Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  Postlethwaite was a sober character who lent the team an air of credibility. Having obtained a PhD in mechanical engineering, he was addressed by Hunt as “Doc Postlethwaite.” Postlethwaite had also trained at the feet of the legendary Robin Herd. Given his qualifications, people were often surprised to see him working for Hesketh. When asked how he had been persuaded to take the job, he said: “They got me drunk.” It may well have been true. On a more serious note, he admitted that: “The team went from being happy amateurs to a degree of professionalism just because I was the first person they took on who was a motor racing professional.”

  Horsley said: “Harvey was very good, he knew the car backwards, he was very good at setting up the car.” Horsley also hired Nigel Stroud away from March as the team’s chief mechanic. Stroud was a talented engineer with a reputation for making cars reliable, as Horsley remembers: “He added a lot of little tweaks and unique things.”

  The car and the team appeared in the team colours of red, white and blue stripes on a white livery. Choosing the team colours for “reasons of patriotism”, Hesketh rejected spraying the car green, which was the official racing colour of Britain. Although Hesketh thought British racing green was magnificent, it was “rather too subtle” he explained: “I’m a great believer in this country. So we ran with the colours of the Union Jack.”

  The team members also had their names on their shirts and anoraks, a feature which is so common now but was entirely unique back then. Hesketh’s shirt had ‘Le Patron’ emblazoned across it.

  All of this rather overshadowed Hunt’s Grand Prix debut. The driver became almost peripheral. But Pete Lyons, known for his colourful prose, did notice Hunt at Monaco and described him as follows: “He had the kind of appearance that attracts the eye; once seen, he was remembered.”

  David Benson, the Daily Express motoring editor, also noticed him and wrote: “There was still something of the cavalier in Hunt. An athletic, powerfully-built six-footer, blond with cornflower-blue eyes, he is extremely attractive to women. His handsome looks are reinforced by the self-confidence instilled by his public school education, and he has a swashbuckling personality.”

  But others were less impressed than Lyons, and most were disbelievers. Peter Windsor, the leading British journalist, said that Hunt lacked the “necessary seriousness of intent ever to become a proper racing driver.” It wasn’t a very promising prognosis, and many of the British journalists in attendance were similarly disinclined towards Hunt.

  But the disbelievers were about to receive a setback.

  Hunt’s Grand Prix debut was mightily impressive as he qualified the March on the ninth row of the grid. Qualifying, however, was one thing, and racing quite another in the narrow streets of Monaco. Hunt had driven at Monaco in Formula 3 but he found the F3 car like a go-cart compared to his new Formula One car.

  Admitting that he was a frightened man, he sat strapped into the cockpit of his March on the Monaco starting grid on Sunday 3rd March 1973, surrounded by all the famous names in motor racing. Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell-Ford and Ronnie Peterson’s Lotus-Ford shared the front row. Behind them were Denny Hulme’s McLaren and François Cevert’s Tyrrell. And behind them were Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus and Niki Lauda’s BRM. Although Hunt had raced against many of these names in F3 and F2, he was totally overawed. He recalled: “Monaco is a pretty tough place to start a Grand Prix career. The track is so narrow and there is absolutely no room for error. Before I got into the car, I was puking all over the place, and on the grid I was just a shaking wreck. I was nervous, very nervous.” Lord Hesketh described Hunt’s condition as he debuted in the Grand Prix as that of “a new born babe.”

  As soon as the flag dropped, Hunt forgot about his headaches and his nervousness. He had no choice; he found he couldn’t see a thing for all the exhaust fumes and tyre smoke. Pressing the throttle pedal as hard as he could, he simply gripped the steering wheel and prayed. He just about managed to remember to flick up the gear lever to shift the gears.

  Hunt somehow got his car up to sixth that day before his brand new engine blew up on the 73rd lap. As it was near the end of the race, he was still classified ninth, although it was a tremendous disappointment to be denied a world championship point on his debut. In those days, only the first six places got points, and the points scoring scale was 9,6,4,3,2,1.

