Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  The diversity at the front was playing into the hands of Niki Lauda, who was ever-present at the front but by no means the fastest. But he failed to finish in Sweden, and Hunt only managed ninth. To Hunt’s chagrin, Mass was second in the old M23 car.

  At the French Grand Prix, held at Paul Ricard, Hunt sensed a real return to form. He liked the track and was entirely familiar with its special quirks. Mario Andretti was unstoppable in his Lotus and took pole, but Hunt was right next to him in the best showing for the M26 yet.

  In the race, Hunt got away cleanly and led for the first four laps. It was the first time he had actually led a race for over six months. But, failing to heed the wisdom of experience, he had been overindulging on pâté de foie gras again and was ill throughout the race and fell back to third. Poor old John Watson led most of the race but ran out of fuel on the last lap, and victory was inherited by Andretti, who was beginning to look as though he might be world champion as Lauda struggled in fifth. Watson was disconsolate afterwards, and Hunt hugged him and told him he felt his pain. As for Hunt, he had learnt none of the lessons of the past. Every time he was in France he overindulged on pâté de foie gras and paid the price.

  At the midpoint of the season, Hunt had not won one race. He tried to put his troubled season behind him and resolved to enjoy himself. The 1977 British Grand Prix was at Silverstone and, despite Lord Hesketh’s money worries, it was the perfect excuse for a week of festivities, bingeing and consuming large quantities of Moët et Chandon champagne. A huge number of Hesketh and Hunt cronies descended on Easton Neston, the beautiful Georgian house three miles from the Silverstone circuit.

  The race was notable for the debut of a new type of car in Formula One. The Renault RS01 took advantage of rules that allowed teams to run a 1.5-litre turbocharged engine instead of a three-litre atmospheric engine. It was debuted by Jean-Pierre Jabouille. It was the start of an engine revolution that would eventually break the Ford Cosworth DFV monopoly. But that was still years away, and for the time being Jabouille had to cope with the huge time delay between pressing the throttle pedal and the car actually moving.

  Hunt thought it a novel idea but had many other things on his mind. He was enjoying himself with his friends, and his morale was boosted by the in-house fan club who was cheering him on. But others were not so happy with the British world champion. Some unknown figure had stickers made up which read: ‘James Hunt is a Steaming Turd.’ They were being sold outside the pit lane and appearing everywhere. There was one on the side of Jody Scheckter’s Wolf-Ford car and even one on the nose of Hunt’s own McLaren M26, which seemed not to bother him a bit.

  The prevalence of the stickers reflected Hunt’s unpopularity with journalists, who felt he had changed since becoming world champion. One journalist who felt strongly about him at the time was Autosport’s Nigel Roebuck. Roebuck said: “In his racing days, I never much cared for him. He had about him a posse of hangers-on to set your teeth on edge. They were not in any important sense offensive people, but they maddened you with their vacuous self-importance. The Marlboro motorhome was like a school common room of the worst kind.”

  In fact, Roebuck dreaded having to enter the Marlboro motorhome, where, as he said: “The loud and patronising retinue of Hunt worshippers would applaud and laugh uproariously at whatever James said or did. So whenever you went in there to ask him a question you’d get a facetious answer, given for the benefit of his audience. I found it all very uncomfortable and eventually I thought: ‘Well, that’s it, I’m not going to bother anymore.’”

  But Roebuck always suspected that this was not Hunt’s real personality, as he said: “Glamorous, successful, footloose and free, he was an obvious target for celebrity leeches. But there always lingered a suspicion that James himself did not really belong.”

  Many other prominent journalists detested him, including Peter Windsor and Maurice Hamilton.

  In 1977, Hamilton was just beginning his career and one of his jobs was to provide editorial material for a bi-monthly publication called James Hunt Magazine. It was the official publication of the James Hunt Fan Club. At races, Hamilton would spend hours sitting outside the Marlboro motorhome waiting for Hunt, as he recalls: “He knew why I was there and that it was in his best interests to talk to me. I didn’t then know him well enough or have enough clout to tell him to stop pissing about.”

