Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  It was a whole month before the next race in South Africa on 3rd March, and in the break Hunt resolved to do the best he could for Wolf and to make his last season as memorable as possible despite the limitations of his team and car. But in his heart of hearts he realised there was nothing he could do to make the Wolf go faster. His only real hope was a new car Harvey Postlethwaite had designed. But the team’s growing cash shortage had made the new car late.

  He resolved to cut down on his drinking that month and he stopped the drugs altogether; he was training harder than ever before. In truth, he had suddenly lost the taste for both alcohol and drugs. His sudden abstinence from drink and recreational drugs caused him some health problems and he had strong withdrawal symptoms that became apparent at the next race in South Africa, on 3rd March.

  At that race, his views on the capabilities of his mechanics were shown to be correct and this time the consequences would be catastrophic.

  During the first qualifying session, his Wolf-Ford’s brakes failed as he pressed hard on the pedal for a corner. The brake failure was total, and he was left helpless as the car headed straight for the steel barrier.

  In that brief moment, Hunt thought he was going to die and visions of François Cevert’s accident at Watkins Glen suddenly flashed through his mind.

  But somehow the car spun to a halt without hitting anything. Miraculously, the Wolf-Ford was completely undamaged. Hunt was in shock and had never before experienced total brake failure at high speed. He was also in double shock at the enormity of the accident he didn’t have.

  He staggered out of the car and barely knew where he was. Realising he had had a very lucky escape, he then couldn’t stop thinking about the look of fear on Ronnie Peterson’s face as he had lain on the tarmac at Monza. The Cevert and Peterson flashbacks in quick succession spooked him and made the shock more severe. By chance, Jackie Stewart, commentating for the SABC, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, was nearby and went out to see if he was alright.

  Stewart quickly realised that Hunt was anything but alright. He saw he was in a state of extreme shock and walked with him back to the pits. As Hunt pulled out a cigarette, his hands were shaking so much that Stewart had to light it for him.

  Stewart described Hunt as “a truly frightened man” after the accident. He said: “James was physically shaking, which is something I had not previously ever seen in a racing driver. I walked with him down the pit lane right after the incident; he was clearly considerably affected by it and was physically incapable of holding the cigarette in his hand steady. It was a major shake.”

  Rob Walker, the legendary former team owner, was working with the Wolf team as a consultant. Hunt adored Walker and had huge respect for his achievements in Formula One in the sixties. He sat down next to him, wanting some immediate advice. Hunt’s overwhelming feeling was that he should retire on the spot, return to Spain and forget the money.

  Walker remembered him being all set to retire, as he told Hunt biographer Gerald Donaldson many years later: “That day in South Africa, we had a great deal of trouble getting him back in the car. In fact, I did it myself, by talking to him about religion. I said that God would protect him whatever happened and, as long as he knew that, it would be all right.”

  From previous chats, Walker knew that Hunt was getting to dislike motor racing but he told him there was “just one mind in charge of him, and that mind was not his but from above. And as long as he put himself in the hands of that one mind, it would be absolutely safe.”

  Hunt was genuinely moved by what Walker said and, 15 minutes later, he got back into the car to carry on with qualifying. Walker confessed: “He was rather unwilling.”

  The incident made up Hunt’s mind and he decided he would retire as soon as he had received his retainer from Wolf for the first half of the season. The first person he told was David Gray, who was attending the race with Olympus Cameras. Hunt wanted to see what Gray’s reaction would be. As Gray recalls: “He just said to me: ‘I’m stopping.’ And I said: ‘Why’s that?’ And he said: ‘Because I don’t want to go on. I just don’t want to go on. I think it’s better if I don’t.’”

  Gray was unperturbed and said he was sure Olympus would understand: “I told him I thought I thought it was an incredibly brave decision. It wasn’t a problem for me and it was a brilliant decision for him.” Hunt told no one else about his decision that day.

  But he did recount the dreadful experience of the crash and the flashbacks. The Wolf mechanics couldn’t understand what all the drama was about when the car was returned to the pit lane unmarked. And that was part of the problem.