  Despite missing out on his point, even his severest doubters had to admit that Hunt had driven a fine race. And, as for Hunt, he had learned something about himself as well. It was by far the toughest two hours he had ever spent in a racing car, and he realised he was not as fit as he thought, saying: “I was going well for the first third of the race, then suddenly it hit me. I couldn’t drive at that pace any more. I was simply going to drive off the road. The heat plus the physical effort of driving the car had me completely knackered.”

  At the front, Jackie Stewart went on to win his 25th Grand Prix and was on his way to his third world championship title. He had already made the decision to retire at the end of the season, so, as Hunt’s career was beginning, Stewart’s was coming to an end.

  The rest of the Formula One community was very surprised at the Hesketh’s debut. They had expected a shambles but, instead, had witnessed a highly professional set-up going about its business. One man who was not surprised was Autosport editor, Ian Philips, who said: “Everybody thought: ‘Oh, they’re all a joke’, but beneath it all was a deadly, deadly, serious operation.”

  After the race, Hunt threw himself into the celebrations. A party to end all parties began on The Southern Breeze and lasted until the dawn of Monday morning. Hesketh, still in disbelief over how easy and cheap it all was, was pleased most of all by how much fun he was having.

  When the dust settled and he was back in England, Hunt immediately threw himself into a fitness programme.

  Hunt lived near Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea FC soccer ground, and was friendly with some of the players who drank at his local bar at 365 Kings Road. Some of the players with whom he got drunk there included Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson and John Hollins.

  Soon after Monaco, he was discussing his fitness problems with the players and they suggested he joined in some of their training sessions. Hollins, the club captain, said he would ask manager Dave Sexton’s permission. Sexton’s training regime was known to be the best in British soccer, and he welcomed Hunt to the squad. Most importantly, Sexton taught him a method of strengthening his neck muscles with a medicine ball.

  Separately, Hunt also began a punishing jogging routine. He played more tennis and squash, and his fitness philosophy became: “It can’t hurt to do something that hurts.”

  Hunt threw himself into his new career in Formula One and was determined to make the most of it. He also wanted to make some money. Tony Dron remembers how he set about selling himself to supplement his non-existent salary from Hesketh: “He was incredibly busy, he was on the phone all the time, people were always ringing up. He had meetings at breakfast and was then going on to do something , there was action all of the time. It was obvious he was on the way to being a superstar already.”

  The Hesketh team, exhausted by its efforts in Monaco and short of a spare engine whilst it was being rebuilt, missed the next Grand Prix in Sweden and instead prepared itself for a trip to the south of France.

  At least these were the excuses they gave. In reality, their reason for missing the Swedish Grand Prix was much more basic; as Lord Hesketh would later admit: “We forgot to enter.”

  It was a much more relaxed Hesketh team that pulled into the spacious Paul Ricard paddock for the French Grand Prix on 1st July. In the month between the races, the Hesketh mechanics had taken the car back to Easton Neston and, under Postlethwaite’s direction, meticulously rebuilt it, crack testing key components and doing all they could to make it reliable.

  Hunt was also much fitter and altogether more relaxed. His headaches had also subsided after some treatment. He had a trouble-free qualifying, placing the March
in 14th, and the team learned more about how to make the car go faster. The race was also a trouble-free run, apart from a worrying moment when the top part of his airbox fell off. He brought the car home sixth, aided by the retirements and accidents of others. It was another remarkable race performance and he was still on the same lap as the leader, Ronnie Peterson, who won the race in his Lotus-Ford from François Cevert’s Tyrrell-Ford.

  After Hunt’s exemplary performances in the first two Grand Prix races, the Formula One establishment was baffled. This was not the James Hunt they knew; new teams and rookie drivers didn’t just come into Formula One and perform this way.

  Hunt’s stunning achievements did not going unrecognised in the media either. And although the British motor sport journalists didn’t like him, the national newspaper hacks loved his exploits.

  Hunt had suddenly come to the British public’s attention, and he was instantly famous; so much so that he was invited to drive in the 1975 Tour of Britain being held just before the British Grand Prix. The organisers offered him US$3,000, to which he said ‘yes’ immediately. Suddenly he was earning big money to participate in his favourite sport.

