Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  Meanwhile, Lauda, unaware of all the drama, had enjoyed a steady race and managed to finish fourth. It was the bravest driving performance ever seen in Formula One – before or since. When he took off his helmet after the race, his fireproof balaclava was soaked in blood; his head and face wounds had opened up. The repercussions for the scarring on his face would be enormous. But he had done what he came to do, and had increased his championship lead. Hunt not finishing had been a huge bonus. Lauda’s courageous comeback had exceeded all expectations, not least those of his English rival.

  Hunt was full of praise, and any ill feelings towards Lauda from the past were genuinely put aside as the two men became temporary friends again and started speaking everyday on the telephone. Hunt said: “To virtually step out of the grave and six weeks later to come fourth in a Grand Prix is a truly amazing achievement.” He added: “Niki drove a typical Niki race; well-contained within himself and within his new limitations.”

  As they conversed, Lauda and Hunt found they had much in common: both were serial womanisers with a passion for sex and women, although Lauda did not share Hunt’s fondness for drink and recreational drugs.

  The race was won by Ronnie Peterson in the March-Ford; the first win by March in almost five years and the first for Peterson since he left Lotus. Regazzoni was second and Jacques Laffite third in his Ligier. The three points Lauda won for finishing fourth in Italy gave him a five-point lead over Hunt, with Lauda on 61 points and Hunt on 56.

  If he couldn’t win, Hunt was delighted by Peterson’s return to the winner’s circle. Ronnie Peterson was the driver he admired most in Formula One, as he said: “Ronnie is an absolutely straight driver. He doesn’t need to do anything silly because he’s that good.” But he did have some advice for Peterson and told him why he thought he had never won the championship in spite of clearly being the fastest driver for the past five years: “His physical fitness is perhaps suspect, and I would think Ronnie’s problem is his inability to make the right decisions when he is setting up the car.” It was typical Hunt honesty about his favourite driver.

  When the race was over, Ferrari team manager Daniele Audetto was very embarrassed by what had gone on that day. He confessed admiration for Hunt, saying that the crowd’s hatred had been directed at the McLaren team and not at Hunt personally. Audetto then decided to make some predictions about what would happen in the last three races. He predicted Hunt would win the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, finish second at the Canadian and third in Japan. Lauda, he said, would win the Canadian Grand Prix, finish second at the Japanese and not score at all at Watkins Glen. How he knew all this was beyond anyone’s guess, but his predictions were widely reported around the world and taken seriously by many.

  Audetto also praised Lauda’s teammate, Regazzoni, predicting he would finish third, second and first respectively. But it was all typical Italian false praise as Enzo Ferrari had already decided to fire Regazzoni and replace him permanently with Reutemann after Monza.

  Audetto’s ultimate prophecy was that Lauda would take the championship by one point from Hunt, 76 to 75. But interestingly, Audetto’s prediction took no account of the outcome of Ferrari’s protest against the British Grand Prix and the mountain that Hunt still had to climb to win.

  The future for Hunt might have meant that things could only get better – but first they would have to get much worse.

  CHAPTER 26

  The bittersweet October 1976

  To the wire in North America

  James Hunt flew back to London’s Heathrow airport from Milan and then caught a flight to New York America, where he earned another US$10,000 competing in his second IROC race of the year. He then flew to Toronto and tested at Mosport for a few days prior to the Grand Prix, and then back to Spain via Heathrow. A few days later, he flew back to Toronto to get ready for the race at the Mosport track on the 3rd October.

  It was an extraordinary schedule motivated by his desire to earn some extra money and spend a few days at home in peace before the end of the summer and the run-in to the championship-deciding races.

  When he finally got there, Hunt was looking forward to having a marvellous time in Canada, playing squash and enjoying the country’s many attractions. His libido seemed to be at its highest, as he had a different woman on his arm every evening and was even indulging during the day where he could. There was an embarrassing moment at the Mosport track during testing when he seduced the circuit manager’s wife while her husband was standing nearby. Getting on very well with the woman, Hunt spotted an empty ambulance by the pits with the doors unlocked and invited her inside. Meanwhile, her husband strolled up the McLaren pit to have a word with Caldwell just as the ambulance was rocking on its shock absorbers in the background. Back at the hotel in the evenings, Hunt was also busy seducing the singer of the band that was entertaining in the hotel lounge.

  But Hunt should never have been in Canada at all. In going so early and not attending the upcoming FIA Court of Appeal in Paris, he made a catastrophic error of judgment that would cost him dear.

  The hearing had been called in Paris after Ferrari had appealed Hunt’s win at the British Grand Prix, arguing he should have been disqualified after the race was restarted. Hunt was the principal witness and, arguably, the only witness who mattered. He was simply too lazy to go and was overconfident about the result, as he said: “I didn’t see how they could possibly throw us out because it was an open and shut case as far as the legalities were concerned.” But he admitted later: “I was a little nervous of the outcome.”

  Much of the blame for Hunt’s absence at the hearing lay at the feet of Teddy Mayer. Mayer was a trained lawyer and must have known how important Hunt’s testimony would be, but he still wasn’t able to exert his authority over the driver and make him attend.

