www.autotrader.co.uk
Remembering James Hunt

If you thought Kimi Raikkonen was a naughty boy, cavorting in lap-dancing clubs and saying rude words on TV, he’s not a patch on James Hunt.

Hunt had more charisma in his little finger than all of today’s F1 racers put together.

Thirty years after his championship-winning season Auto Trader’s Keith Collantine takes a look back at the legendary hedonist’s legacy.

In the 1970s Formula One was flamboyant and dangerous – with drivers to match.

James Hunt became a hero in Britain when he took on the might of Ferrari to capture the drivers’ championship in 1976.

But he is just as well remembered for his commentating career and his playboy lifestyle.

Hunt won the 1976 World Championship against the odds in a chaotic, unpredictable season.

Early on Ferrari’s Niki Lauda looked set to romp away with the title. When Hunt did win, at Jarama (Spain) and Brands Hatch, he was disqualified.

But then came Lauda’s famous fiery crash at the Nurburgring, which very nearly killed him. Although he returned to race Hunt slashed his lead, and won the championship in the final round.

From then on Hunt’s racing career began to slide. He won his last race in 1977 while newspaper stories of his private life became increasingly lurid.

He would turn up at black tie events in shorts and a filthy T-shirt. His drinking and womanising were legendary. One female journalist seduced him and wrote about his performance in a Dutch magazine.

In 1979 he quit racing but the following year joined Murray Walker to commentate on Grands Prix for the BBC.

Their relationship began poorly: he arrived late to his first commentating job at Monaco, drunk and swigging from a bottle of Rose. Barefoot, with a cast on his left leg from a skiing injury (also incurred while drunk), he plonked his leg on Murray Walker’s lap and began his commentary, pausing only to open a second bottle of wine.

Behind the scenes this lifestyle began to take its toll. By the 1990s much of his earnings had been whittled away.

But he also began to get his life under control. He settled down in a house in Wimbledon with his beloved children and collection of budgerigars. Although the stories of his wild days are well-known, many of those close to him remark on the doting father he became to his two sons.

His career as a commentator blossomed and the Murray & James partnership became synonymous with Formula One for a generation of fans. Hunt’s dry wit and forthright opinions were the perfect foil to Walker’s hyperactive enthusiasm.

Sadly he died in 1993 from a heart attack, aged 45. It was not an ailment brought on by the excesses of his lifestyle, but simply a congenital defect.

Hunt’s life was an unrelenting pursuit of success and satisfaction, and although he may not have been Britain’s greatest F1 driver, but he was certainly one of the most memorable.