What do mechanics usually do on their day off? Take their partners out to dinner, or stay at home, put their feet up, and watch a bit of TV perhaps? Well, neither as it happens, because Team Lotus in 1972, put down their spanners, and decided to have a good ol’ sing song!

The Lotus mechanics certainly did have something to sing about, for the car that they’d been working on all year, had only gone and won the World Driver’s Championship with Emerson Fittipaldi at the wheel. And what better way to celebrate than to record a 7 inch single! Team member Luke Watson put pen to paper and with his creative brain dialed in, came up with a song called “The Champions”.

Have a listen, and sing along!

Download audio file (lotus.mp3)

“Can’t you see, you and me, we’ve really really got to be,
The Champions for all the world to see
Throughout the race, we held the ace, now Emerson is in the place,
He’s Champion for all the world to see,
Our fearless driver from Brazil has left the others standing still,
And you know he always will ‘cos he just can’t wait until,
He’s the Champion, Champion,
Champion of the world.”

Now, if you were expecting to hear some sweet-voiced X-Factor wannabes, you’d have been a bit disappointed. The press statement to accompany the release reads “You’ve heard of Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley, now we give you Peter Warr, Eddie Dennis, Luke Watson and the massed choirs of Team Lotus!” Now, it’s hardly comparable to other choirs such as The London Community Gospel Choir, as “The Champions” sounds more like an anthem from the football terraces, and back around the same period several clubs put songs to vinyl in the same vein. Actually it has a bit of a cheery pub sing-a-long feel to it, like a Chas & Dave song maybe. Anyway we love it, and wish we had a copy spinning on our turntable this very minute! Apparently neither driver Emerson Fittipaldi, nor Lotus boss Colin Chapman contributed their vocals to the recording, but others amongst the ensemble of eighteen that did lend their dulcet tones include Odd Bobb, Coughdrop, Scratch, Tugger and Winkle!

If one song wasn’t enough for you folks, there’s a B-side too. “Workin’ Al’nighter” also penned by Luke Watson, tells a tale of toiling long hours to get the car in tip-top shape for the next race. It seems that their effort was definitely worth it, as the rather smart black and gold Lotus 72 won five out of the twelve races in the championship. Photos depicting the car and team in triumphant mood throughout the championship, adorn the luxurious gatefold cover, making it a really special item released by Speedy Records -a label with a very apt name! To my knowledge, the single didn’t make it to the top of the charts, but it didn’t matter really because Emerson had already made Team Lotus number 1, so it was their way to celebrate the fact!

At 50p (what a deal kids!), a copy could be purchased from JPS sales kiosks situated around Silverstone during the 1973 British Grand Prix, or from related outlets such as tobacconists and car model shops, or by mail order with an additional 10p to cover postage and packing! Well, it all sounds like good value for money at 1973 prices, but nowadays these 7 inch singles are a bit more pricey, and have to be hunted for. The good news is that they are out there -many of them autographed too, but could cost anything from £60 to £100, though some sellers are donating the proceeds to the Grand Prix Mechanics Charitable Trust which is a very good thing.

With the Lotus name back in Formula 1 for 2010, perhaps a follow up single is on the cards?!

As far as sponsors on F1 cars go, we’ve had cigarettes, beer, men’s top shelf mags, and condoms, to telecoms, airlines, banks, and pharmaceuticals. We’ve had every type of company or organisation under the sun. Anybody who pays ready cash and who wants to go racing is a welcome sight to any team owner. Having certain types of sponsors can have its perks, and depending on what type of sponsor you end up with will dictate some of the teams whereabouts in between races. In 1981, the ATS team ran a car in the second half of the season displaying the name of a well known Swedish pop supergroup -ABBA!

With a sponsor such as a pop group of ABBA’s standings -Eurovision song contest winners and multi-million selling albums during the 70’s, you’d expect some free tickets to a show at least and the chance to meet the group. The German ATS (Auto Technisches Spezialzubehör) Wheels team (to use the full title), went a step further with their sponsor by having a driver who actually played drums with ABBA’s touring and recording band! Slim Borgudd was that drummer and driver rolled into one. He was from Sweden too (which was handy for rehearsals) and his real name for the record is Karl Edward Tommy Borgudd, but he prefered to be known as Slim for some reason. It must have sounded more rock ‘n’ roll to him!