  Hunt said later that he didn’t want anything negative distracting him from the last two races in North America. He was in a very confident mood and was totally focused on the world championship. He wasn’t sure he could beat Lauda for the title, but he believed he would run him close.

  Hunt was up for the fight. At that point, Lauda was only five points ahead with three races to go. He said: “I was all set to give it a go. I was fired up and wanted to drive, and the only place I could be on my own to get on with the job was in the car. So I enjoyed my driving there more than ever because it was such a relief. The rest of it I hated.”

  But the joy he felt was about to be undone as the FIA Court of Appeal in Paris got underway to consider an appeal by the Ferrari team as to whether the Hunt’s McLaren-Ford should have been disqualified from the results of the British Grand Prix. The hearing was in front of a six-member panel of judges composed of FIA delegates from France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland and the United States of America.

  Ferrari’s arguments were presented by its team manager Daniele Audetto, accompanied by two lawyers. Audetto stated that, after the accident at the start of the race, Hunt’s car had been abandoned by the driver and was being pushed by the McLaren mechanics while the race was still in progress, and was therefore incapable of completing the first lap.

  McLaren’s defence, presented by Teddy Mayer and a lawyer representing the British Royal Automobile Club, stated that Hunt stopped only when he saw the red flag being displayed and that the car was only pushed after the race had been officially halted. Hunt, they maintained, could and would have completed the lap had he felt it necessary.

  Teddy Mayer brought with him to the proceedings a heavy video cassette machine and a recording of the race, supplied by Barrie Gill’s CSS agency. This, he thought, substantiated McLaren’s claim beyond doubt. Caldwell agreed: “We had clear video evidence of him driving the car, the video was taken to Paris and a CSS producer swore that this was untouched film.”

  But, without Hunt, it was still all hearsay and they effectively had no case. Moreover, his absence annoyed the six judges immensely; it smacked of arrogance.

  Ferrari m
ade no such mistake, as Niki Lauda showed up to give evidence. Although Lauda had not really been involved, he was nevertheless present to give what evidence he could. Having travelled from Vienna to Paris for the hearing, Lauda arrived at the hearing with a blood soaked bandage on his head. Since his wounds had healed by then, it was pure Italian theatrics to gain the court’s sympathy. In top form, Lauda was very persuasive and appeared to sway the judges.

  Additionally, Lauda was portrayed, very effectively, by the Ferrari lawyers as a victim. If Hunt had been there, he might have countered the argument. But he wasn’t and he didn’t.

  The hearing took 11 hours, completed in one session, and the next day the secretary of the FIA delivered the verdict. It was simple: Hunt was disqualified from the results of the British Grand Prix and would lose nine points. To make matters worse, Lauda was promoted to winner and gained three points.

  All in all, Hunt had effectively lost 12 points. The points score now stood at Lauda 64 and Hunt 47; a 17-point difference. And it was all the English driver’s own fault.

  Hunt was playing squash in Toronto on a Tuesday afternoon when he heard the news. Somehow, a call from a Canadian journalist got through to him and he was handed a piece of paper by a club staffer that read: “Call me back and be prepared for bad news.” Hunt knew exactly what that meant, as he said: “News is only good or bad, and it was going to be a black or white answer anyway.” With that, he effectively knew the result and didn’t immediately return the call. He decided to finish his game of squash first, as he said: “I wanted to think about it a bit, so I went to the changing rooms and straight down to the court. I’m pretty tough professionally and it’s difficult to move me because I’ve trained myself to be hard – there’s no mileage in letting things upset you. But boy, I couldn’t hit that squash ball and I couldn’t concentrate on the game at all.”

  By the time Hunt finished his game, word had travelled around and he had been joined at the squash club by a horde of journalists telling him more about what had happened. He described it as “a very heavy deal.”

  Hunt always maintained he was never given the real reason for being thrown out of the results. He said: “They never said why. In appeals prior to this, they had always stated the findings of the court and their reasons for finding it, but in this case all they did was issue a result.”

  There was only one possible reason in Hunt’s mind: the FIA simply had chosen to disbelieve the witnesses, including the clerk of the course and the marshals. Hunt never considered his own absence to have been the reason. He said: “The fact was that my car was running and hadn’t retired, and I can’t see how anyone can talk about a driver’s intentions because not even I knew then whether I intended to retire or not – it was totally irrelevant.” But he had not been there to tell them. Now 3,500 miles away, it struck him that perhaps he had been wrong not to go to the hearing. Years later, he tried to rewrite history by saying the hearing took place a week after it did: “I was already in Canada waiting, ready to race. I have to say it was a supreme shock to me to get the news from Paris two days before practice for the Canadian Grand Prix started.” But his protestations were undone by Lauda’s appearance in Paris at the hearing. Alastair Caldwell remembered: “Niki was the living saint, and the silly old sod who did the deciding decided that it was unfair on poor Niki.”

