours. But Mayer walked out of the appeal court building greatly encouraged by the impartiality of the judges, as he said afterwards: “They obviously hadn’t pre-judged the matter.”

  On the Tuesday morning, Jean-Jacques Freville, Secretary General of the FIA, came out of the FIA building and told waiting journalists that Hunt’s McLaren was “only minimally in excess.” His statement read: “The exclusion incurred by the McLaren car driven by James Hunt, who had won the event, is annulled, with all the consequences that this measure entails.”

  Hunt’s championship points were reinstated and the team was fined US$3,000 instead. According to Caldwell, the win in France – with the car back to the original pre-Spain specification – had been the reason for their successful appeal. He said: “I’m certain the psychological advantage of us winning the day before proved decisive. If we hadn’t, Ferrari would have carried the day. They would have been able to say: ‘Look, these bastards are uncompetitive because they’ve narrowed their car, so they did have an unfair advantage when it was wider in Spain. They shouldn’t get their points back.’ But we proved by winning with the narrower car that it made no difference, and the hearing said ‘okay.’”

  Hunt, not quite able to believe the turn of events, simply said: “It has been a pleasant surprise being reinstated into Spain.”

  Added to the points won in France, Hunt now had 18 extra points and Lauda had lost three. In the space of two days, Hunt had effectively moved 21 points closer to Lauda. With Lauda now at 52 points, Hunt was up to 26.

  At the halfway point in the season, winning the world championship no longer seemed as impossible as it had only 48 hours earlier.

  CHAPTER 22

  Fiasco at Brands Hatch 1976

  A fantastic British feeling

  The British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1976 was always going to be a grudge match between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and Ferrari and McLaren. Enzo Ferrari kicked off the hate when he told Italian journalists that the decision to reinstate Hunt into the Spanish Grand Prix results was “a wicked verdict” and that the perfect revenge would be for his cars to trounce McLaren at their home race.

  Newspapers were full of inevitable speculation about Hunt’s chances of winning the British Grand Prix. The last English, as opposed to British, driver to win it had been the late Peter Collins, driving a Ferrari in 1958, some 18 years earlier.

  When James Hunt arrived at London’s Heathrow airport from Marbella to compete in the British Grand Prix he was greeted by a crowd of enthusiastic fans, and it gradually began to dawn on him just how popular he had become. He had arrived for ten days of non-stop activity before the race on 18th July.

  His sponsors, Texaco, Vauxhall and Marlboro made the most of Hunt’s presence, arranging various promotional events throughout the week. He had also agreed to appear at some charity events. But the highlight of the week for him was a Rolling Stones concert at Earl’s Court, where Hunt found himself in greater demand even than Mick Jagger.

  He was also the star turn at a big televised event at the Albert Hall called ‘Grand Prix Night With The Stars.’ The event was org
anised by CSS and promoted by Barrie Gill and Andrew Marriott on behalf of John Webb, who decided he needed something big to promote the Grand Prix. It was dedicated to the Graham Hill Memorial Fund, as Marriott remembers: “We came up with the concept of ‘The Grand Prix Night With The Stars’ and we knew people in those days, and we managed to get it televised on the BBC.” They even persuaded legendary BBC producer Ernest Maxim to produce it. The Albert Hall’s private boxes were packed with celebrities in evening dress who had paid UK£500 for a box.

  Marriott had planned for Hunt to be there to take a curtain call on stage and was surprised when he approached him back stage on the night and said: “I play the trumpet, you know. I can do something on stage.” He then added: “I tell you what, I’ll play them my trumpet.” A sceptical Marriott humoured him, but Hunt insisted and took to the stage during a gap in proceedings. Hunt was introduced by celebrity astronomer Patrick Moore, who had just done his own impromptu performance of what he called his “soft-shoe shuffle.” Moore reached for a trumpet left behind on the bandstand by Chris Barber, who had done an earlier turn. “You’re supposed to be good at blowing your own trumpet,” he said, “so try this one.” The audience laughed, expecting a comedy routine. But Hunt took the trumpet and the band began to play. As the event was live, Marriott was worried sick and remembers: “He did this trumpet thing and I think a lot of people will remember that forever. It was absolutely fantastic, the highlight of the evening, and yet another side to him.”