For those too young to remember ABBA’s music, let me refresh your memory. ‘Dancing Queen,’ ‘Money, Money, Money,’ ‘Voulex Vous’, ‘Mamma Mia’ and countless other catchy tunes littered the world’s charts between 1977 and 1984 -which was the lifetime of the band, and beyond, including a current London West End show! The band were fronted by two blokes with thick hair, along with two ladies with blonde and red hair respectively, whilst drummer/driver Slim slotted in at the back, banging away on his tom toms! There was no escape from hearing them everywhere you went! Some might ask, why would such a successful band like ABBA stick their name on an F1 car? Well, an easy answer is that they didn’t have to stump up any dosh for the privilege! The ATS F1 team in 1981, were short of sponsors and hoped that at least putting some kind of name on their car (albeit the driver’s other work-mates) might attract a sponsor with a bulging wallet! ATS had been salvaged from Penske Racing in 1977 by Gunther Schmidt. He thought he could use an F1 team to promote his German alloy wheel brand and hadn’t bargained on promoting a Swedish pop group for free too!

Going back to the beginning of the story… Slim Borgudd had initially made a connection with the band, by drumming in Bjorn’s (one of the blokes with thick hair) previous group the Hootenanny Singers. Now, a name like that suggests an LP lurking at the back of your grandma’s record collection -and you’d be right! Scary stuff indeed, but they did achieve some acclaim in Holland! Just to complete the discography, Slim performed with other jazz-rock outfits  – Made In Sweden and Solar Plexus. These were slightly more cool in a late-night-BBC2 kind of way, but not really my cup of tea! Made In Sweden did scoop a Swedish Grammy, which was a success worth noting.

At 34 years of age, Slim was late entering F1, but he got his head down at Silverstone for the British GP (see photo above) and qualified 21st out of 30 entrants. This was his best effort to date and was topped with a searing charge to 6th at the finish, and his only championship point to date! This was incredible on any day, but he’d driven with a cramped left leg due to his foot rest breaking. Once out of the car he could barely walk! He should have been credited as Gladiator Borgudd on record sleeves from then on!

Before the Silverstone race, Slim asked his team to ‘Take A Chance On Me’, then drove brilliantly like a ‘Super Trooper’ to score a point, which means ‘Money, Money, Money’ and that’s ‘The Name Of The Game!’ Phew!

Photo credit: Chris Young.

Blimey, is that car covered in dirt or what?! Has it had an almighty ‘off’ and found its way back onto the circuit through a mud bath?! On another day maybe, but not on this day. The car here has been intentionally caked in dirt, or chocolate, or more likely paint.

The car in question is the mighty fine Brabham BT52, of Bernie Ecclestone’s Fila Sport team. Fila sponsored the team in 1983 and so ended up being the name of the team also. The driver amongst the muck is none other than Brazil’s super fast Nelson Piquet Senior. A lot of things changed in F1 at the end of 1982, most notably the fact that ‘ground-effect wing-cars’ and ’skirts’ were out, and flat bottomed cars were in, all in the name of safety. Therefore, the rule book had had some sections re-written, and folk like Gordon Murray read them and then went back  to the drawing board literally. South African Gordon had been employed at Brabham for the last 10 years, and probably felt that his offering for the 1983 season should be kept a closely guarded secret for as long as possible. He was a clever bloke that should be listened to as had created a few winners in his time.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that before the new car’s first test at Brands Hatch, Bernie had called up Aussie artist Rolf Harris to come down to the factory with a large paint brush, and work on a new livery for the upcoming season! What in actual fact is going on here, is the art of camouflage! Where you have an F1 test, you have spies! Not men in long coats with sunglasses looking shifty, but paparazzi photographers poking their long lenses through the fence and having a nosey at what’s going on. As in all uses of ‘camo’, a bit dabbed on here and a bit dabbed on there, can obscure the main lines of the structure. So the idea here is to hide the actual shape, and not really about merging the car ‘commando stlye’ into the Kent scenery. Sometimes designers arranged strips of black tape randomly on the bodywork, which can create a fuzzy flicker effect on images when recorded by a TV or video camera apparently. Intriguing stuff. Camouflaging prototype cars has been around for a long while, and in modern times a road car may get a few bits of plastic bolted on too for extra visual trickery! In our photo, Piquet just gets a bonus dab of paint across his helmet for good measure.

In March 1983, the Brabham was unveiled in Brazil at the Jacarepagua circuit near Rio. Without camouflage, Nelson Piquet drove the car to victory. No messing about! He scored further victories in Italy at Monza and at the European GP at Brands Hatch, the location of the initial test of course. Piquet’s endeavour was enough to win him the Driver’s Championship by just 2 points from Alain Prost in the Renault. This was Piquet’s second title and the first for a car powered by a turbocharged engine, which gave BMW something to cheer about! However, only third place was achieved in the Constructor’s Championship, as Ferrari and Renault stole the top two spots. Nevermind, at least Bernie’s team had their hands on one trophy!