  Principally, Hunt blamed Ferrari for having brought such an unnecessary appeal. Hunt said: “I happened to be the guy who was beating the great Ferrari machine and they didn’t like it. They’ve done a lot of work to make sure I didn’t succeed, starting with the fuel business at Monza, and now this.” He added, for good effect: “Combining this news with the Italian fiasco, I felt really cheated – yes, cheated. Here I was in a position to win the world championship after ten years of effort and here I was being politically assassinated, being cheated by events over which I had no control whatsoever. It was downright wrong and there was just nothing I could do about it.”

  Teddy Mayer was totally shocked by the result and said: “James won the race fair and square; there was no question about that, there was no question of his car being illegal.” But Hunt did admit he and the team were somewhat at fault: “Quite honestly, neither I nor McLaren took it particularly seriously because there was nothing in the rule book, no grounds in the rules that could possibly suggest that I was going to be disqualified or that it was going to be a problem. As a result, I think McLaren and Teddy Mayer didn’t set up a proper defence when they went to Paris in September.”

  Alastair Caldwell summed it all up: “We were never any good at politics at McLaren. We got done.”

  As everyone assembled in Canada, Lauda and the whole Ferrari team was cock-a-hoop about the result of the appeal and some gloating in the press was inevitable. It stirred up tremendous resentment between Hunt and Lauda, and any notions of friendship or rapprochement apparent after the Italian Grand Prix were long gone.

  Lauda was quoted as being “delighted at the outcome” and, elsewhere, “madly delighted.” To journalists who contacted him at his home in Austria, he said it was a “proper thing” that the FIA court had done and that “at last a positive decision had been taken.” Lauda laid it on thick for the press, and Hunt got very worked up when he read it.

  Hunt accepted any television interview offered to him to attack Lauda and Ferrari, and Lauda responded in kind. Hunt said: “We all live in glass houses and I don’t understand the self-righteousness that was shown by Ferrari saying that they never broke rules. It’s alright to say those things, but to say them and believe them is something else. To display the sort of self-righteousness that Ferrari did seems to me childish.”

  Lauda felt that Hunt was overreacting and being malicious: “When I was robbed of the Spanish Grand Prix, James did not say anything to me or tell me that it was a bad decision. So why should I say anything to him about the decision at Brands Hatch? Sure it was a surprise to me; I did not think that the FIA would cancel his Brands Hatch win, but they took the evidence and they decided that it should be cancelled. It is very tough luck on James; he drove a very good race that day. But the decision has been made and we must accept it. We must not go on shouting about it in public.”

  The stage was set for a nasty confrontation as the teams checked in at the Flying Dutchmen Motel near Bowmanville, 45 miles from Toronto. Hunt described the atmosphere as “tightrope tension” as he said: “I eventually got so depressed by the whole scene that I locked myself in my room on the Thursday night and waited for Friday’s official practice and the opportunity to get back to the sanity of the cockpit of my car. Once I was in the car, all the aggravation, all the pressure disappeared and I concentrated on driving. It was beautiful.”

  Certainly, the surroundings were. The 2.1-mile Mosport circuit is situated in idyllically magical lake land surrounded by a wilderness of trees beautifully red-brown in the early autumn. But it suffered for being under snow for most of the winter and the circuit was not well maintained. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association safety committee, led by Lauda, remonstrated with the organisers over the condition of the track. Getting no satisfaction, a meeting was scheduled to discuss it. When asked by Lauda to attend the circuit safety meeting, Hunt argued with him and reportedly said: “To hell with safety. All I want to do is race.”

  Lauda thought Hunt was still angry about losing the Brands Hatch appeal, and said: “We have been friends, but James broke the rules in England. If you break the rules, you are out. No argument. Now he shouts at me. This is not right. He should respect me as a driver. We have a job to do. Bad feeling only makes it more difficult.”

  Hunt didn’t attend the official safety committee meeting and made a flimsy excuse. It severely weakened the drivers’ position. The truth was that there was a real danger of the race being cancelled, and that was not in Hunt’s interests at all. With one less race, he had no chance of winning the championship. But, of course, Hunt wasn’t about to admit that. Drivers always maintain that safety
is paramount, but on this occasion, as far as James Hunt was concerned, it wasn’t.

  His behaviour completely disrupted the post-Monza harmony between the two drivers. But Hunt later admitted that, for tactical reasons, he was keen to inflame the situation rather than cool it down: “I was deliberately trying to make Niki think that I was freaked out by what was happening so he would steer clear of me on the track. It was purely a professional piece of gamesmanship. If you can psych out another driver and make him frightened of you, then he’s much easier to pass. I certainly wasn’t about to shove him off the track, but I wanted him to think I was in that frame of mind.”

  Tossing aside their ethics, journalists also began to fuel the anger between the two drivers. Hunt, realising that Lauda had tried to psyche him out earlier in the year by having the last rites administered to make him think he was out of the title race altogether, retaliated. Believing he could intimidate Lauda to the point where he would let him pass on the track rather than risk a confrontation that might put both of them out, he added: “I had cultivated the idea with Niki that I was worked up and, without every saying it, made him think that.”