Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry

by Tom Rubython

  The TV companies had 14 days to prepare for the showdown, and all the satellites that transmitted TV pictures were quickly booked up. And so too were all the airline seats to Tokyo.

  But there was a downside for the man at the center of it all. Suddenly James Hunt became bothered by all the attention he was getting. Overnight, it seemed everyone wanted a piece of him, and it spooked him. All the pressure was on him, as Niki Lauda was now virtually a recluse as a result of his facial injuries. Hunt found it all rather overwhelming, and his new fame did not rest easily on his shoulders.

  Uncomfortable with the attention, Hunt wondered whether it was going to his head. As he said, he was worried he might start believing his own press: “People spend a lot of time telling you how clever you are, and it’s very easy to believe. I’ve seen too many people become victims of such flattery and start taking themselves too seriously. That’s when they destroy themselves and their personalities.”

  In truth, things became so extreme in Japan that, for the first time, Hunt found he was not enjoying his racing. As he said, “I try to be myself, but I worry that I’ve lost the ability to enjoy life. I’m a tax exile, but England is where my heart is and where my friends are. And everywhere, the demands on my time are so great that already my private life is shot to hell, and I feel the loss of close friends. The main problem in this business is that you lose your individuality. Whatever you do or say is watched. You are used as evidence against yourself.” There were signs of paranoia setting in, but there is no question it was a difficult time.

  Luckily, Hunt found his oasis just in time. The McLaren team was booked into the luxurious Tokyo Hilton in downtown Tokyo. Japanese hotels were then the very best in the world. The rooms were loaded with gadgetry unknown in the West and the decor was minimalist. As soon as he arrived in Tokyo, he checked in and found the Hilton was a giant playground for someone like himself. Once in the confines of the hotel, he was unmolested, and so he set out to have a good time in the few days before the race. With his privacy guarded by the hotel staff, he tried to distract himself by stepping up his physical fitness routine to new levels. He was constantly in the Hilton’s state-of-the-art gym: running, swimming, and playing squash every day. In the evening he was flexing his mental skills by playing backgammon with anyone who was around, and he won over $1,000 that week.

  But the hotel’s headwaiter blanched when Hunt wanted to play backgammon in the main restaurant during dinner. He had already made an exception and let the famous racing driver into the restaurant with no shoes on. When the backgammon board appeared, he told Hunt the restaurant was not a “playhouse.” Hunt reportedly responded, “The whole world is a playhouse” and carried on playing. The headwaiter was overruled by the hotel’s manager, anxious to do anything to please the eccentric famous young Englishman who was spending (Teddy Mayer’s) money like water.

  Then Hunt really got lucky. He discovered that British Airways, then called the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), used the hotel for its flight crew layovers and that a new batch of stewardesses were arriving fresh every day. He couldn’t believe his luck and sought out their timetables for flights. He got to know exactly when they would arrive and began greeting the arriving stewardesses in the hotel lobby each morning. He would tell them his room number and invite them to a party that night, to which they would all dutifully turn up. Hunt particularly enjoyed these sex sessions, and many of the stewardesses were up for it, with Hunt bedding as many as four of them every night. He thought that very novel. The girls were generally staying for one night, as they rested up and caught flights out the following day. At night it was just sexual mayhem, compliments of BOAC. It was the perfect situation, as the girls were straight in-an-out with no repercussions, and any potential problems took care of themselves.

  Also staying in the hotel was another world-class playboy named Barry Sheene, the motorcycle world champion. Hunt and Sheene had become good friends, and Sheene had traveled to Japan to give Hunt moral support. He also came without his girlfriend, the model Stephanie McLean, whom he would later marry.

  McLean was a stunning woman and Penthouse Pet of the Year in 1971. But that didn’t stop Sheene partying with the same fervor as Hunt and sharing the stewardesses with him. The then 27-year-old motorcycle racer regarded the trip as his last fling before getting married to Stephanie. Sheene admitted: “We were both sportsmen, and we drank and smoked and chased women, went to places you shouldn’t go, and did things you shouldn’t do.” Hunt was also, by then, officially going out with Jane Birbeck and in some ways also regarded it as his last fling.

