Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry (20 page)

Worse still, the team had a public relations problem on its hands. Caldwell and Mayer had told the world and the FIA that the 2 centimeters by which the car had been too wide had actually made no difference to its performance. But since they had reduced the width of the car, the car had actually become uncompetitive. The discrepancy did not bode well for the team’s chances of winning its upcoming appeal against the disqualification. Between the Swedish and French races, there were scores of newspaper articles on the subject—most of them condemning McLaren.

But at least the car was competitive again, which James Hunt would resoundingly prove at the upcoming French Grand Prix.

CHAPTER
15

Hunt’s First Proper Win

Ferrari Suffer from Engine Malaise

France: July 2–4, 1976

T
here was a three-week break between the Swedish Grand Prix and the French Grand Prix, scheduled for July 4. The race was due to be held on the 3.6-mile Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castellet, and James Hunt spent plenty of time testing and getting his McLaren sorted. By the time the pre-race test sessions at Paul Ricard were over, the cars had been examined meticulously and restored to their pre-Spain specifications.

Ferrari made a tactical error when it elected not to test at Paul Ricard, and instead it booked test sessions at Österreichring in Austria and the Nürburgring in Germany with Goodyear.

When Lauda didn’t arrive to test, Hunt realized it was a mistake and was delighted that Ferrari was absent from the test sessions. He knew that it would hand him an advantage, and he intended to make full use of it. To his credit, Daniele Audetto wanted to go to Paul Ricard and test with Hunt, but Goodyear boss, Bert Baldwin, persuaded him it was unnecessary. To soothe his fears, Baldwin bet Audetto $20 that Lauda would get pole position in France and that there was nothing to worry about.

After testing was over and in the few days before the race, Hunt went looking for some fun. He checked into the Ile Rousse Hotel, which overlooked a beach full of topless bathers. It was five days of pure hedonism, and he was in his element: inspecting his potential conquests by day, without the inconvenience of them being clothed, and bedding them by night. That carried on all weekend. But he overindulged on foie gras
and made himself ill for the weekend of the race.

Niki Lauda had similar health worries and had spent the gap between races at home with Marlene, who was still recovering from her miscarriage. Lauda’s rib cage had healed, and he was suffering no pain for the first time in two months. But the rib problem had been replaced by a terrible dose of the flu, and Lauda was sniffling all weekend.

Like McLaren, the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, had been very busy indeed during the three-week gap. Stung by its humiliating reverses in Sweden, Ferrari introduced a major redesign of its flat-12 engine, which was significantly more powerful—this despite the fact that it was already the most powerful engine on the grid. The mechanics had also revived the De Dion suspension and fitted it to the spare car for tryout during the practice periods. There were also modifications to the front suspension that were ruled illegal by Jabby Crombac, the official representing the CSI. Crombac told Audetto that the modifications infringed the rule about movable aerodynamic devices.

James Hunt started qualifying in a confident mood. In the first qualifying session, he was second fastest to Carlos Pace’s Brabham-Alfa Romeo. In the second session he was fastest ahead of Niki Lauda’s Ferrari. The times from the first day were the fastest of qualifying and were carried through to a slower final session on Saturday to put Hunt on pole position. It was immediately clear that McLaren was back as a force, and the sense of relief that permeated through the whole team that afternoon in France was almost palpable.

Niki Lauda was not having such a good time. Ferrari’s engine technicians were very cautious about the introduction of the new engine. The engineers imposed a rev limit on the engines and increased it gradually as the weekend progressed and as they became more confident. But the limits hampered Lauda’s effort to get a good grid position, especially when the first day’s times proved the faster.

Without the engine restrictions and the disqualified times, Lauda and Regazzoni would undoubtedly have been sharing the front row. They might also have had some prior notice of the engine problems they would encounter the following day.

