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Drivers’ World Championship in that high-pressure finale of ’76. He led 24 races, having started from pole position on 14 occasions, won ten of them and racked-up eight fastest laps.
The 1976 season began at the end of January and comprised 16 races in 15 countries. Hunt and Lauda would face a nine-month-long scrap in which wheelto-wheel combat, off-track subterfuge and politics, as well as a fiery crash, would create headlines the world over.
Lauda drew first blood with back-toback victories in Brazil and South Africa, the champion continuing his world-beating form from the end of ’75 aboard the Ferrari 312T. Hunt had thrown down a title gauntlet, however, by securing pole position for both events – his first in the legendary McLaren M23, a title winner in ’74 with Emerson Fittipaldi. Having crashed out at Interlagos and taken second at Kyalami, he had only a third of Lauda’s points at that stage.
Hunt would score his first McLaren win in Spain – but two months later, following a successful appeal over disqualification for his car being too wide. It brought him back to second in the points race behind Lauda, who promptly increased his advantage with a double in Belgium and Monaco; Hunt suffered mechanical failure at both.
The French GP fell to Hunt, with Lauda on that occasion succumbing to engine failure. The Austrian still had a sizeable championship advantage when the circus headed to British sporting hero Hunt’s home turf – at Brands Hatch (in those days alternating with Silverstone as British GP host). The McLaren man won the race on the road but was thrown out for using the spare car for the restart. His original M23 had been damaged in a first-corner coming-together involving the Ferraris, but he’d managed to get back to the pits and jump in the spare.
And then came Germany – at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It was a race that would turn the Championship fight on its head and generate global headline news for Formula 1.
Niki Lauda crashed his Ferrari violently, his life instantly hanging in the balance with, people assumed, no chance of securing a second straight title. While he fought off the last rites and vowed to recover as soon as possible from his burns and smoke inhalation, Hunt won the race, took valuable points in Austria and then scored a subsequent victory at Zandvoort in Holland.
Miraculously, Lauda returned for the Italian GP at Monza and bravely battled to fourth, while Hunt spun off during the early running. The Championship scrap was still very much on, Lauda 17 points ahead.
Hunt closed the gap to just three points after two vital wins in North America – in the Canadian and US GPs; both, McLaren personnel insist, after very heavy nights beforehand. It created a fascinating shoot-out scenario for the final race of the year – the inaugural Japanese GP in the shadow of Mount Fuji.
In one of the most dramatic races in F1 history, Hunt snatched the title by a single point from Lauda, who’d withdrawn on safety grounds due to race-day’s torrential rain. With his Nürburgring accident still fresh in his mind, he could hardly be blamed. And so Hunt needed to finish third or higher to overhaul his adversary’s points tally.
After leading the first three quarters of the race, Hunt fell back to fifth because of a pit-stop delay, on top of repeatedly ignoring signals from the pitwall to come in to replace his shotto-pieces Goodyear rubber. He fought his way to third, securing the vital point he needed to land motor sport’s biggest prize.
James Hunt’s global-superstar status was thus cemented on that dreary October afternoon on the other side of the world.
After retiring mid-season in 1979, he stepped into the BBC Television commentary box as the perfect revlimiter to the indefatigable Murray Walker. Their frosty early alliance soon became one of mutual fondness and respect, their opposing personalities providing classic soundbites and onscreen banter. Fans were robbed of endless memorable moments in F1’s ‘Murray and James’ show after 13 years when Hunt suffered a fatal heart attack, aged just 45, on 15 June 1993.
‘IN ONE OF THE MOST DRAMATIC RACES IN F1 HISTORY, HUNT SNATCHED THE TITLE BY A SINGLE POINT’