So, who knows, did the camouflage help hide the car’s design? In one respect, no other car really looked like the Brabham that year, as all the teams implemented their own ideas, so yes a bit of camo could have helped!

Photo credit: Unknown, but sourced from Autosprint magazine.

‘Well young man,’ Enzo Ferrari asked, ‘how much do you need to be content?’ This was the question posed to a surprised Gilles Villeneuve in his first meeting with Enzo, after he’d been summoned by phone from his home near Quebec, Canada. Who knows what financial deal was done, but here started a relationship that became the stuff of legend! Gilles (father of 1997 Champion Jacques) had been recommended to Enzo by Walter Wolf, a Canadian construction and oil tycoon who also ran his own F1 team. But Gilles wasn’t an altogether unknown entity, as he’d raced for McLaren on one occasion at Silverstone earlier in 1977, due to have been ’spotted’ by James Hunt disappearing into the distance in a Formula Atlantic race, at the end of 1976.

As Niki Lauda’s replacement at Ferrari, Enzo was taking a risk on a relatively inexperienced driver like Gilles, but then he’d taken a risk with Lauda and had successes with him, so with that foresight he decided to take a chance with the petite French-Canadian. Enzo Ferrari had been in the game since he had raced cars himself in the 1920’s, before going on to build his motor empire, so he knew what signs to look for in a driver. Gilles’ early races were mixed; he lead two races, he had spectacular shunts, he made errors and his car had problems with tyres. The Italian press questioned Gilles Villeneuve’s right to drive the red car, but their doubts were silenced when he won his first race at his home circuit in Montreal at the end of 1978.

Early in 1979, and with a fine car beneath him, Gilles Villeneuve was in top form and scored victories in South Africa and America, along with the non championship ‘Race Of Champions’ at Brands Hatch. Three wins in a row and leading the driver’s championship ain’t bad, thought Enzo, and he seriously thought about letting Gilles race for the title. This sounds odd, but he’d already signed the more experienced Jody Scheckter as number one driver. As the season progressed Scheckter gathered points with two victories and was on the verge of becoming world champion. All he had to do was stay ahead of Gilles at Monza and he would have the crown. Scheckter’s number one status was to be honoured and so like the true gent that he was, Gilles drove round for 50 laps almost attached to Scheckter’s gearbox, knowing that he could easily overtake him and get the victory and so stay in the title race. Enzo Ferrari was a tough man to impress, and even after winning the world championship, Mr Scheckter hadn’t endeared himself to Mr Ferrari. Jody Scheckter received no congratulatory telegram, phone call or gift!

However, Enzo’s and Gilles’ bond grew stronger, in a sort of grandfather to grandson kind of way. This could be compared to Flavio Briatore’s and Fernando Alonso’s relationship in modern times, or Ron Dennis and Lewis Hamilton for that matter. Enzo enjoyed Gilles’ attacking style of racing, always pushing the car to the limit to get the result. In actual fact Gilles was something of a car-breaker, damaging his machinery regularly in his pursuit of glory. But Enzo laughed about it, knowing that the spectacle that Gilles was, went towards building an endearing worldwide following and a strong close-knit team. On one occasion, in Holland in fact, Gilles suffered a tyre blow out whilst in second position, and spun off at the first corner. After reversing out of the catch fencing and back on to the track, he drove at high speed on 3 wheels for nearly a full lap back to the pits, as his car disintegrated around him. As another show of skill, he drove back with only one hand on the steering wheel, whilst the other was raised high as a warning signal that he was slow on track! With his right front wheel lifted into the air, the Ferrari was now driving with just two wheels in touch with the tarmac! Once back in his pit, he demanded that the wheel and suspension to be fixed immediately! It took some persuading by the pit crew that the car was beyond repair and that Gilles was out of the race!

In the years that followed, whatever car that came out of Enzo’s factory -be it good or bad, Gilles drove it 100% and never complained, for he just loved to race. The rest of the F1 paddock were amazed on many occasions at how Gilles turned a dog of a car in to a winner, by wringing it’s neck like a stock car at a dirt track! And Enzo enjoyed every minute of it, as a legend had been created.