  There is little doubt that, without the presence of Jackie Stewart and Rob Walker, Hunt would have walked away from Formula One that day. Instead, Hunt somehow managed to qualify the Wolf-Ford 13th fastest. The race marked his only finish for the year, as he brought the car home eighth.

  Whereas in previous years he had loved Kyalami and staying at the ranch playing tennis with his friend Abe Segal, now he couldn’t wait to get out and fly home to Marbella.

  The race itself was interesting because Jean-Pierre Jabouille put the turbo charged Renault on pole position for the first time, aided by the high altitude and his Michelin radials. The Michelins were supreme at Kyalami. But it was Gilles Villeneuve and Jody Scheckter who dominated the race, with Villeneuve first. There was a five-week gap before the next race for the United States Grand Prix West, at Long Beach, on 8th April.

  By the time of the Grand Prix West, tensions were becoming apparent between Hunt and Olympus’ head of marketing in Europe, a man called Werner Teuffel. The relationship with the camera company overall was proving to be a success, but it was being undermined by personal tensions. As David Gray recalls: “I went whizzing around the world to virtually every single race and Olympus got a lot out of its association with James.”

  But Hunt took a strong dislike to Teuffel, as Gray adds: “Werner believed he was pretty good and James didn’t. He used to arrive with his entourage and they clashed. James just hated him and it was awful. Werner ran Europe and he was quite able. But he found Formula One smelly and eventually he got bored with it, so he didn’t come anymore.”

  There were also tensions in the team and especially between Harvey Postlethwaite and Hunt.

  Harvey Postlethwaite now had the new Wolf-Ford WR8 ready. Unfortunately however, it was slower than the WR7 and the brakes were a disaster. But Hunt was determined to develop it and chose to use it in the race.

  Driveshafts were a real problem at Long Beach and almost took the life of Jean-Pierre Jabouille. In early Saturday qualifying, Jabouille broke a driveshaft on his Renault on the curved straight and hit a concrete wall at 180 miles per hour. With a badly sprained arm, he was out of the race. Qualifying was a battle between Ferrari, Ligier and, surprisingly, Lotus. As was usually the case at Long Beach, the circuit was littered with broken cars by the end of each session. Carlos Reutemann, in the second Lotus, held the pole until the very end of the final session, when Gilles Villeneuve bumped him. The weather was surprisingly overcast and cold.

  After a slow start, the Long Beach race was proving a success and had attracted 100,000 fans, aided by having an American world champion. Not many Formula One races attracted 100,000 people on race day, but Long beach became on of them and Chris Pook’s reputation was redeemed. Suddenly, he became a respected member of the Formula One community.

  Sunday was sunny and warm, just in time for the race. After an aborted start, right from the restart Villeneuve led teammate Jody Scheckter home. It was the Canadian’s second consecutive win and the third Long Beach win in a row for Ferrari. Villeneuve was leading the world championship after four races. Hunt did not even complete the first lap after his gearbox mashed up on the start line.

  This led to a furious row with Warr and Postlethwaite over the state of the car’s preparation. The two men were defenceless, as Hunt had only finished one race in four and all his retirements had b
een down to the mechanics making mistakes. Postlethwaite later admitted to Hunt biographer Christopher Hilton: “It would be very easy for me as a designer to say that our car was perfect and that the driver was an idiot, but we didn’t give James a competitive car.”

  For the first time, Warr told Hunt that the team was having a funding problem as Walter Wolf ’s business deteriorated. But he assured him his own salary was ring-fenced and coming from Olympus. Postlethwaite said: “The car was barely competitive for a number of reasons, probably because at that stage the team was underfunded.” He added: “We were struggling to cope in the era of ground effects.” Hunt seemed unconcerned about the financial problems; he had seen what Postlethwaite had done under similar conditions at Hesketh.

  The European season began with the Spanish Grand Prix on 29th April at Jarama circuit. Hunt was back in the Wolf-Ford WR7, as the WR8 had proved to be such a dog in testing. Hunt managed to qualify 15th but stopped his car on lap 26 of the race after the brakes began to fade and he became frightened of what might happen. Hunt said his Wolf ’s brakes were so poor, he “decided to call it a day.” Ligier was back on top of Formula One and Patrick Depailler won the race from the Lotuses of Reutemann and Mario Andretti.