  Sheene remembered that Hunt was never out of his T-shirt and shorts, even at formal occasions: “I loved going somewhere with James, because he always made me look well dressed.” In turn, Hunt took to calling Sheene “Mr. Sheen” after the spray-on furniture polish popular in England and chortled merrily every time he did. Sheene was not particularly amused, especially when the stewardesses he was wooing also began addressing him as such.

  By contrast with Hunt’s early arrival, Niki Lauda arrived in Tokyo at the last possible moment. After Watkins Glen he had flown straight home to Austria, and he rested up at home in Salzburg as long as he could, mainly to rest his eyes, which he knew would cause him problems in the race. Lauda was not interested in girls, nor was he interested in the casual sex that was so readily available around the circuits. In direct contrast to Hunt, he was enjoying married life with his wife, Marlene. She had adapted magnificently to his injuries and greatly assisted his recovery.

  At the last minute, Marlene decided to accompany Lauda to Tokyo. She realized her husband was in no shape for the task in hand, and she resolved to give him all the support he needed. It was not a happy time for him.

  As soon as they checked into his hotel room, Lauda was feeling rather down and depressed. He really did not want to be in Tokyo and longed to be home in Austria. Constantly in the back of his mind was the fact that he should not have been there at all. He had been absolutely sure he would win the championship in Watkins Glen and then be able to recuperate at home from his much-needed eye operation.

  In truth, the euphoria of his comeback had worn off, and he admitted the physical and mental trauma of Nürburgring was suddenly getting to him. Lauda was clearly tired and jet-lagged. Hunt’s two weeks in Japan, on the other hand, meant that he was totally acclimatized.

  Lauda rued the day he had missed his chance to have the corrective operation on his eyes. It was a legacy of the accident in which both his eyelids had been burned away. He had sought the advice of six different specialist eye surgeons on how best to proceed. Eventually, a Swiss surgeon had taken skin from behind Lauda’s ears to graft on as new eyelids. But they weren’t perfect, and the right eye in particular was a problem. The skin grafts were so tight he could hardly close his right eye. His doctors advised him not to race in Japan, telling him he needed an urgent operation on his right eye and that it would close properly only after further skin grafts. He was reluctant to bring the problem with his eyes to anyone’s attention lest he should fail a medical inspection and be stopped from racing altogether.

  Lauda was desperately worried by the weather forecast and knew the Fuji weekend would be stressful and inevitably full of drama. But even he had no idea just how stressful and dramatic it would turn out to be. He had heard that Hunt had been testing at Mount Fuji the week before and knew what a huge advantage this would be when qualifying began. Lauda constantly tried to play the situation down and told journalists who pestered him: “Of course I want to win the championship, but you must remember the Japanese Grand Prix is not the biggest battle I have had this year: That was the fight for my life after the accident. I’m just very happy to be alive and still racing.”

  Far from being the favorite to win the world championship, Lauda felt like the underdog.

  CHAPTER 29

  Showdown in Japan

  One Point Becomes the Difference

  Mount Fuj
i: October 22–24

  The 12,389-foot Mount Fuji is a volcano that last erupted in 1707. On a clear day, Japan’s tallest mountain and its snowcapped peaks are easily visible from many of the high-rise Tokyo hotel bedrooms. The 2.7-mile Mount Fuji circuit, which was built in its shadow, is situated in the Shizuoka Prefecture, 60 miles west of Tokyo and an hour and a half, by car from the Japanese capital.

  The circuit was built in the early 1960s, originally to host Nascar racing, and to that it owed its very long main straight, measuring 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mile). The long straight dictated the design and meant the circuit was devoid of any character and was never particularly challenging to drivers.

  As a result of Alastair Caldwell’s efforts, James Hunt was the first man to drive a Formula One car on the circuit. Hunt didn’t share the general view and found that he liked it straightaway and that it suited his style.