Throughout qualifying, Lauda was far from happy with his car. The Paul Ricard circuit was windswept and had changing conditions, which once again did not suit the Ferrari, which thrived on stable track conditions. Lauda kept moaning: “One day it’s hot and the car handles in a certain way. The next day it’s cold and the car handles differently. Then they have more stupid races and the track becomes covered in oil. So the guy who understands his car the best … will win the race.”

With the technical problems all solved, Alastair Caldwell was back at his best in charge of the McLaren team, and all his usual astuteness came to the fore. As qualifying progressed, his sharp eye noticed that the Goodyear tires Hunt was using were behaving strangely. He spotted that once they had been on the car for a few laps, they were a lot quicker and more consistent. He also noticed that the new cold tires were very unstable.

Caldwell called the team together and told them they would gamble on starting the race with a set of part-worn tires, which he thought would stay consistent throughout the race. Hunt thought about it and agreed with Caldwell’s analysis of the situation and agreed to start the race on worn tires. As he said, “We could be pretty confident of our handling staying consistent throughout the race.”

Sadly for Ferrari, Daniele Audetto was none the wiser, so Lauda started as usual with a new set of tires. Indeed, Audetto was astonished as he walked the grid and noticed that Hunt and Mass were starting on old tires. Lauda was on brand-new tires that had been lightly scrubbed in during the earlier warm-up session.

The new tires were the best choice at the start, and Lauda made the best of it and disappeared into the distance, easily outdragging Hunt off the line and expanding his lead by a second every lap. But Hunt noticed straightaway that there were problems with Lauda’s engine. There was a vapor trail from the exhausts, which meant trouble. So he bided his time in second place. After seven laps, Hunt could see quite clearly that Lauda’s engine was losing oil and water out of the back, and he knew it was just a matter of time before it blew up.

At the very start of lap nine, Lauda’s engine seized, and he managed to dip the clutch quickly enough before he was punted off the track. He called the experience “terrifying” and said, “Bang in the middle of the Mitral straight, it happened right out of the blue: sudden silence, and my rear wheels locked. The Ferrari spun out of control and ran right across the track. I don’t think I have ever stamped on a clutch so fast in my life before.”

Lauda coasted to a halt with a broken crankshaft. He sat in the cockpit, quite unable to believe what had happened. He had forgotten what it was like to retire from a race and not score any points. The broken engine ended a run of 17 successive grand prix races without a retirement. The Monaco Grand Prix of 1975 had been the last time he had suffered a mechanical failure.

Teammate Clay Regazzoni was ordered by the Ferrari pit to attack Hunt, and he took over the lead using every bit of power in the revised Ferrari engine on the long Paul Ricard straights to extend his advantage over Hunt’s McLaren. Eleven laps later, Regazzoni’s Ferrari suffered its own crankshaft failure, and the engine seized up. But Regazzoni was not as nifty as Lauda and didn’t get his clutch down in time. Regazzoni spun wildly, and it looked as though there would be a serious accident. But somehow the speed was scrubbed off, and the car got caught by the catch fencing and came to rest safely. Ferrari mechanics were devastated that both of their cars had retired. The engineers had got it totally wrong. After the disappointments in Sweden, they had introduced the new engine too quickly, been too cautious in qualifying, and paid the price in the race with two retirements. It was an own goal. Lauda simply said, “We realized that our attempts to squeeze a few more horsepower out of the engines had overdone it for the time being.”

After that, Hunt led comfortably from Patrick Depailler in the six-wheeled Tyrrell-Ford until the 40th lap, when he began to feel ill and was sick inside his helmet. He was not helped by the fact that he had hardly anything to do for the last two-thirds of the race and barely made it to the checkered flag, with Depailler 12 seconds behind him in second place. John Watson came home third and Carlos Pace fourth. Despite the comfortable victory, Hunt knew it had been a lucky win, saying, “It was all rather depressing for the first laps of the race because of Ferrari’s special engines. They just disappeared from me, and there was nothing I could do. It was simply just a matter of power as they whizzed off down the straight, and they really got a big lead. But you have to give credit to their quality control, because it handed me the race on a plate, and I absolutely needed it.”

