James Hunt’s 10 greatest races

James Hunt enjoyed a fine Formula 1 career that spanned 92 grand prix starts across seven seasons with the Briton competing for Hesketh, McLaren and Wolf.

The late legend most notably won the 1976 world title, triumphing over rival Niki Lauda, amid a career that took 10 race wins, 14 pole positions and 23 podiums.

So, 50 years on from his crowning moment, what were his 10 greatest races?

10. 1969 Lincolnshire International Trophy, Cadwell Park

Hunt and Peterson battle at Lincolnshire’s ʻmini-Nurburgring’

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Car: Brabham BT21

Started: 4th

Result: 4th

Hunt graduated from Formula Ford to F3 during 1969 courtesy of a two-year-old Brabham BT21 entered by Motor Racing Enterprises. It may not have been the most up-to-date choice of car, but he arrived at Cadwell Park in September having won at Brands Hatch earlier that month, and as Ian Titchmarsh reported in Autosport: “All the right ingredients were there: established aces, up-and-coming hopefuls to challenge them, new cars, and above all a really challenging circuit on which to perform.”

Hunt briefly led his heat before finishing third behind the Chevrons of Reine Wisell and Howden Ganley, and they all lined up for the 25-lap final behind Tim Schenken, who had won the other heat in his Brabham BT28.

Schenken led away, and as the race settled down he was pursued by Wisell and Ganley. Behind them, however, all eyes were on the frantic battle between Hunt and Ronnie Peterson, who was driving a brand-new March. The two of them swapped places constantly, and both moved up a position when Wisell spun.

They streaked across the line together and were given the same overall race time, but Peterson was judged to have been slightly ahead. Hunt had nonetheless shown he could mix it with top-line drivers, and came away with a new lap record for his efforts.

9. 1978 French GP, Paul Ricard

Gruelling effort at Paul Ricard was rewarded with a podium finish

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Car: McLaren M26

Started: 4th

Result: 3rd

Hunt’s final season with McLaren was a struggle. Experienced observers such as Jackie Stewart were saying that he’d lost much of his old spirit, but still there were flashes of brilliance – one of which came at the French Grand Prix.

The Lotus 79 had established itself as the class of the field in the hands of Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson, and at Paul Ricard their only opposition came from an inspired Hunt. After qualifying fourth, he found himself boxed in by Niki Lauda and Andretti at the first corner. “I was the victim of a pincer movement,” he said afterwards, “but I decided to be gentlemanly, hit the brakes, and half the field went past me.”

He ended up in sixth and was stuck behind Patrick Tambay until his team-mate pitted. Lauda retired, so when Hunt overtook the Brabham of John Watson, he found himself in third place with only the Lotus pair ahead of him.

By half-distance, he was right with them and doggedly stayed there until the very last lap. That was when the heat and his race-long effort caught up with him, and he spun after being sick into his helmet. He recovered to claim a well-deserved third place and the final world championship points of his career.

8. 1972 British F2, round five, Oulton Park

Hunt’s drive to third place was pivotal in the future of Hesketh Racing

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Car: March 712M

Started: 2nd

Result: 3rd

Hunt had been dropped by March earlier in 1972, and had continued in F3 courtesy of Hesketh Racing – but that reached a dead-end when he and team-mate Bubbles Horsley crashed their Dastles at Brands Hatch. With help from Chris Marshall, Hunt’s solution was to threaten March with legal action until Max Mosley agreed to lend him a year-old 712M F2 car. Lord Hesketh paid for an engine and Hunt was back in action.

At Oulton Park in September, he engaged in a race-long battle with the works March pair of Lauda and Ronnie Peterson. Each of them had their problems – Peterson was having trouble with third gear, Hunt’s rear wing started to sag, and Lauda’s engine was slightly off-song – but they circulated together until Hunt took the lead with four laps to go. Peterson came straight back at him, though, and on the next lap Hunt lost a late-braking contest into Esso Bend and spun. Lauda nipped through and Hunt had to settle for third.

Writing in Autosport, Ian Phillips said: “Hunt got a hero’s reception after the race of his career, which must go a long way in getting him into a proper F2 car for next year.” It was a prescient comment. Lord Hesketh’s interest in going racing had started to wane, but after Oulton Park he committed to running Hunt full-time in F2, with Horsley as team manager. “Without that result,” said Horsley, “nobody would have ever heard of us.”

7. 1973 United States GP, Watkins Glen

Debut at the Glen sparked “a love affair” with the challenging US track

Photo by: David Phipps / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Car: March 731

Started: 4th

Result: 2nd

Hunt always went well at Watkins Glen, starting with his first visit there in 1973. Hesketh Racing had made its world championship F1 debut at Monaco earlier that year and – to the surprise of many – immediately proved competitive. Hunt had finished fourth at Silverstone and third at Zandvoort, and came to the US brimming with confidence.