  So it was a confident James Hunt who drove into the circuit on the first day of qualifying, and he couldn’t help but reflect on what an extraordinary season it had been. He and Niki Lauda had dominated the season and won 11 of the 15 grand prix races held so far. But this was the showdown, where two hours would decide the outcome of the 1976 Formula One world championship. Winning and becoming world champion obviously meant far more to Hunt than it did to Lauda. Lauda had already done it once and tasted success. It was different for Hunt, who had fought his way from relative obscurity in just a few short years. From being over 50 points behind, he had fought back and become the man of the moment in Formula One: the man who would take Niki Lauda down to the wire in the battle for the title. The Austrian had overcome the horrific injuries he had sustained in the Nürburgring accident, had heroically returned to racing, scored points, and was now hanging on to his lead in the world championship.

  Now it had come down to the wire, and although Lauda held the mathematical advantage, either of them could be world champion on Sunday night.

  But as Niki Lauda knew, the result would be more dictated by their cars and their teams than by the drivers. Lauda now knew that his Ferrari was hopeless in colder weather conditions. The last three races of the year were held in cool conditions, and the weakness of the Ferrari 312T2 had only just become apparent. Weather forecasts indicated the Japanese Grand Prix track conditions would not be good.

  However, if the weather stayed fine, Lauda believed he would do well. As he said, “It was a track particularly suited to the Ferrari. The practice laps were also encouraging.”

  Aside from his car, Lauda had also realized that McLaren’s management team, consisting of Teddy Mayer and Alastair Caldwell, was vastly superior to his own combination of Enzo Ferrari and Daniele Audetto. Lauda had no regard for either of his own managers. Although Lauda didn’t particularly like Alastair Caldwell personally, he knew how effective he could be when the chips were down. That weekend, Lauda wished that Caldwell was on Ferrari’s team and not McLaren’s. Caldwell was determined to win and thought about nothing else. As far as he was concerned, the contest with Ferrari was a battle with no rules. His attitude was completely different from that of Audetto, who seemingly treated Mount Fuji just like he would any other race. But Caldwell knew this was the battle of his life, and there was a world of difference in the two men’s attitudes toward what had to be done.

  As usual, Lauda had read the situation correctly, and Caldwell struck two early blows: the first by arranging private testing and the second by a clever trick he pulled even before qualifying had begun. Caldwell believed he could outsmart Ferrari for a second time, and he decided to start spreading disinformation about McLaren’s race tactics. He was the only team manager who had seen the track under racing conditions, and he knew people would believe what he said. He told some journalists that he thought the tarmac surface was brittle and that it could break up when the cars took to the track on Friday. In various discussions, he laid it on really thick. Hunt also joined in and misled even his old friends among the journalists, including David Benson, to whom he said, “I went just seven laps here, and even on a wet day, parts of the track started to break up. It could prove to be a real nightmare on Sunday.”

  Benson and his colleagues spread the news around, and seeing the worried faces, Caldwell instructed the McLaren mechanics to make up dummy metal gauge screens for all the air intakes on the team’s spare car. Caldwell then had all the brake ducts, radiators, and air intakes covered by these screens, and a tarpaulin was placed over the car as it was held under close security by guards on shift both day and night. All this activity interested Audetto and particularly intrigued Lauda when he arrived in the McLaren pit garage to greet Hunt. But Lauda’s pit visit was no accident. He had been sent down by Audetto to find out what he could, and Caldwell made sure he was successful.

  When he saw Lauda in the McLaren pit on Friday morning, Caldwell casually slipped off the covers, pretending he hadn’t noticed the Austrian. When Lauda saw what they had done, he also pretended not to notice but immediately rushed back to the Ferrari pit with the news. Audetto immediately instigated a crash program to do the same for all three Ferraris in the garage. Friday morning was entirely taken up with the modifications, and every open orifice on the three Ferraris was covered up with fine mesh grilles.

  Just before qualifying, Caldwell removed all the screens on the spare McLaren and took the covers off, prominently displaying it in the pits. Immediately Lauda and Audetto realized they had been fooled. But the damage was done; Audetto had wasted a lot of his team’s valuable preparation time reacting to a load of concocted nonsense.