After the podium celebrations, there was a fright as John Watson was initially disqualified after his rear wing was found to be too high. The stewards also announced they weren’t sure about the legality of Hunt’s rear wing either. Hunt spent an uncomfortable two hours waiting for the verdict, which eventually put him in the clear. When the stewards made their announcement, wild celebrations broke out among the McLaren mechanics as they packed up the cars.

The story of France was the story of McLaren’s comeback. Its Spanish Grand Prix victory was restored along with the nine points that shot Hunt up the world championship table to second place, only 26 points behind Lauda. The restoration had a double whammy effect. Hunt gained nine points and Lauda lost three, so Hunt effectively gained 12 overall.

CHAPTER
16

FIA Restores Hunt’s Points

Turnaround in Paris

Paris: July 1976

A
t the end of the French Grand Prix, James Hunt went back to his hotel with the McLaren mechanics and celebrated with the girls from the beach, although not as late as he would have liked, because he and Teddy Mayer were due to fly to Paris for the appeal hearing against McLaren’s Spanish Grand Prix disqualification the next morning.

Mayer had filed the appeal directly after the Spanish disqualification, and his objective was clear: to get Hunt’s victory reinstated and the punishment reduced to a small fine. As Mayer said, “I’m not denying the car was technically infringing the rule book, but you could have disqualified every car on the grid in Spain for some minor rule infringement. What we want is a reduction of the punishment meted out to James.” Mayer’s strategy was an excellent one, because it precluded any debate or judgment about the offense and merely questioned the punishment.

At dawn the following morning, Hunt, Mayer, and Lotus boss Colin Chapman flew to Paris in Chapman’s airplane. Chapman had generously agreed to testify on McLaren’s behalf concerning the technical issues that had led to Hunt’s disqualification. Dean Delamont, secretary of the Royal Automobile Club in London, was also a witness.

The hearing was held at the FIA’s headquarters in Place de la Concorde in front of five FIA-appointed judges. Chapman and Delamont were the star witnesses and supported the argument that the penalty had been too severe.

At the end, Mayer, an accomplished lawyer, summed up very eloquently with an end message that was simple and to the point: “The punishment did not fit the crime.” Mayer asked the judges to substitute the disqualification for a fine instead, and he could tell that his words resonated with the judges. Mayer walked out of the building greatly encouraged by the impartiality of the judges. As he said afterwards, “They obviously hadn’t prejudged the matter.”

The five judges went away to deliberate for over 24 hours.

On the Tuesday morning, Jean-Jacques Freville, Secretary General of the FIA, came out of the FIA building and told waiting journalists that Hunt’s McLaren was “only minimally in excess.” His statement read: “The exclusion incurred by the McLaren car driven by James Hunt, who had won the event, is annulled, with all the consequences that this measure entails.” Hunt’s championship points were reinstated, and the team was fined $3,000 instead. According to Caldwell, the win in France—with the car back to the original pre-Spain specification—had been the reason for their successful appeal. He said, “I’m certain the psychological advantage of us winning the day before proved decisive. If we hadn’t, Ferrari would have carried the day. They would have been able to say, ‘Look, these bastards are uncompetitive because they’ve narrowed their car, so they did have an unfair advantage when it was wider in Spain. They shouldn’t get their points back.’ But we proved by winning with the narrower car that it made no difference, and the hearing said ‘okay.’”

James Hunt, not quite able to believe the turn of events, simply said, “It has been a pleasant surprise being reinstated in Spain.”

Added to the points won in France, Hunt now had 18 extra points and Lauda had lost three. In the space of two days, Hunt had effectively moved 21 points closer to Lauda. With Lauda now at 52 points, Hunt was up to 26.

At the halfway point in the season, winning the world championship no longer seemed as impossible as it had only 48 hours earlier.