Despite race starts never being his strongest suit, he got away well from fourth on the grid, going around the outside of Emerson Fittipaldi at the first corner, then overtaking Carlos Reutemann a couple of laps later and moving into second place behind Ronnie Peterson.

The two of them pulled clear of the field, but Hunt’s March started to oversteer as its fuel load lightened and he could never quite get his nose in front. He nonetheless set fastest lap of the race in the closing stages and was only 0.668 seconds behind Peterson as they took the chequered flag.

“It was the start of a love affair with the circuit which was the most difficult and challenging track after the Nurburgring,” Hunt told Autosport in 1992. “To be battling for the lead for the second time in only my seventh GP was a memorable way to end my first season.”

6. 1976 German GP, Nurburgring

Hunt had almost half a minute in hand over Scheckter at the flag

Photo by: Sutton Images

Car: McLaren M23

Started: 1st

Result: 1st

The final German GP to be held on the 14-mile Nordschleife was a turning point in the 1976 world championship. Hunt was on pole position from Niki Lauda, and shortly before the start there was a scramble to change from slick tyres to wets as rain swept across the circuit.

Only Hunt’s team-mate Jochen Mass stuck with dry tyres, and as the race got under way it proved to be an inspired decision. The rain stopped, everyone else dived into the pits for slicks, and Mass looked to be set fair. But then, on lap two, Lauda speared off the road on the far side of the circuit. Other drivers pulled him from the burning Ferrari and the race was red-flagged.

Organisers restarted proceedings with cars in their original grid order, and Hunt immediately got his head down and covered a standing-start lap in 7m31.3s to give himself an advantage of almost 10s over second-placed Carlos Pace.

“When I went off at the start,” said Hunt in his book Against All Odds, “I had put in a blinding first lap and the others were mucking each other about, spinning and falling off all over the place, which helped me.”

He was untroubled from there – even when Jody Scheckter moved into second and set fastest lap in his chase of the McLaren – and was almost 30s clear by the time he took the chequered flag.

5. 1976 United States GP, Watkins Glen

Victory at Watkins Glen was essential to maintaining championship hopes

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Car: McLaren M23

Started: 1st

Result: 1st

“I rate my 1976 win at Watkins Glen highly,” Hunt told Autosport in 1992. “I had to be very patient because it was a very difficult circuit to pass on with two equally matched cars. To win was crucial to keep my championship hopes alive.”

He was right about that. Ahead of the previous round in Canada, it was announced that Hunt had been disqualified from July’s British GP – a decision that put him 17 points behind Niki Lauda with only three races remaining. He had zero margin for error, but victory in Canada reduced the gap to eight points.

At Watkins Glen, he was beaten away from the grid by Jody Scheckter and initially struggled to get into a rhythm. “I was making mistakes around the track,” he said afterwards, “and I had to spend five laps learning it all over again, concentrating purely on the driving and nothing else.”

Both he and the McLaren got better as the race progressed, and he passed Scheckter on the 37th lap of 59 to take the lead. He then had to do it again after being baulked by a backmarker and missing a gear as he recovered, which allowed Scheckter to get past. Second time around, Hunt made it stick, won by 8s, and the gap to Lauda was down to three points with one race to go…

4. 1976 British GP, Brands Hatch

Hunt relished “fantastic” fight with Lauda, though he would end up losing the win

Photo by: David Phipps / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Car: McLaren M23

Started: 2nd

Result: Disqualified (1st on road)

If there was a single race that summed up the 1976 season, this was it: James Hunt vs Niki Lauda on the track; controversy, rules disputes and appeals off it. “It was probably my most emotional race,” Hunt told Autosport, “because of the drama when the crowd started throwing cans on the track in protest…”

It all started when Clay Regazzoni spun at the first corner after tagging Ferrari team-mate Lauda. Hunt, close behind in third, clipped Regazzoni and the McLaren was pitched into the air. It landed on its wheels and staggered on, albeit clearly damaged – but with Jacques Laffite also involved and debris everywhere, the race was stopped and Hunt took a short cut into the back of the pits.

Now the rulebook came into play. It was announced that Hunt – plus Regazzoni and Laffite – would not be allowed to take the restart because he hadn’t completed that first lap. The crowd voiced its disapproval and as chants of “We want Hunt!” rang out, officials hastily reconsidered and all three were let back in.

The restart boiled down to a straight fight between Lauda and a relentless Hunt, and on lap 45 of 76 the McLaren got past at Druids and took a superb victory. “About 10 or 15 laps before I actually passed Niki, I knew I’d got him,” said Hunt. “I knew I was getting on top and our lap times were coming down, down, down. It was quite fantastic.”