  When Hamilton finally got the see Hunt, he and his friends made fun of the young Irishman.

  Hamilton says: “I thought he was a right sod.”

  One journalist thought to be Peter Windsor called Hunt’s behaviour: “Flagrantly petulant, insolent, rude and immature.”

  Ian Phillips was editor of Autosport in the years Hunt was successful in Formula One agrees with his colleagues that he was not a particularly pleasant man in those years. Phillips and many others believe that that success affected him for the worst as he says: “He lost the plot basically. We used to see him now and then, and we’d be civilised. But...”

  Phillips blames the hangers on that used to surround him in those days. He says: “He had an entourage of people around him and he enjoyed his fame and his money. I suppose these days you’d call them hangers on. He liked to be around mates, he was not good on his own, but you know what happens, you get to a stage when you’ve achieved things and suddenly a load of sycophantic toss pots turn up tell you you’re wonderful. It’s the intoxication of fame.”

  Alan Henry, thought that Hunt went from being “immensely genial company in the early seventies to becoming a bit tiresome, partly because he surrounded himself with some tiresome people.”

  Even Jackie Stewart was critical of his behaviour, saying in 1977: “James Hunt would be all right when he grows up.”

  Hunt heard all the criticism and was surprised how vehement it was but he didn’t have time to worry about it, as he said: “I certainly don’t expect to be loved wherever I go, but I do sometimes feel that the press make their own decisions about people and it is very difficult to change their minds.”

  Alastair Caldwell, said: “James was always sure of himself, but he became even cockier and a lot of people didn’t like it. He was a bit of a smart-ass. No doubt about it. But he was getting frustrated by so many journalists asking him so many stupid questions. Some of the good ones knew how to ask sensible questions, but they were in the minority.”

  Caldwell took some of the blame and said: “James’ problem with the press was partly the team’s fault, because the atmosphere at McLaren at the time, mostly engendered by me, was like a fortress mentality. We were not sympathetic to journalists, mostly because most of them were just so asinine and you had to be asinine to talk to them. You needed a company asshole, a PR person to talk to them, and we didn’t have one.”

  Hunt tried to excuse himself by saying: “Don’t forget, I came from nowhere. I’d just won my first Grand Prix in the year before I became world champion. So I was pitched pretty heavily in at the deep end. When I was driving everything was fine, but all the rest of it, what people expected of a world champion, really got to me. It was a huge change and all I could do was operate in the only way I knew – which was not to compromise myself. I just had to get on with it, in my own odd style.”

  Bubbles Horsley took a different view and said Hunt had always been exactly the same but that no one had been listening or bothered before – as he explained: “I don’t think he changed at all. He always said and did what he felt like. I just think he had a bigger audience. More people were listening and he was taken more seriously – which was probably a great mistake.”

  Roger Benoit, the veteran Swiss journalist, then also starting out, said later: “He would not ask himself if he should say something, he would just say it. He never worried about saying the wrong thing, like some other drivers who only want you to write nice things about them. James was not a member of that club. He was no ass-licker.” Benoit, unlike many of his colleagues appreciated that.

  But ordinary fans attending t
he British Grand Prix knew little of such matters, and cared even less. He had 30,000 cheering fans on the Saturday of qualifying, and he put the M26 on pole position for the first time. Inevitably, John Watson was alongside him in the Brabham-Alfa Romeo, and Niki Lauda lurked just behind them, with Scheckter fourth. Andretti was nowhere on a track where grip was not particularly at a premium. Jabouille qualified the turbo Renault 16th and impressed no one.

  Hunt had trouble with his clutch on the start line, and Watson got ahead and stayed in the lead for 60 of the 68 laps. Then his car started to suffer from fuel starvation and he retired. Hunt inherited an easy lead and crossed the chequered flag in first place, cheered on by ecstatic British fans. It was his first victory of 1977. Afterwards, Hunt admitted that for the second race in succession, Watson was the fastest man in Formula One. He said: “It was cruel luck and I really felt sorry for him.” But, he added with a twinkle: “I was still very happy to see him go.”