  It fact, it was a memorable moment as Hunt, dressed in t-shirt and denim jeans, played as good as any professional. The audience roared with undisguised approval. Afterwards, Peter Hunt said: “I had hell of a job convincing the BBC, who were recording the show, that James really was a good enough trumpet player to perform on TV. He learned to play at about 12 or 13, when he was at Wellington. He was in the school orchestra and the school band, and played solo at concerts.”

  But Hunt was self-deprecating about his abilities afterwards, saying modestly: “You have to be very good to make a nice noise completely solo on the trumpet, and I’m just not good enough.”

  One person sitting at the Albert Hall that night was Stuart Turner, public affairs director of Ford of Britain, who had last witnessed Hunt’s shenanigans at Vallelunga, when he had disrupted the Formula Ford race there in 1968. He said: “Now I have seen everything: James Hunt playing the trumpet at the Albert Hall.” Turner went home that night utterly bemused that the thuggish young man he had met and chastised eight years earlier had just played trumpet solo at the Albert Hall in front of eight thousand people live, and millions more on television to boot.

  Aside from the fun and games, there was also some more serious business, as Hunt had to drive a Vauxhall in the Texaco Tour of Britain. The Tour was a big promotion for both Texaco and Vauxhall, two of his biggest sponsors. With its mix of race and rally style driving on public roads and with special stages at race tracks, the event attracted celebrities as well as race drivers. CSS had set up the deal and Hunt was being paid US$25,000 to do it.

  Hunt drove a Vauxhall Magnum, a sporty version of the Vauxhall Viva – then the most popular car in Britain. His co-driver was BBC radio presenter, Noel Edmonds. Edmonds was an amateur race driver and car buff who also flew his own helicopter. Edmonds remembers: “We got in this car and off we went. I was navigating and James did all the driving. It was my job to make sure the car was ready for the races and to get James in the right place at the right time, which was not easy.”

  In truth, Hunt and Edmonds, although they furiously denied it at the time, did not get on too well. The problem was that, right at the start of the event, Hunt had insulted Edmonds’ then wife, Gill. Hunt didn’t understand why Edmonds had brought along his wife and thought she was getting in the way. When Edmonds told him she was part of his support team, Hunt laughed in front of her. Edmonds recalls: “I remember him being extraordinarily rude to my wife. Gill really loved motor racing and of course she thought James Hunt was wonderful, but he was a sexist bastard.” He adds: “He just seemed to delight in dismissing her involvement and her presence.”

  With two colourful personalities in the same car, the newspapers had a field day and sensationalist headlines captured every incident-packed day, or so it seemed – there were soon reports of crashes, clashes with the police and altercations with other motorists.

  Hunt eventually began wondering why he had agreed to participate in the strange event in the first place. Sensing that he had been forced into it by Texaco and Vauxhall, he sought to end the charade as soon as he could. He drove wildly, reasoning that a crash would allow him to retire and retreat to his parents’ house for some peace and quiet. The wrong tyres were fitted to the car early on and Hunt lost control, slamming into a tree on a timed section over a stretch of forest track.

  Edmonds was astonished at what happened: “James was not good at driving on the loose stuff. The tree we hit, you would have missed and I would have missed. When we went into this tree, it was a phenomenal experience – he hit it absolutely square on. We came down this straight bit and I said: ‘90 right.’ He was on the brakes and we just went straight into a bloody big tree. We hit it so hard and so square that if we’d had a rear seat passenger, he could have changed gears for us. The engine came into the cockpit. I think he was really embarrassed.”

  Hunt wanted to retire the car there and then, but Edmonds said it could be fixed. The disagreement escalated into a furious row between the two men, with Edmonds winning and the car being attended to overnight.

