Interview
James Hunt wasthe original playboy racer, renowned for his swashbuckle driving and party lifestyle. But what’s it like being the son of a man who really did live fast and die young? Colin Drury speaks to Freddie Hunt...
Freddie Hunt, son of Formula One World Champion James Hunt, on forging his own racing career.
F reddie Hunt is the spitting image of his late father. He is tall and slim and blessed with posh-boy good looks. He has the same long blond hair and speaks with the same plum vowels.
“When I walk around at a race course,” he says, “people get spooked because of the similarities. They get star struck.” Such a reaction is perhaps understandable.
That’s because Freddie’s dad was James Hunt; a man who was, with no fear of exaggeration, a motor-racing legend. Ask Formula One fans of a certain vintage for their favourite driver and his name crops up again and again.
This long-haired Englishman didn’t win as many world titles as Michael Schumacher; he didn’t perish on the track like Ayrton Senna; and he didn’t send record after record tumbling like Sebastian Vettel. But, in an age when F1 was about glamour, danger and life lived on the edge, Hunt won admirers across the globe for the swaggering, swashbuckling, nerve-shredding way he pushed his cars – and himself – to full throttle. And then beyond.
In the Seventies heyday he was the poster boy of the sport; renowned as much for his fun-loving playboy lifestyle off the track as his death-defying, competitive streak on it.
He was the Grand Prix George Best; the F1 Richard Burton (who, incidentally married Suzy Miller, Hunt’s first wife, after they divorced). And he was utterly adored for it.
His most famous moment came in ’76 when, in pouring rain that caused his Austrian rival Niki Lauda to pull out of the Japanese Grand Prix, Hunt finished third to win his first (and only) world title. His second most recalled moment was probably on the plane back to Britain afterwards. Hedonistic doesn’t begin to describe the celebrations that were reportedly enjoyed.
Not even the fact he passed away aged just 45 after suffering a heart attack in 1993 has detracted from his fame. His status has only grown since. So much so, indeed, that his life was turned into a major Hollywood film,