Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry (37 page)

In fact, later recalling standing on the podium beside Andretti, he said, “I still didn’t feel that confident when they put me up on third place on the rostrum, because I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to be dragged off there at the last minute, so the championship win came to me slowly.”

Long afterwards, while reminiscing with journalist Nigel Roebuck, Hunt said, “The thing was that the pit signals I got were not consistent. Suddenly it said fourth, which wasn’t right because I had passed someone for third. But with their track record for handling things in a crisis and a panic, I wasn’t prepared to believe them because I had had too many disappointments already that year with things happening after the race. So I basically didn’t accept that I was world champion, because everything happened so quickly.”

As he got off the podium, Hunt went to the pressroom to chat with the print journalists. Later, as it was getting dark, he said, “When I came out it was pitch black, to see that everybody had gone, organizers and everything; everybody had had enough. When I realized everybody had gone, I realized nobody was going to take it away from me because there was nobody there, nobody was interested. So then I believed it. I thought I must be world champion.”

Niki Lauda had no idea what the outcome was until, while waiting for his flight home, he looked at a television at the airport. It confirmed he had lost the world championship. When he saw the result, Forghieri rushed to an airport telephone to phone the Ferrari factory in Maranello. He was put through to Enzo Ferrari. Ferrari asked to speak to Lauda directly. They exchanged a few words, and Lauda told him that it would have been “madness to go on.” Lauda described Ferrari’s attitude as “heartless.” He said Ferrari did not even ask him how he was. With that, Lauda put down the phone and gathered up his wife and rushed for the plane.

For Alastair Caldwell, it was a bittersweet ending to a magnificent season. He was furious with Hunt for what had happened in the closing laps. He was adamant it would not have happened had he obeyed instructions. Caldwell never understood why an intelligent driver like Hunt disobeyed him to his obvious disadvantage. He didn’t discuss it with Hunt at the time. With the championship won, it seemed churlish. Ten years afterwards, they had a short conversation in which Hunt dismissed his concerns.

Caldwell later unloaded his frustrations on Christopher Hilton, a patient journalist who liked to listen and who enjoyed a good relationship with Caldwell, saying: “I was irritated, because in books and the media, James said we didn’t bring him in for new tires when we should have done, that we were idiots because we didn’t run the car properly—we always gave him the wrong pit board and so on. In fact, we gave him exactly the right information all the time. We could never have stopped the car for tires and won the world championship, so it was up to him—and we told him that all the time.

“My opinion is that we handled the race perfectly. There was nothing else we could have done.

“Regazzoni and Jones did the same thing as he’d done and stayed out, and both wore their tires to the air. They came to a walking pace because of that, and James was able to pass them.”

Afterwards, Hunt disagreed entirely with Caldwell: “I knew from well before half-distance that there were going to be tire problems later on, and I started asking the McLaren pit as best as I could without a wireless. I had seen plenty of people going in and out of the pits changing tires, so they had all the information, and in a situation like that, you watch the other cars and see how quick they are going on fresh rubber. They had all that information, and I didn’t have any. As it was, their response to my frantic request, which they did understand, was to hang out a huge question mark and go: ‘What do we do?’ So the only thing I could do then was to stay out, and it very nearly cost me the championship because, when I did come in, I already had a blown front but I also had a slow puncture. They couldn’t get the jacks under it. It was a huge panic to get me a new set of tires.”

In the end it didn’t matter. Somehow, after all the drama, Hunt had won it and he wanted to get back to the Tokyo Hilton to really celebrate. But the narrow roads around the foot of Mount Fuji, some 60 miles from Tokyo, meant that the traffic was jammed solid after the race, so the 300-odd members of the Formula One circus stayed put at the track and began the celebrations with Hunt in a room rented by Marlboro.

John Hogan was exhausted by what he had witnessed. He couldn’t believe the lad he had met barely five years earlier had become world champion. Hogan’s judgment about Hunt had been finally vindicated.