  The race was also marked by the Formula One debut of Canadian, Gilles Villeneuve. Hunt had been directly responsible for putting Villeneuve into Formula One and the McLaren team. Villeneuve, driving Hunt’s old M23, looked as though he would finish fourth in his first race. But a faulty engine temperature gauge meant an unnecessary pit stop after which he was 11th, where he stayed to the finish.

  Hunt was once again on top of the world and thought a good end-of-season run could still deliver him the world championship.

  The day after his triumph, he played in a charity cricket match at the home of Earl Spencer, father of the future Princess of Wales. He drove straight to Althorp Park from Easton Neston. He was playing for the Duke of Gloucester’s XI, against the Lord’s Taverners’ XI. Some three thousand spectators crowded into Althorp that day to watch him play.

  Straight after that, he flew to Monte Carlo to play in a lucrative backgammon tournament. As he walked round Monaco, unmolested and virtually unrecognised, for a moment he considered leaving Spain and moving closer to his friend Jody Scheckter. But he decided he would become bored too quickly and shelved the idea.

  After Monaco, Hunt went home to Marbella for a few days and Niki and Marlene Lauda came to visit. He then flew to England for the launch of his book Against All Odds. With the publication of his long-delayed 1976 season memoirs, he could finally collect the rest of his advance from publisher Paul Hamlyn. Hunt was five hours late for the start of the party due to an airline strike, but the book was nevertheless a huge success and easily earned Hunt’s advance for the publisher. It sold 175,000 copies before the end of the year and ended up in the Christmas stockings of many of Britain’s delighted schoolboys.

  The book may have been a success, but Hunt’s career was going in the opposite direction.

  The next four races in Germany, Austria, Holland and Italy saw him retire four times in a row. It was a devastating sequence. In Germany, he was third when an exhaust pipe fell off. In Austria, where he was on pole position, his fuel pump cracked. At Monza, after a supreme effort, he put his car on pole in the final minute of qualifying. Looking set to win on a very fast track ideally suited to him and his car, he spun it, damaged the steering arm and was out.

  The Austrian Grand Prix was marked by the maiden Grand Prix win for both a driver and team. It was a very rare event when Alan Jones won the Shadow team’s only Formula One victory. It marked some welcome relief for the team after Tom Pryce’s death only a few months before. It also highlighted what might have been for Pryce and Shadow. Hunt was very pleased for Alan Jones, whom he liked.

  Of those four races, Hunt had shown the most promise in Holland, two weeks before his Italian Grand Prix flame out. The Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort now had a special place in his heart. It had been the scene of two back-to-back victories in 1975 and 1976. But 1977 was not to be remembered for what he did on the track.

  It was the weekend of his birthday, and he managed to qualify third after Andretti on pole and Laffite beside him. Lauda was fourth. Hunt had a terrific start and actually led the first four laps. But on lap four came one of the worst moments of his career. He had a coming together with Mario Andretti’s Lotus at the exit of Tarzan bend. Tarzan is the only high-banked turn on all the Formula One circuits and is especially tricky, even for brave drivers.

  Andretti was chasing down Hunt after a poor start; he easily had the faster car and Hunt was defending his position. Andretti had a big grip advantage from his ground effects.

  Hunt was leading and Andretti challenged him on the outside of the Tarzan corner. Andretti was going to use his superior grip to drive right round him. The two men disputed the corner and neither would yield.

  Andretti, lacking Hunt’s straight line speed, remembered: “I couldn’t get him clean going into the corner. I had a few tries on the inside and I baited him to chop me off on the outside and I just took a nice arc on the outside. I was totally alongside of him at the exit and he just ran right over my right front wheel.” Hunt crashed out, but Andretti drove on. A few laps later, Andretti retired as his Ford engine blew up.