The photo above was taken at Imola in 1979, during practice for the F1 non-championship race – Dino Ferrari Grand Prix. Gilles, in relaxed mood, stuck his Ferrari on pole, but came a cropper during the race -bending his front wing, whilst sparring for the lead with Lauda’s Brabham. After a swift pit stop, Gilles rejoined and finished seventh. Again during an average race, he had provided most of the entertainment!

The image here captures the two men sharing a drink and a joke -perhaps about Gilles’ flamboyant antics on track, maybe, just maybe, about his 3-wheeled incident in Holland three weeks earlier, that had given the world a lot to smile about!

Photo credit: Giampietro Sanna.

Music and Formula 1 are an exciting mixture that have come together most memorably with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain,’ which has had a successful marriage with the BBC title sequence for quite some time now. However, ‘The Chain’ was never specifically written to go with moving pictures of fast racing cars, and around the same time that Fleetwood Mac wrote their classic (which was the late 1970’s) an idea struck another music legend.

George Harrison was a very successful musician. Heaven knows how many records were sold during his time in the 1960’s supergroup The Beatles, and in his solo career that followed. But during 1977, George decided to put down his guitar and attend a few F1 races. Up to that point, he’d collected a few fancy motor vehicles with his earnings and had met Emerson Fittipaldi back in 1973, so had gradually developed an interest in the sport. George was a friendly guy, and soon met and got to know various people around the F1 paddock. He saw the motor racing world as a welcome break from the music business. And apparently after having a good old chin wag with Niki Lauda at the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, george was inspired enough to write a little ditty called ‘Faster!’ ‘This is a song that Niki, Jody, Emerson and the gang could enjoy’ George stated when he’d finished composing.

Download audio file (harrison.mp3)

Here are the lyrics to the chorus, so you can sing along!

‘Faster than a bullet from a gun,
He is faster than everyone,
Quicker than the blinking of an eye,
Like a flash you could miss him going by,
No one knows quite how he does it but it’s true they say,
He’s the master of going faster.’

‘Faster’ can be found on George Harrison’s 1979 album entitled ‘George Harrison’ funnily enough. The song did get a single release and was hoped to assist the fundraising for the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Fund, but unfortunately the song failed to chart. Shame! Maybe it’s time for a revival? It’s catchy enough don’t you think?! And after a few listens it is a grower! The engine sound effects you can hear were strapped on for extra high octane excitement in the studio later, and were recorded at the 1978 British GP (a race that the author of this piece was lucky enough to attend I might add!).

Our photo here, depicts George Harrison (second from left), with Nelson Piquet (far left), watching fellow Beatle Ringo Starr (sunglasses) trying to poke what looks like a screwdriver up Jackie Stewart’s nostril! I can’t vouch for the the reason why Ringo is attempting such unorthodox pit-work, but it looks like it’s in the middle of a TV broadcast! I also can’t vouch for the location I’m afraid, but it is around 1984/85.

In later years George could often be seen at F1 and other motor sport events, watching the on track action and also auditioning for new band members! He jammed with the likes of Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Eddie Jordan and even taught Gerhard Berger the ukelele! Who would have guessed that?!

Photo credit: Daniele Amaduzzi, from F1 Images published by Haynes.

Often when we are presented with difficulties in life, we dig deep and rise to the challenge. Such a philosophy was adopted by The Theodore team in 1981. At the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort that year, teams often felt like they were left out in the cold -literally! 30 cars were entered for the event but there simply wasn’t room in the pit buildings for all of them! The only solution for some was to set up shop on a patch of grass near the pitlane exit.

Theodore Racing was brought into being by Theodore ‘Teddy’ Yip who’d built an empire in the Far East, dealing in shipping, rice, corn, sugar, restaurants and of course cars. He was a busy man. Mr Yip attempted racing cars himself, but ended up more in the management side of things, participating in five seasons between 1977 and 1983, with cars being known as either an Ensign, a Wolf or a Theodore as it happens.

For the Dutch Grand Prix and the remaining second half of the season in ‘81, Swiss racer Marc Surer was employed to drive for Theodore. Most drivers think that when they reach F1, they’ve made it! It’s the high life for me from now on! But Marc must have had a shock when he showed up for the first practice session. It’s incredible to imagine an F1 team in the modern era having to cope with absolutely no amenities! Where on Earth would they put all the analysts with their banks of computer monitors! You can imagine Marc Surer here having to do a quick change into his overalls in the Gent’s loos, before climbing into his cockpit!