Hunt’s win had meant more exposure for the Marlboro brand than they ever could have dreamed. It was Marlboro’s most successful marketing campaign ever, and Hunt was responsible for it all. Marlboro bosses phoning to congratulate him from Lausanne in Switzerland told Hogan that he was not to stint on the celebrations. Hogan would pick up the bills for all the parties, which started that night in Fuji and continued on into Tokyo.

But Hogan didn’t party as hard as he might have. He was just glad it was over. He had had a very difficult first season with Hunt. As he later admitted: “It was a bit like having a dog; you think you have just trained it and it’s being good, and then it goes and craps on someone else’s living room carpet. And that’s what he did all the time. Every race there was something.”

But it had all come good in the end.

CHAPTER
30

A New British Champion

Two Months of Celebrations

November to December 1976

N
iki Lauda caught an earlier flight back to Europe from Tokyo and was very glad he did. For as soon as the checkered flag had dropped, it was all about James Hunt. By finishing third, Hunt had won the world championship by a single point.

After leading the world championship all season until the final race, Niki Lauda left Tokyo with nothing at all. For him there lay ahead some delicate operations and months of recuperation. His aim was to get all the surgical work done and then rest up to the maximum to be fit and ready for 1977.

But the scenario for James Hunt was wholly different. Like all new world champions, he was thrust into a cauldron of celebration and sponsor backslapping. Now that he was champion, suddenly everyone wanted a piece of James Hunt.

The other winner that day was John Hogan, Marlboro’s head of motor sport. The championship win was set to deliver Marlboro huge value. Hogan would have been a winner no matter what the outcome in Mount Fuji that day. Obviously he preferred Hunt and his own Marlboro-sponsored McLaren team to win, but if not, it would not have been a complete disaster. Niki Lauda was also a Marlboro-sponsored driver.

Thanks to Hunt’s success, sales of Marlboro brand cigarettes were taking off across Europe and the rest of the world. Signing Hunt had proved a coup for Hogan, and it was to make his career.

The sponsorship was incredibly successful; and when Hunt won, he straightaway lit up a Marlboro in the pit lane. It really couldn’t get much better—especially for a marketing man like Hogan. For a brief moment, Hunt was the Marlboro man: the perfect example of what smoking could do for you.

As he stood in the pit lane that afternoon in Japan, Hogan knew that reality would go out of the window for the next few days. The parties came first. Hunt led the celebrations from the front, and Hogan paid for everything. Hogan figured the more celebrating and the more publicity generated, the better.

Barry Sheene, the motorcycle world champion, was also in on the act, and together the two world champions partied like never before. Girls were falling at their feet, and it was the start of a magical 48 hours for both men, who had sensibly left their girlfriends at home.

It all started as dusk fell at the Fuji Lodge, a hotel adjacent to the circuit. Hogan had booked the hotel’s biggest function room to get the party started, and although the celebration was principally for the McLaren team and Marlboro guests, everyone in the paddock was invited. There was unlimited liquor, and Hogan made sure that the tables were laden with food.

The festivities went on late into the night, then Hogan organized a fleet of cars for everyone to get back to the Tokyo Hilton, where he had booked another huge room for another huge party. Hunt grabbed four hours of sleep, but for the next eight hours, people came and went and partied through to the next day. At around 5 p.m. Hunt and the Marlboro and McLaren executives trooped off to the British embassy. Hunt could hardly stand up, and Hogan just prayed they would get through it. Hunt was unsuitably dressed to enter the British embassy and to be greeted by the ambassador, but the normal protocol was waived for the new British world champion.

Then it was back to another room at the Tokyo Hilton for a very formal Marlboro cocktail party, where all the top executives and staff of the cigarette company’s Asian subsidiaries had gathered to congratulate their champion, who looked as though he had just come in from a long day at the beach. Looking back 36 years later, Hogan recalls: “We drank for two days solid.” And that is about the extent of his recollection.