  The Tour was 1,000 miles and a mixture of racing and rallying held over three days on public roads as well as special stages at race tracks. Hunt drove a Chevrolet Camaro and his initial co-driver was to be Richard Lloyd, an experienced driver and team owner. The Camaro was owned by Alan Rivers, a friend of Lloyd’s.

  On his way to the Monaco Grand Prix, however, Lloyd was injured in a road accident, and Autosport magazine’s deputy editor, Robert Fearnall, was roped in as Hunt’s new co-driver. Fearnall was an old friend of Hunt’s from his Formula 3 days.

  Hunt didn’t take the Tour seriously at all and told Fearnall he was going to thrash the car at Silverstone and blow up the old V8 and retire so he could spend a few days partying with Lord Hesketh at Easton Neston, two miles from Silverstone.

  Hunt had tested the Camaro at Brands Hatch prior to the tour and fancied his chances as 83 entry cars took the start at Bath, in Somerset. Other notable competitors entered were Graham Hill and rally champion Roger Clark.

  The tour started in farcical circumstances. A few miles down the road from the start, Hunt discovered the fuel tank was empty. Refusing to pay for the fuel, Hunt made Fearnall get out his credit card.

  But Hunt found the American V8 engine more difficult to blow up than he had thought and, in the process of trying, managed to set the fastest lap round Silverstone. He soon found himself in line to win the event. As his competitive instincts took over, he suddenly became serious and decided that he wanted to win the event. The outcome of the Tour all rested on a hill climb at Dodington Park in the Cotswolds on the last day. Having had a practice run before anyone else arrived, Hunt managed to win the climb, and the overall event, and garnered plenty of publicity in all the British newspapers.

  It was big news, and Hunt scooped all the prize money. As Hesketh remembers: “I think he earned more money winning the Avon Tour of Britain in 1975 than he did driving for me for a whole season.” Hunt and Fearnall retired to a Bath hotel to celebrate.

  The publicity was far greater than any he had previously received in Britain, and it set him up for his first British Grand Prix appearance on 14th July. But, as ever, the racing seemed almost secondary that weekend. Hesketh set up a hospitality tent in the paddock with lobster on the four-course menu and Dom Pérignon and Taittinger champagne flowing from 8:30am. The tables were laden with silverware, and guests attended with a formality unusual at the dusty airfield. Men in white linen suits and straw hats were arm-in-arm with breathtakingly beautiful young women in flowing summer dresses.

  The Hesketh staff was also blue-blooded: the official photographer was Christopher Simon Sykes; team catering was the responsibility of Tom Benson, the top society chef who owned Parkes, a top Knightsbridge restaurant in Beauchamp Place; and the team’s logistics chief was Charles Lucas, a schoolboy friend of Hesketh’s whose grandfather had built St Pancras railway station and the Royal Albert Hall.

  Formula One in Britain had never seen anything like it, as Hesketh’s helicopter shuffled his guests in and out of Easton Neston all weekend. Hesketh proclaimed to his guests that Formula One racing was “like a very flat bottle of champagne”, explaining: “We intend to give it a vigorous shake.”

  Jackie Stewart and his wife, Helen, were also enjoying the hospitality at Eaton Neston. He recalls: “Alexander’s mother was a Scot, a fantastic lady who wore a patch over one eye and kept a wonderfully eccentric house.”

  Even Hunt was surprised by the spectacle, and described Hesketh’s friends as “a set of extremely keen and committed partiers.” For them, he said, it was primarily a weekend in the country with “some motor racing thrown in.”

  Hunt suffered in qualifying from gearbox problems but still managed his best qualifying position to date with 11th on the grid. Late in qualifying, he had a real scare as the suspension broke at high speed. Fortunately, he wrestled the car to a halt without hitting anything. He said: “I had known that I could be very competitive at Silverstone,” and then qualified it by saying: “You do know these things, you see, although you don’t tell people about it in case it doesn’t come off and you look a bit of a twit.”

  But the race itself was almost over as soon as it had begun. In only his third start in a Grand Prix, Hunt was almost killed in the first few minutes of the race. Rookie Jody Scheckter lost control of his McLaren on the exit of Woodcote, Silverstone’s fastest corner. Scheckter spun into the path of the oncoming cars and the incident involved nine of the 28 starters. The first few cars maneuvered round the wrecked car, which was now parked bang in the middle of the track. But the rest didn’t, and piled into each other. The start line resembled a motorway pile-up. The track was blocked and the race stopped.

