James Hunt, a British boy

by Michele Galbiati

The lives of sports drivers are the most beautiful to tell, because they are never banal and always seem longer and more intense than all the others, even when they die out too soon and transform from biography into myth. What I'm about to remember is the bittersweet story of a big blond boy who knew how to drive fast and of the most unlikely and funniest team Formula 1 has ever seen. It is a story of courage and fear, of love and death.

It's the story of a pilot.

James Hunt was born on 19 August 1947 in Belmont, in the green English countryside not far from London. As a child he was a rebellious and restless child, as a teenager too, as an adult too. On his 18th birthday, the blond Hunt sees a Formula 1 grand prix for the first time, instantly decides that racing is the job for him and vows that one day he will become world champion. Despite the obvious opposition of his parents, James holds firm and after a couple of rather anonymous years moved on compete in Formula Ford, moves to March, in Formula 3, where he disintegrates a fair number of machines and receives the evil nickname of "Hunt the Shunt", Hunt "The Crash".

However, that young Englishman who goes around barefoot in the paddock smoking like a Turk is far from bad at driving and someone is finally realizing it. Lord Alexander Hesketh III he is a young English baron who is 1972 years old in 28, a millionaire, and is tired of the usual routine of fox hunting on his endless estates. He knows nothing about engines and cars, but he has the crazy and romantic idea of ​​throwing himself into the world of racing, to "keep up the good name of England". He drew heavily from his immense personal wealth and founded his own car company, "Hesketh Racing", which debuted in Formula 2 with modest results.. Despite the illustrious family trying in every way to make him desist from his crazy naive crusade, Hesketh decides to make the "big leap" into Formula 1, also because, as he declared to the press, «Today's Formula 1 is a degassed bottle of champagne.... now we have arrived with the bubbles".

Hesketh is as good as his word. The team car is a March 310 retouched by that genius Harvey Postlethwhite (future Ferrari and McLaren engineer) and is completely white, crossed only by two red and blue lines, which recall the colors of the British flag. There are no sponsors on the bodywork because »you cannot stick stickers on the Union Jack» as Lord Hesketh likes to repeat, who pays the exorbitant cost of the cheerful caravan out of his own pocket without batting an eyelid.

James Hunt, who wins the sympathies of fans by walking around the pits barefoot with the eternal cigarette in his mouth, also gives up a couple of million pounds, refusing to have the sponsors' brands appear on his suit, in favor of the more prosaic slogan “Sex is the breakfast of champions”. When this unusual band of racing lovers enters the super-professional world of Formula 1, the other teams snicker and immediately think it's a joke. The first year of racing proves the detractors right because the results are truly modest, even if the Hesketh Racing logo (a teddy bear with a driver's helmet) begins to become a small icon of eccentricity.

In the following season, the car starts to run fast and Hunt's big foot becomes increasingly heavier: after a series of decent placings, in 1975 Hesketh Racing wins its first Formula One race in Zandvoort, Holland, becoming the myth of teenagers all over the world. Despite the media interest and the attention of sponsors, Lord Hesketh categorically refuses any kind of external financing and continues to burn the family billions by watering down the champagne boxes.

At the end of '75, however, the money to play Formula 1 ran out, and the "good Lord" as Hunt calls him, is forced to shut down and shut up shop, to the sadness of millions of kids around the world. Hunt is on foot, literally, but here's the good stuff.

Emerson Fittipaldi, Brazilian reigning champion with McLaren, decides to leave the English team for the unknown "Copersucar", a newly formed stable founded by his brother with the proceeds of his small sugar factory. Hunt thus becomes the new driver for McLaren, the reigning world champion team. The car is a fireball and 1976 is the golden year of ours, who for a handful of races fights head to head with the very strong Austrian talent Niki Lauda. In August the latter crashes on the Nürburgring ring in Germany, 23 km of infernal curves in the heart of the Black Forest, in a terrifying accident that crumbles and sets fire to his Ferrari. Hunt, who is a friend of Lauda and lived with him for a couple of years in London at the beginning of his career, sends the battered Austrian driver in hospital an unusual and harsh telegram declaring that this is the only way to stimulate his friend and rival to recover and fight with him for the final title.

And so it happens, in fact. And the 19 October of the 1976: on the old and dilapidated track of Mount Fuji, the astonished Japanese spectators have never seen rain like this in their lives. Never.

Some garages flood, radio communications work intermittently, there is a cold wind from the Last Judgment that sweeps the track. Lauda performed the double miracle of surviving and returning to racing in just 40 days, even if the Nürburgring "prank" cost him an ear and all his blonde curls. After a couple of laps, however, his "albino vampire" face reconstructed by the scalpel sadly returns to the pits: «Guys, sorry but I don't feel like it, running today is crazy. "

James Hunt understands that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and that a day like this will never happen again, should he live another hundred times. Heart pounding she begins to press the accelerator deeper and harder, harder and harder, flying away into the rain and wind. He finished third and was the 1976 Formula 1 World Champion, one point ahead of Lauda. The dream of a lifetime is realized, years and years of sacrifices and perplexities are swept away by the river of champagne that floods him and hides the tears of joy.

Everyone is looking for it now, everyone wants it: the sponsors who cover him with gold, the tabloids who want him on the cover at any cost, the little girls from all over the world who adoringly hang his beautiful face in their bedroom. It seems like a fairy tale, even if it's all too good to last.
In fact it doesn't last.

The following year the English driver eats Lauda's dust for the entire season, between technical failures and very harsh criticism from the other riders who, without mincing words, abruptly advised him to retire. Then fate also comes into play.

In 1978 in Monza, his friend Ronnie Peterson's Grand Prix lasts just 500 meters before his car is involved in a shocking mass collision and catches fire. Peterson dies the next day from asphyxiation and Hunt, with pain in his heart, ends an anonymous sporting season, contemplating retirement. The Monte Carlo Grand Prix on 25 May 1979 was his last race in Formula 1: "I'm leaving now, I have no regrets» he says in the post-race press conference crowded with journalists and crying girls. «In today's Formula 1, man no longer counts. "

Unfortunately, however, the shadow of anonymity after the years of glory and fame proves too hard to bear. Hunt was hired by the BBC as a commentator for Formula 1, but often appeared on air visibly drunk and was sent away after a short time. Hunt drinks in recent years, drinks a lot and badly. The former world champion decides to isolate himself in his elegant villa in Wimbledon, in the company of a friend who is a slave to the bottle and more depressed than him.

But then something happens. At a party our James meets Helen Dyson, a young fine arts student who is 23 years younger. Hunt falls madly in love with her. He decides to quit the bottle, the BBC plans to call him back, life seems to be kind to him again. Helen is fascinated by her personality, by her proud charisma, perhaps also by the romantically unconventional way in which he asks for her hand in marriage: on her phone, at 4 in the morning, while she is on holiday with a friend in Paris.

We will never know the answer to that question. What we know is that James Hunt is as happy as he is on the best of days when he leaves for good, a couple of hours after that phone call. It's June 14, 1993, his heart stops at 46 years old. A guest at his house wakes up around 4 in the morning and sees him lying on the kitchen floor, with his eyes closed and a bottle of milk in his hand.

“Heart attack”, the doctors will write in the report, which is hastily compiled. “He seemed to be smiling” the friend who found him will confess through tears.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons