James Hunt

James Hunt, relatable hero [guest blog]

Dashing Grand Prix ace James Hunt was the perfect – or maybe imperfect – sporting icon of the 1970s.

Before him, sporting greats – not least racing drivers – still acted like gentleman… in public at least. They were all smart suits, ties, neatly trimmed hair and terribly polite to the point of being smarmy.

Hunt was the polar opposite: scruffy, irreverent and rude when he felt like it. Which was often.

Puffing a cigarette – Marlboro, obviously – slugging from a bottle of champagne and with a beautiful ‘bird’ on his arm, he was living the dream and didn’t care who knew it.

The blonde public schoolboy was not the kind of role model parents really approved of – he was no Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill or Jim Clark. Sporting a patch on the breast of his racing suit proclaiming ‘Sex. Breakfast of Champions’ didn’t help.

But Hunt was exactly the type of hero teenage boys growing up in drab, beige, three-day-week, power-cut, kipper-tied Britain were waiting for.

If Bowie and Bolan were shocking the pop establishment in the early 1970s, the likes of George Best, Alex Higgins and especially Hunt were doing the same in sport.

He was cut from the same slab as those great iconic real-life heroic figures like Lawrence of Arabia and Douglas Bader – wealthy parents, public school, a sense of adventure. In different times he’d have been one of ‘the Few’, a fearless Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain.

But Hunt was no clean-shaven ‘Brylcream Boy’ or English gent. He more resembled a Californian Beach Boy. And he was more at home with the louche, drug-taking, free-love ways of Laurel Canyon, than in the stuffy clubs of Whitehall.

In fact, The Eagles could have written their song ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ about Hunt. His life was spent in the fast lane, taking it to the limit.

Stockbroker’s son Hunt became world champion in 1976 – the hottest summer on record and the year I did my A levels. It was an achievement many never thought would happen, including Hunt himself.

Now, 40 years later, the Proud Gallery in Chelsea is showing an exhibition of photos charting the ups and downs of Hunt’s colourful life.

Many too young to have seen him in action on the track will have learned of his exploits from the brilliant movie Rush, which focused on his fierce rivalry with Nikki Lauda.

But these evocative prints – especially those in black and white – by Formula One photographer David Phipps bring back memories of my youth.

There are lots of Hunt kissing girls, smoking fags and clutching bottles of champagne after yet another victory. The caption to one picture perfectly sums him up in a sentence: ‘James Hunt celebrates his win in Victory Lane with his McLaren M26, a cigarette, a beer, and a Penthouse Pet. United States Grand Prix East, 1977.’

Some of the pictures manage to get behind the mask and into the eyes of the real man, such as a pensive close up shot of him sitting in his McLaren ahead of the Dutch GP.

My other favourite is a shot of Hunt playing backgammon in the pits with Bernie Ecclestone, who now owns the whole F1 circus, and team boss Teddy Mayer.

I saw Hunt win the International Trophy in his Hesketh 308 at Silverstone in 1974 – and finally begin to shake off his ‘Hunt the Shunt’ reputation.

Two years later, I was at Silverstone again when Hunt won the British Grand Prix, despite a coming together with Lauda on the first lap. James switched to his spare car, just made the re-start and led the rest home. Only to be disqualified later.

Phipps also captured the moment Teddy Mayer held up three fingers in the pits to signal that Hunt had finished third in Japan – after Lauda retired due to heavy rain – and was World Champion. It couldn’t get better than this, and Hunt knew it.

Unlike Lauda, who was driven to win and win and win, Hunt didn’t actually enjoy the racing. He didn’t enjoy staring death in the face at 200mph. He was a bag of nerves before a race; chain smoking and throwing up before stepping into the car.

But once he’d won the world title there was nothing left to prove. Hunt spent much of the following year celebrating, and never really stopped. Within three years he’d retired.

He moved over to commentating where his seat of the pants style – often fuelled by booze or cocaine – caused poor, old, fastidious Murray Walker to have kittens.

So what is it about Hunt that makes him such an iconic figure, 23 years after his death from a heart attack, aged just 45? F1 photographer Keith Sutton, who owns the Phipps collection, which spans the era from 1960-1985, explained: ‚In the 70s, you had sports stars like Alex Higgins and George Best who were very talented at what they did, but they just turned up, and James was like that.

‘You could just relate to him a bit more, couldn’t you? I mean, who can relate to Lewis Hamilton?’

 

Guest blog by Nigel Pauley, a Fleet Street journalist.

James Hunt: Girls, Beer and Victory. 11 Feb to 3 April 2016 at Proud Galleries, 161 King’s Road, SW3.

All images: © Phipps/Sutton Images Collection

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