Despite the obvious setbacks, Marc Surer qualified the car and started from 19th on a grid of 24 competitors. He even achieved a faster time than notable drivers like Michele Alboreto and Keke Rosberg -the following year’s champion! So far so good! How about the race? Well, he didn’t challenge Alain Prost for the victory, but he did keep his nose clean and came home in 8th position (out of 10 finishers), albeit 3 laps down. Unfortunately only the first six finishers scored points then, but it was a mighty gallant effort and his best for the team that season.

Incidentally, the Theodore car was fitted with Avon tyres, which was one of four manufacturers supplying their wares that year. Others were Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli. I can’t be certain how well the Avons ran on the grass at the end of the pitlane, but it obviously didn’t interfere too much during the weekend! Hats of to the Theodore team for being such great sports despite the situation they found themselves in!

Photo credit: Peter Cramer, for Autocar.

Up until 1980, Formula 1 cars with more than 4 wheels (generally 6!) had been tried and tested with varying degrees of success. Ken Tyrrell had shocked the motor racing fraternity with his Project 34 six wheeler during the ’70’s, scoring a win and several podiums. Also, March, Ferrari and Lotus experimented on the test track but never let their multi-wheeled beasts loose during a world championship event. So back to 4 wheels everyone went. The pros seemed to level out with the cons, so why bother? Nobody had yet come up with a solid winning solution.

Step forward Mr David Cox! In 1980, his incredible design ideas for a Formula 1 car captured everyone’s imagination. Why mess about with only 6 wheels, when you can double up and have 12?! What an intriguing question! And with those 12 wheels, the beast was to be called a Lion! The reason for the high amount of wheels was not really explained in articles of the time, but obviously using smaller narrow front wheels as opposed to the fat wider wheels of the ’70’s, had to have some aerodynamic and traction benefit. One can only imagine the potential calamities of pit stops to change tyres! Ok, so usually we see 2 men to change each wheel, so let’s do the math’s here and multiply that by 12… And add in the lollipop man and the blokes with jacks, and how about some more fuel to go in there? The amount of personnel required quickly soars considerably. That would be some pit stop to watch!

Regarding fuel, the car was going to consume that with a kerosene-burning gas turbine engine of all things. I can’t say I’m terribly well up on this mode of propulsion, and apparently we would lose the usual appealing noisy roar from the exhausts, but the danger of fire would be reduced massively, which can never be sneered at. The exhaust in the illustration somewhat resembles the jet engine outlet on a Harrier Jump Jet! I imagine it can’t achieve vertical take off and landing though. But with a little work, you never know!

No wings are evident on the car apart from a snow-plough styled front, and it doesn’t appear to have the ‘ground-effect’ underbody and rear that was around in the day, so one is left wondering about how downforce would be achieved? In fact, the rear end of the car does look somewhat ‘boxy’ and a bit forgotten about at the drawing board stage!

The braking system was another intriguing element to the design. Instead of a conventional pedal that you put your foot on, the idea with the Lion was to push the steering wheel forward, almost like a pilot’s joystick in effect. This could have disastrous results as the weight of the driver under braking would surely add to the pushing on the steering wheel. At the end of the day, is it any better to go down that sort of engineering route, than just using the tried and tested simple method of pressing a foot down on a pedal?!

To my knowledge, no Lion car was ever built, tested or raced, which is a shame really as it looks incredible on paper! I wonder, if Frank Williams and Patrick Head had read about the Lion car, as they had started testing a six-wheeler around the same time which had proved to be very quick! I think they cracked it, and found real speed with their design, only to be told before the 1982 season that only four-wheelers were allowed! Drat and double drat!

A journalist of the time wrote ‘if this brilliant design, or something like it, ever reaches the circuits, it will cause a wave of excitement and interest.’ Indeed, I agree.

Picture Credit: Unknown, though a tiny signature can be seen! Sourced from Autosport.

Jackie Stewart stands waiting under an umbrella (though we can’t see the canopy, it’s odds on that it is an umbrella!). He waits for 4 minutes 3.2 seconds to be precise, for second placed driver Graham Hill to finish the 1968 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring! This is the longest winning margin in modern F1 history. Of course usually when a driver finishes an F1 race, he does a slowing down lap and pulls into a designated area in the pits. In this case, as the circuit was 14.1 miles long, he would have had to have driven round for at least another 9 minutes 36 seconds, which was Jackie Stewart’s fastest lap of the 14 lap race! Such was the enormous length of the mighty Nurburgring, things were often done differently. Stewart having just crossed the finishing line and pulled over to the pits – for there was no pit wall separating it from the track then – he had time to climb out of the car, remove his helmet and peer down the straight to see who would emerge from the foggy murk and rain in second place! In fact, he had time to grab the umbrella and do a little dance whilst hollering ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ just like Gene Kelly in the film musical, as way of celebration!