  In the pits, Hunt blew his top. Before Andretti’s own retirement, Hunt approached Lotus team owner Colin Chapman and delivered a tirade. He shouted at Chapman: “Your driver will never win the world championship until he learns not to hit people on the track.” It was an astonishing display of impoliteness and disrespect to Chapman, the most revered figure in Formula One. Andretti was furious when he heard of Hunt’s exchange with Chapman, retorting: “He’s a silly jerk. James Hunt is champion of the world right? The problem is he thinks he’s king of the goddamned world as well.” Hunt insisted that Andretti’s choice of a passing place, so early in the race, was absurd: “It was his race, he had the best car and, sooner or later, he was going to get by me easily.”

  As Andretti told a journalist after the incident: “Hunt said to me: ‘Well, the thing is in Formula One you’re not expected to pass on the outside.’ I said: ‘Well, where I come from you pass wherever you can.’ I thought he was making a stupid statement, actually. I told him: ‘I deserve that piece of real estate as much as you do, and so you have to drive accordingly.’ He ignored me, drove right into me and is trying to blame me because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had him and he didn’t accept it.”

  Back in the press room, Hunt was ridiculed for coming out with the statement ‘We don’t pass on the outside in Formula One.’ There was laughter.

  Nigel Roebuck had strong views about what happened in Holland: “Mario had been all over him, lap after lap. They came out of the corner more or less side by side with James still slightly ahead, but with Mario’s front wheels alongside James’ cockpit. James really did what Michael Schumacher does a dozen times a year these days – it was just as if Mario wasn’t there, he just took his car right out to the edge of the track leaving Mario nowhere to go but off. They touched and, as it turned out, that was the end of the race for both of them.”

  Roebuck attempted to get Hunt’s view of the incident afterwards and found him almost deranged: “I remember him screaming and ranting and raving, so then I went to see Mario. Mario was every bit as angry, but quiet. It was a very vivid thing.”

  Afterwards, when Hunt could see he was not winning the argument, he changed tack and said his mirrors were dirty and he couldn’t see Andretti coming up behind him. It was yet another paddock incident in which he did not come out smelling of roses.

  The noise Hunt was making in Zandvoort provided cover for the eventual race winner Niki Lauda to conclude a deal with Bernie Ecclestone to switch to the Brabham-Alfa Romeo team for the 1978 season. It was Lauda’s revenge for the way Enzo Ferrari had treated him. The Alfa Romeoengine Brabham had been highly competitive during 1977 and looked a good bet for 1978. But Lauda knew the news that he was leaving for another Italian-connected team would infuriate Ferrari, so he kept it secret until the world championship was decided. As it was, Lauda had spent most of year avoiding Enzo, who had been chasing him to sign a new contract once he started besting Reutema
nn.

  Lauda’s move to Brabham also signalled another milestone in Formula One history. He negotiated himself the first million dollar a year salary. Ecclestone seemed to be itching to read that headline and, as a consummate dealmaker, he was almost desperate to be the first team owner to pay it. Lauda sensed this and used it to his advantage. Ecclestone had more than doubled Lauda’s salary in order to secure him.

  Lauda would later take enormous pleasure in hurting the 78-year-old Enzo Ferrari. He was quoted as saying: “I was happy that my departure would be a slap in the face for Enzo Ferrari.”

  Undoubtedly angry with Enzo for the way he had treated him after his accident, Lauda was even more upset with the “self-serving advisers” who surrounded him and exploited his age. After he had signed, and purely for his own amusement, Lauda finally opened negotiations with Enzo and, as he admitted in his autobiography To Hell and Back: “I really enjoyed turning down the most generous offer [Enzo] surely ever made.” But when he told Enzo he didn’t want to stay at the team, Enzo assumed it was a bluff. Later, it emerged that Enzo and his advisers had been totally unaware of his negotiations with Ecclestone.

  By the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen on 2nd October, any chance James Hunt may have harboured of retaining his world championship was gone. As expected, Niki Lauda’s fourth place was enough to see him crowned world champion for the second time. Lauda had only won three races all year but picked up six second place finishes along the way. In the absence of a dominant driver, Lauda’s consistency won him the championship. In truth, Andretti, Reutemann, Watson, Scheckter or Hunt could just as easily been champion had things gone their way.