  The two qualifying days were entirely uneventful, with neither Ferrari nor McLaren dominating. Lotus proved to be the most-improved team of the year, with Mario Andretti taking pole and Hunt managing second-fastest time alongside the American. Lauda was third, and the two main protagonists were very close, separated by only 0.28 second. The qualifying sessions were exciting as the three men battled for supremacy. Andretti achieved his time by flattening the rear wing and making the car as slippery as possible. It worked.

  Hunt had all sorts of varying problems with tires and understeer, but the McLaren was fundamentally suited to the Fuji circuit, so the problems were all relative. Surprisingly Lauda seemed to have the same problems as Hunt, saying, “Fight oversteer, change tires, fight understeer—the more laps, the more understeer—so I stop.” Lauda asked for an engine change prior to the race, saying his engine was tired. He also admitted that he was very tired himself, and he was undoubtedly feeling the strain. Mentally, Lauda was well below par. To one journalist he confessed himself to be “tired; tired and confused.” It was an extraordinary admission for a racing driver to make.

  John Watson’s Penske-Ford was next to Lauda on the second row. Jody Scheckter’s Tyrrell-Ford was fifth, and Carlos Pace was sixth. It was one of his best showings of the year, in what had been an otherwise disastrous 1976 for the Brabham team with its thirsty Alfa Romeo engine. Clay Regazzoni was seventh in what would be his last race for Ferrari.

  There was a brief row between all the teams over tires when the rest of the grid realized that Hunt and Lauda had been given priority and extra-sticky tires. But it blew over after a Goodyear spokesman said, “I’ve got to give my tires to the men I think are going to get the job done for me. It’s as simple as that.”

  There was also drama late on Saturday when Alastair Caldwell’s rumormongering became a self-fulfilling prophecy as the track did start to break up in places. Large chunks of the 15-centimeter-wide bordering strip also began to come loose. Lauda described the track as being “as worn out as the average German autobahn.” Audetto was probably cursing his mechanics for throwing all the metal gauge away. The wily Caldwell of course had kept his and wondered whether to reinstall it back on Hunt’s car. In the end, the problem was found to be on just one particular part of the track, and the organizers sorted it out by calling in motorway experts who worked all night to fix it.

  Daniele Audetto had been seething all weekend ab
out Caldwell’s tricky behavior, and he put in an official request for practice periods to be extended on Saturday. The reason he stated for it was that Hunt’s pre-race testing had been unfair, and the other teams needed more time to compensate for it. Audetto said, “It is manifestly unfair that Hunt came to test last week. In Mosport we made an agreement that no one comes to Japan for testing before, but McLaren broke the agreement.” The organizers turned him down, unaware of any agreement.

  Having Mario Andretti on pole was good for Ferrari. Andretti, who was half Italian, felt the need to tell journalists that—despite his origins—he was neutral and would do nothing to influence the outcome of the race either way. But he also pointed out: “Hunt’s got everything to lose. You don’t have to be a mathematician to work it out. Lauda just has to beat Hunt, but Hunt’s got to beat him—and all the rest of us. He’s got to win.” But Andretti’s comments were the least of Hunt’s problems. The poor weather forecast for Sunday was becoming one of his primary concerns.

  Up until then, the weather had been relatively good and the only drama had been caused by the sheer number of journalists—print and broadcast—demanding interviews. Such was the interest in the Hunt-Lauda showdown that the media contingent was nearly eight times the normal number. Nearly 1,000 media personnel crowded into Mount Fuji, and everyone wanted to talk to Lauda and Hunt. They weren’t interested in any of the other drivers.

  As predicted, race day brought dramatically different weather. It had been raining all night. As the drivers looked out of their hotel bedroom windows in Tokyo, it was hard to imagine a worse storm. The weather had closed in, and Mount Fuji was completely obscured by low clouds. The whole of the surrounding countryside was shrouded in thick drifting fog.