Fuji, October 23 1977. A year on from the heart-in-mouth climax that crowned him an against-the-odds Formula 1 world champion, James Hunt has just completed his sole season as world champion – in emphatic fashion. Taking the lead from Mario Andretti’s pole-winning Lotus at the start, he is never headed in his McLaren M26.
If only more days had been like this, he might have matched his old mate Barry Sheene and clinched a consecutive crown. The speed was there, no doubting that, and there had been other high points too, notably in front of his home crowd at Silverstone. That was sweet, especially after the bad taste left by Brands Hatch ’76. But the niggly retirements – suspension failure in Argentina, a broken exhaust and fuel pump glitch at Hockenheim, back-to-back Cosworth woe in Spain and Monaco… He’d never really been in title contention, despite that opening hat-trick of pole positions.
Then there were the shunts: the firstcorner launch over John Watson’s Brabham at Long Beach, Andretti’s nerve out of Tarzan at Zandvoort – that outside line, we just don’t do that in F1 – the mess with team-mate Jochen Mass at Mosport and the red-mist punching of (another) marshal. Well, it’s all over for another year. Let’s get out of here.
Celebrating isn’t appropriate, given the two deaths and others injured by Gilles Villeneuve’s cartwheeling Ferrari. But that’s not why James is high-tailing it into a helicopter with Andretti and Watson. “Mario and I wanted to get into Tokyo as soon as possible, so James didn’t even do the podium,” recalls Wattie. “It caused a lot of trouble, a very disrespectful thing to do to the polite Japanese. They were affronted that the winner of their race was in a hurry to piss off to Tokyo to go out to a nightclub.”
That was James Hunt. That was 1977. If-onlys and misfires around too many turns, in a season during which it could be argued he actually drove better overall than in his title year – when everything was on song. Look at the numbers: three grand prix victories plus the non-points Race of Champions at Brands, versus three for champion Niki Lauda and Jody Scheckter and Andretti’s four; half a dozen pole positions, one less than Mario; the second-most number of laps led, again behind the American. Among eight different race winners in a then-record 17 races, during a competitive and unpredictable season, scoring consistency was the key