  During the weekend, there was yet another row. Finding it unconstructive, Postlethwaite admitted later: “When you have a driver who is close to hysterical, it has a terribly unbalancing effect on the rest of the team, and it wasn’t a very pleasant situation for us or for him. He was, by that time, a fairly disruptive influence. The problem wasn’t only the team; part of the problem was undoubtedly James.” Postlethwaite admitted his relationship with Hunt had, by that time, deteriorated significantly: “He had it in for me because I think he saw me as the guy who couldn’t give him the car with which he could exit brilliantly from his career.” Peter Warr was disgusted by Hunt’s attitude in failing to help make the Wolf competitive. As Warr told Christopher Hilton, he “concluded that Hunt was driving for the money.”

  Hunt denied that accusation and said: When you’re driving an uncompetitive car and you’re a top line driver, and you are used to a good car and then you go into a bad one, it is difficult to maintain the interest and to maintain the competitive edge. But I am an instinctive, natural competitor which meant every time I got in a racing car, I can say with my hand on my heart that I tried my best.” He insisted to journalist that he was still motivated and told Nigel Roebuck: “I’d been very well trained at Hesketh racing by Bubbles, who taught me to recognise when things were going badly, the car wasn’t working well. We were in double figures on the grid and I taught myself how to recognise that problem and to prepare myself so that I always delivered in the car.”

  But try as he might, he realised the Wolf car was really a dog. When he saw Walter Wolf he suggested he rename the team, as the current moniker was no longer appropriate. Wolf did not see the funny side of Hunt’s remark. The situation was not helped by the lack of rapport between Wolf and Hunt. Wolf was a narcissist and Hunt didn’t have a narcissistic bone in his body. They were just not compatible people. It was only the soothing presence of Rob Walker that kept the Hunt-Wolf show on the road.

  As Hunt stopped his car in the Jarama pit lane, he irrevocably decided he had had enough of racing it. His relationship with Peter Warr was strained after all the car failures, and he finally realised that his friend Postlethwaite was not the car design genius he had initially believed him to be. He wondered why he had taken six years to work that one out.

  That evening, Hunt told Jane Birbeck he was definitely retiring and they discussed the change this would mean to their lives. After Birbeck, the first person Hunt called to tell the news was John Hogan. Hogan advised him not to be hasty and to think it through. If he was still determined, then he should seek specialist media help for the announcement. Hogan was careful to advise his friend that the manner of his exit would be important for his reputation and image, as well as his money-earning ability after he quit. He also reminded him that his Marlboro personal sponsorship deal would be cancelled when he stopped racing.

  Hunt told Hogan that the exact timing of the announcement would depend on when he received the first half of his retainer from Walter Wolf, some US$500,000. His contract required him to complete at least eight races to qualify for the money, which meant it wouldn’t be until the end of May. Hunt told Hogan that the news mustn’t break before his announcement. Hogan was used to keeping secrets, and Hunt knew he was the one man in the gossipy world of Formula One who could be trusted. At that stage, only Hogan and David Gray knew of his intentions, although Rob Walker and Sid Watkins had guessed that the end was near.

  Hunt was very pensive when he entered the paddock gates of the Zolder circuit for the Belgian Grand Prix on 13th May. He was well aware that this was his penultimate race in Formula One and he wanted to enjoy it.

  Qualifying was dominated once again by the Ligier-Fords of Jacques Laffite and Patrick Depailler, who annexed first and second on the starting grid. The surprise of qualifying was young Nelson Piquet, showing his potential by qualifying third in the Brabham-Alfa Romeo. Piquet was starting to get the better of his team leader Niki Lauda, who seemed almost as dispirited as James Hunt in a car that was now uncompetitive. Harvey Postlethwaite appeared to have the Wolf-Ford WR8 performing properly and the WR7 was finally retired for good. Hunt qualified ninth on the grid alongside Carlos Reutemann, but his mind was on his retirement announcement.