Late on Monday evening they all got onboard Japanese Airlines Flight 421 from Tokyo to London. The party continued on the plane, even though everyone was exhausted and urgently needed sleep.

Hunt had been booked into economy, but the airline upgraded him to first class, where he found his boss, Teddy Mayer, in the departure lounge. Mayer sniffed when he saw his driver and gave the impression he didn’t much like traveling with the hired help. Nor was he impressed with the commotion Hunt was causing in the first class lounge.

Hunt was playing with a toy gorilla that Alastair Caldwell had given to him to celebrate the championship. The gorilla was called “Smiler” and had cymbals attached to its paws, which Hunt kept bashing together.

Mayer squirmed when Hunt got into a stand-up row with Pierre Ugeux, the new president of FIA, who was also in the first class lounge. Ugeux was concerned that Hunt wouldn’t attend the annual FIA prize ceremony in Paris to collect his world championship trophy. Hunt told Ugeux that he would not. Ugeux knew Hunt was upset by CSI rulings at Brands Hatch and Monza but appealed to his better nature to put the past behind him. In the end, Hunt said he would consider it. Mayer was somewhat relieved when the flight was called.

The captain greeted Hunt personally at the top of the aircraft steps and motioned him into the first class cabin. But Hunt wanted to be with his friends and the mechanics and said he would take a seat in economy class. The captain said he would keep Hunt’s first class seat free and asked him to join them for dinner. In those days Hunt always traveled economy, and it didn’t occur to him to book himself into the first class cabin, although by then he could easily have afforded it. He tended to be anesthetized by alcohol on flights, so he had little need for any pampering. As long as the drink flowed, which it did in those days in the economy cabin, he was happy.
Daily Express
motoring editor David Benson deliberately plopped himself into the seat next to Hunt’s in first class.

As Hunt entered the cabin, a huge cheer went up. Within a few hours, the drink ran out and Hunt had to go into first class to top up supplies. The Japanese captain had ordered his crew to let the champion do what he wanted, and so they obliged his every wish.

In the end, as the lights in the cabin were dimmed, everyone fell asleep completely exhausted by the nonstop drinking, which had by then stretched out for nearly 48 hours. Hunt then went up into the first class cabin to take the seat reserved for him for dinner.

He sat next to Benson. During 1976 and through all the drama, Benson had proved himself the most skilled reporter of his day, and his stories had been picked up by newspapers across the globe. That night, he got another exclusive interview.

The captain came by to chat about the race, and the crew served Hunt a special dinner of shrimp to start, followed by Chicken Princess with duchess potatoes. Hunt alternatively slurped beer and red wine with his meal as the stewardesses danced up and down the aisle with constant refills of both glasses.

In those days the Boeing 747 100 series had nowhere near enough fuel capacity to make it in one hop from Asia to Europe, so a midflight stop was necessary. After they had feasted, Hunt got to his feet and did some slapstick comedy routines for Benson and the other first class passengers as the Boeing started to make its descent into Anchorage airport for refueling. The captain let Hunt make the announcement that the plane was beginning its descent, and Hunt put on the best Japanese accent he could muster.

When they took off again, Hunt went into the back of the plane to speak with Max Mosley. He and Mosley looked for empty seats so they could stretch out. Later he went back to his seat in economy, and David Phipps took a photograph of Hunt asleep surrounded by his close friend Chris Jones, along with Alastair Caldwell and John Hogan. The Phipps photograph caught everyone’s imagination, and the photo was published around the world.

Barry Sheene didn’t get any sleep at all and spent the entire journey trying to persuade women on the flight about the merits of joining the mile-high club, apparently with some success.

John Hogan summed it up: “It wasn’t an outrageous flight, and everybody was just very very happy.”

As the plane descended into Heathrow, Hunt woke up with the worst hangover of his life, but he had no regrets about what had happened—although it took him some time to remember precisely what had happened.