Ferrari immediately lodged a protest, saying that Hunt shouldn’t have been allowed to restart. Two months later, the FIA Court of Appeal agreed. Hunt was disqualified, Lauda declared the winner, and their title fight took yet another twist.

3. 1974 Daily Express International Trophy, Silverstone

Hunt fought back to win following a poor start at Silverstone

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Car: Hesketh 308

Started: 1st

Result: 1st

Hunt’s first F1 win came not at grand prix level, but in the non-championship BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone.

Hunt and the Hesketh 308 were in a class of their own that weekend – his pole position time was 1.7s faster than Ronnie Peterson’s second-placed Lotus – but it wasn’t all plain sailing. He completed lap one buried in the midfield after the clutch all but destroyed itself at the start, then the gearknob broke and he had to shift gear using what was left of the lever.

By the 28th lap of 40, though, he’d caught Peterson and passed him with a brave, committed move down the inside of Woodcote. Peterson retired shortly afterwards and Hunt was left to take victory. “You couldn’t see Woodcote from the pits,” said Lord Hesketh, “but I remember seeing this sea of white, which was everyone waving their programmes as he was taking Ronnie on the inside, having gone the whole way through the field. It was a terrific race.”

It was also crucial to Hunt’s self-belief. “‘He was learning to win,” said Bubbles Horsley. “After Silverstone, he was fine. If he hadn’t won there in 1974, I’m not sure he would have won the Dutch Grand Prix in 1975, because by then he knew he could win. He always had the raw speed.”

2. 1976 Japanese GP, Fuji

Hunt demoted polesitter Andretti at the start in appalling conditions

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Car: McLaren M23

Started: 2nd

Result: 3rd

The 1976 title decider looked like being an anti-climax as heavy mist hung over Fuji on race day and the rain poured down. Hunt had qualified second behind polesitter Mario Andretti, with title rival Niki Lauda just behind him in third, but he had reservations about racing at all. “After over an hour and a half’s delay,” wrote Pete Lyons in Autosport, “the race was finally flagged off in weather conditions that struck everyone – even those few drivers who were willing to race – as appalling.”

Lauda, for one, was unwilling to risk his life in such dead-reckoning conditions and pulled into the pits at the end of the second lap. Hunt, meanwhile, had made a superb start and led away, but the weather started to clear as early as lap 20 and then it became a question of nursing wet tyres on the slowly drying surface.

Hunt was running second in the closing stages when his left-front tyre finally cried enough and he was forced into the pits. When he emerged, he’d dropped to fifth and with only five laps left it looked like a lost cause, but he dispatched Clay Regazzoni and Alan Jones to finish third and score the four points he needed to snatch the title.

In all the chaos of that late stop, he thought it had slipped away and was furious when he returned to the pitlane. It took a few seconds for everyone to convince him that he was the new world champion.

1. 1975 Dutch GP, Zandvoort

Hunt and Lauda make a simultaneous move on Jochen Mass’s McLaren

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Car: Hesketh 308B

Started: 3rd

Result: 1st

It was, recalled Hunt, “the completion of my training as an F1 driver”. On a wet-dry day, and with Niki Lauda shadowing his every move in the closing stages, he finally took his first GP win – and the only one for Hesketh Racing. “This alone made it very special,” said Hunt, who regarded it as the race of his life, “because Hesketh gave me, and taught me, everything in F1 and it was where my soul was.”

Hunt qualified third behind the Ferraris of Lauda and Clay Regazzoni, but a rain shower at Sunday lunchtime threw an element of doubt into proceedings. Ferrari gave Lauda a compromise wet-dry set-up, while Hesketh rolled the dice and gave Hunt dry settings.

It was the right call. The rain stopped and Hunt was the first to pit for slicks. By the time Lauda did the same, the Hesketh had taken the lead – and then it took Lauda until lap 44 of 75 to get past the Shadow of Jean-Pierre Jarier and move up into second place.

The Ferrari was soon right on the Hesketh’s tail but Hunt – who’d previously buckled in such situations – rose to the challenge as they negotiated the backmarkers. “I sometimes had to be pretty brave to get by other cars,” he told Autosport’s Pete Lyons, “because I had to line them up and do it before we got to a bad place. If I’d ever have got stuck in the corner onto the straight, for instance, Niki would have been by like a shot.”

With one final push, Hunt put some clear air between them and took the chequered flag with a little over 1s in hand. The lessons learned that day, he later reflected, “enabled me to win the 1976 championship, at my first and only chance in a competitive car, under maximum pressure”.

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