  In those days, public relations people were thin on the ground and all Formula One PR was handled by journalists in their spare time. It created an incestuous relationship between media, teams and sponsors; all of which were all represented by the same people. It effectively corrupted the coverage of Formula One, as the normal separation of what is called ‘church and state’ did not exist as it did in every other sport. It is a legacy that still continues today.

  So Hunt was forced to choose a journalist to handle the announcement. He realised that this was fraught with danger. The only journalist he knew well enough was Eoin Young, who had worked with him on the book Against All Odds. During the writing of that book, Young had been very discreet and nothing had leaked out prematurely. Young was one of the few writers in the press room not prone to gossip.

  Deciding to trust Young, Hunt sent Jane Birbeck off to the press room to find him. He handed her his pass so she could get in and she found him sitting at his temporary desk, looking out over his half moon reading glasses at his manual typewriter, trying to change a ribbon. As he struggled with the task at hand, she invited him into the Wolf motorhome for a meeting with her boyfriend. Young was delighted to leave his desk and the ribbon problem behind.

  When they arrived at the Wolf motorhome, Hunt was alone in the back room smoking one of his usual Rothmans. In his biography of Hunt, Gerald Donaldson records Young’s vivid account of what happened next: “The atmosphere was ominously quiet. He checked that the door was closed so no one could hear, then told me he was planning to announce his retirement at Monaco and asked if I would help him put together his tell-the-world announcement.”

  Young was shocked to say the least and immediately thought the job too big for him. So he recommended one of the big London PR firms. But Hunt told Young that he hadn’t received the first half of his retainer and felt he couldn’t trust a London PR agency not to leak the news early, which meant that Walter Wolf would likely not pay him. Young told him his unexpected retirement was bound to turn into a media circus. Young was also cautious about accepting the task as he was sure the news would leak out early and Hunt would blame him for the leak.

  But Hunt was persuasive, telling Young that, after having worked with him on the book, he felt he could trust him. Young eventually agreed to give him advice, beginning with the suggestion that the Monaco Grand Prix should be the last place to make such an announcement.

  Together they decided he would make his announcement on 6th June at a central London hotel that Young would book. Hunt had to go
out and qualify, and they agreed to meet later to finalise the arrangements. It was perfect timing, as there was no Swedish Grand Prix that year. After the deaths of Ronnie Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson, interest in Formula One in Sweden had faded and the race had been cancelled. It meant the whole month of June was empty and it would give Peter Warr the maximum time to find a replacement driver.

  Later that night, Eoin Young made his way over to the hotel where Hunt and Birbeck were staying. Hunt had been smoking cannabis and was confused. Birbeck tried to give some order to the proceedings. Instead of discussing the details, Hunt rambled on about motor racing being dangerous. He told Young: “I am having to try harder to do worse, and I can’t see an end to it.” He admitted that, although he had decided to retire, in his heart of hearts he really didn’t want to but “felt he had no choice.”

  Hunt told Young he had done some calculations. He reckoned that his normal life expectancy might be 75 years. And, at 31 years old, he had 44 more years left. He said: “If I continue racing for another five years, it would take up just over ten per cent of the rest of my life.” But he thought the odds were only about even that he would still be alive at the end of the five years. He concluded: “I reckoned I’d had a fair crack at the whip. I’d done six seasons in Formula 1, and I thought that was enough for anybody. I didn’t want to end up in a box or permanently injured. The main thing was self-preservation.”

  Young told him he would make his retirement announcement as painless as possible and they agreed a fee of US$1,000 for the work necessary, which was essentially comprised of writing a press release, hiring a venue and sending out an invitation. Hunt agreed to pay for the hotel and any additional expenses Young incurred. With that, Hunt declared the meeting over by climbing into bed, and a bemused Young took his leave while Birbeck muttered apologies for her boyfriend’s somewhat eccentric behaviour.

  Drivers generally hated racing at Zolder, but Hunt suddenly felt much more relaxed after making his decision and finalising the arrangements with Young. But he was full of angst that the news would break early and Wolf wouldn’t pay him his retainer.