  Hunt arrived on the scene straight after Scheckter’s accident and stamped on the brakes to avoid the spinning McLaren. As his car stopped, Hunt ducked down in the cockpit and closed his eyes as he saw Scheckter’s rear wing flying straight for his head. If he hadn’t ducked, he would undoubtedly have been killed. As it was, the projectile rear wing cut through the March’s airbox and sliced it clean off.

  That no one was killed or seriously injured was a miracle. After the dust storm created by all the spinning and crashing cars settled down, the only injured driver was Italian Andrea de Adamich, who had suffered a broken ankle. All the other drivers, including Hunt, walked away unscathed.

  Apart from bodywork, Hunt’s March was undamaged and the restart would be taken by 19 cars.

  Hunt admitted: “I had a very lucky escape.”

  Hunt felt good about the restart and found himself running third in the restarted race. In the process, he set the fastest lap of the race – at an average of 134 miles an hour. The race was won by American Peter Revson, followed by Ronnie Peterson and Denny Hulme; all separated by less than three seconds.

  Hunt eventually finished fourth in only his third Grand Prix, and the British fans went wild in recognition of a new star in their midst, whom they had not been expecting. Where Jackie Stewart had been favoured to win, he had an off-day and only managed tenth place behind Hunt. As Hunt lapped Stewart, Stewart actually slowed down to let him pass.

  Jackie Stewart was full of praise for Hunt that evening. Listening carefully to every word the world champion had to say, Hunt was touched: “It was enormously encouraging for the team and it was good for the happy atmosphere which we had. I’ve never been as happy in a racing team before.”

  At the raucous party at Easton Neston that night, it was Hunt – not Stewart – who was the guest of honour.

  With his newly-acquired fame, Hunt found he could earn money effortlessly by making personal appearances. He was paid US$3,000 to co-drive a Chevrolet Camaro in the Spa 24 hour saloon car race at Spa Franchorchamps in Belgium. His co-driver was Richard Lloyd. It was a dangerous circuit and a brutal race that claimed the lives of two drivers and seriou
sly injured several more. Hunt and Lloyd retired early, and Hunt drove back to England.

  The next race, and Hunt’s fourth Grand Prix, was the Dutch Grand Prix at the Zandvoort circuit, set by the seaside amongst sand dunes. It was a circuit that would later bring Hunt much success and happiness – but not that day.

  Hunt qualified his March-Ford in seventh place on the grid alongside Carlos Pace in his Surtees-Ford. Hunt was ahead of Niki Lauda in a BRM. The race turned into a Tyrrell benefit, with Jackie Stewart leading teammate François Cevert home for a 1-2 win. Hunt came in third to score his first podium finish in a Formula One Grand Prix. It was the most success he had had in any category of racing.

  Stewart’s victory was the 26th win of his career, beating the number of wins by Jim Clark, but it was overshadowed by tragedy. On the eighth lap, Hunt was in fifth place when he passed another car, a March-Ford 731 like his, upside down and in flames. As he circulated, the car carried on burning and became obscured with black smoke. After an age, marshals arrived to put out the fire. All Hunt could see was that a tarpaulin had been thrown over the burnt-out March. What he didn’t know was that the driver was still inside the car, hanging upside down by his seat belts. It was the young Englishman Roger Williamson – or what was left of him.

  There was no joy on the podium that day as Hunt stood at attention alongside Stewart and Cevert and the British national anthem was played over the circuit’s loudspeakers.

  Like Hunt, Williamson was a rising star driving a March-Ford paid for by a wealthy mentor; in Williamson’s case, the mentor was builder Tom Wheatcroft. Both drivers had been destined for the top, with Williamson considered to be every bit as fast as Hunt.

  It transpired that Williamson’s car had crashed into a steel guard rail, overturned and caught fire. Another driver, David Purley had stopped his car and tried to get Williamson’s car upright to get him out. But he was beaten back by the flames and deeply distressed by the lack of marshals with extinguishers.