The weather had been atrocious from the start of practice on Friday, and whether or not to start the race at all had been debated. After a 20 minute or so delay, the flag dropped and the cars wheel-spinned away in their 3-2-3 grid formation. Before the off, Stewart who had had major doubts about the whole affair, had to be encouraged to climb into his Matra-Ford by team boss Ken Tyrrell, to begin one of his and the sport’s best ever drives!

Starting from 6th position on the grid Stewart was 3rd by the first corner and led by the end of lap 1. Only 13 more to go! The 14 lap race took an enduring 2 hours 19 minutes to complete. Stewart had two advantages over his competitors – his car was fitted with the best wet weather hand-cut Dunlop tyres of the day, and he had special light weight fuel tanks. Stewart also had a disadvantage to his competitors – he was nursing a broken wrist sustained in an F2 crash at Jarama, Spain a few months previously. You can see his right hand in a plastic sleeve in the photo. I’d have to say that the disadvantage certainly leveled out against the advantages.

Despite the poor visibility and slippery conditions on the day, Stewart had stayed out of trouble splendidly and steered his Matra-Ford to a memorable victory. Jackie Stewart is not often mentioned as one of the true F1 greats, but he does have an impressive track record, and when compared to Michael Schumacher (statistically the most successful), he does have one more victory -27 from 99 starts. Also Stewart is not remembered for using any underhand tactics to achieve results! Perhaps if he’d continued racing beyond 1973, we would be here discussing more of his great drives. And I wouldn’t have minded that at all!

Photo credit: Unknown, but sourced from The Exciting World Of Jackie Stewart published by Collins.

There’s no “Grand Prix POP” this week because Tess Tarossa is out of the office, so instead we’d like to treat you to the first installment of our brand new column where every week we’ll treat you to a clipping from Badger’s “Scrapbook” – Enjoy, thanks – Ed

‘Just mind where you are putting your fat feet James!’ These could have been the very words from Niki Lauda’s lips as James Hunt stepped into the cockpit of Lauda’s Ferrari 312T2, at Zolder, Belgium in May 1976. Getting so close to your opponents cars, let alone actually sitting in them is a rare thing in motor sport. But the comradeship and mutual respect that existed between Hunt and Lauda was deep rooted since their days in F3 and F2, where the drivers had in fact shared a flat together in London. Can you imagine for a moment what that would have been like… possibly like any young blokes sharing a flat – Scalextric track all over the lounge, beer cans and pizza boxes strewn around and laundry piled up in the corner of the kitchen. Niki was most likely the tidier of the two, with James perhaps rebelling against doing his share of the cleaning duties!

1976 was one of the most exciting seasons in F1, where Hunt and Lauda fought tooth and nail for the championship. Nobody else had a look in. Lauda was the reigning World Champ and Hunt was in his first season with McLaren, having taken over from Emerson Fittipaldi, who had departed to set up his own team. Prior to the Belgian race, Lauda had two wins and two second places compared to Hunt’s single win and second place, so it was a confident Lauda who allowed his nearest rival a closer look at his machinery. Such sportsmanship and a relaxed attitude would be unheard of in modern F1. Also, the Ferrari mechanics didn’t seem to mind at all!

Any rumours of Hunt sabotaging the Ferrari were dispelled as the race unfolded: Niki won the race easily from pole, and also set the fastest lap. James who ran second initially from a third place grid slot, dropped back several places with an iffy handling problem, and eventually retired on lap 36 with a broken gearbox. The Ferrari domination was complete with Clay Regazzoni bringing the sister car home in second place. That day, Hunt had gained absolutely nothing by actually getting inside his main opponent’s car!

The season long duel went down to the last race in Fuji, Japan, where Hunt finished third to beat the Austrian in the championship by a single point. Lauda was obviously disappointed at losing the championship in 1976, but out of all the drivers, he didn’t mind losing to Hunt. On the run in, there had been some gamesmanship between them that had brewed and simmered, with the media stirring things also, but come the end of the year the two drivers still remained great mates. In later years, Lauda said that Hunt was the most charismatic personality who’s ever been in Formula 1. And Lauda is someone who usually knows what he is talking about!

Photo credit: Unknown, but sourced from James Hunt Against All Odds published by Hamlyn.