  In fact, the car actually had to be replaced with an entirely new one, which was against the rules and a sure sign that they should have retired. But Hunt and Edmonds were the stars of the event, and Vauxhall was going to use any means possible to keep them in the race. The next day, newspaper reports said that Hunt apparently had behaved like a “spoilt child” when Edmonds tried to have the car repaired in order to continue in the rally. Although Hunt would later describe the altercation as an “amicable and reasoned discussion”, it most certainly was not.

  In another incident, Hunt and Edmonds were stopped by the police for speeding whilst trying to make up lost ground. Hunt became immersed in another argument, and it didn’t look good in the following day’s newspapers. He later admitted: “I won’t say I behaved very well on the Tour, but the outcome was a combination of circumstances and sensationalist reporting. The combination of circumstances was the fact that several separate small incidents happened; taking them into a combination made them quite big, and then exaggerating each story individually made the whole thing very big. That’s really what happened.”

  Edmonds saw it differently, thinking that the newspapers actually understated what happened: “We were chased by the police and I remember us driving down public roads in excess of 120, 130 miles an hour, and I was so cripplingly ashamed of what was happening that I tried to have my arm out of the car covering my name – because all the people we were cutting up, no, I mean scything through – there were people ending up on pavements and all sorts of things – the only name they would have seen painted on the side of the car was mine.”

  In the end, the two men fell so far behind with all the incidents that they had to retire from the event early. Fed up with the Tour, Hunt returned to his parents’ house in Surrey for a few days to himself. He said: “I realised I had been living my life up to the red line, and I had drained myself completely. The peace and quiet was like a cocoon to me. I needed my solitude. I needed to wind down totally before cranking myself up to the intense pitch which is vital to a good result in the race.”

  It was a wise decision as the 1976 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch was set to be a serious showdown between Hunt and Lauda. It was all so different from just six years prior, when he was competing in the Formula 3 race supporting the British Grand Prix and walking around the paddock with his shirt off, completely ignored by the spectators. As he walked around Brands six years later, he hankered after
anonymity. With that in mind, he sought out his old friend from 1970, Tony Dron. Dron was still driving in Formula 3 and, as he sat in his car on the starting grid, Hunt walked out of the pit lane to be with him.

  Brands Hatch was packed every day from Thursday to Sunday for the Grand Prix weekend. The maximum capacity was around 80,000, and it had been years since the race had attracted so many spectators. The attendance also benefited by the fact that the race was not being televised live. As expected, the BBC had withdrawn from its planned live broadcast because of the Durex logos on the Surtees cars. Embarrassingly, it was revealed that the CSS agency had brokered the deal with Surtees. But even Bernie Ecclestone supported John Surtees’ decision to keep the Durex logos on the cars. He knew that if he allowed TV broadcasters to dictate sponsorship deals, it would be a catastrophe for the sport. The deal was worth US$120,000 to Surtees, and his team would close without it.

  It was all very difficult for CSS and its directors, Andrew Marriott and Barrie Gill, because CSS also represented John Player, the cigarette brand. CSS had also brokered a deal for John Player to sponsor the whole Grand Prix as well as the Lotus team. Marriott recalls: “Our biggest client was John Player Special (JPS), and we were managing the Grand Prix for them. Another client was Durex.”

  The whole future of the CSS agency was threatened over the affair as Peter Dyke, the head of John Player’s sponsorship division, screamed down the phone to Marriott: “You’ve screwed us, you’ve screwed our TV coverage.”

  But Gill and Marriott managed to save the situation. They approached ITV and asked if it would be interested in broadcasting the race. ITV was very interested indeed. The BBC had a lockdown on Formula One because of its alliance with European Broadcasting Union, which then held the contract with the FIA for TV rights. ITV’s head of Sport, John Bromley, saw this as an opportunity to break the BBC’s domination of the sport. ITV was interested but was not about to clear its prestige Sunday afternoon schedule for a motor car race. Marriott remembers what happened: “Barry and I went to see John Bromley, and we said: ‘Any chance you could put the Grand Prix on ITV?’, And John said: ‘Not live, but if you shoot it then we’ll do a deal and put it on the following week.’ And so that’s what we did, and we got out of jail.”