It's Only Formula One But He Likes It With defending World Driving Champion Niki Lauda out of the Formula One points chase at least for the time being because of his unfortunate accident at the Nurburgring Aug. 1, Britain's James Hunt,the second man in the F1 points standings, surely must be considered the favorit'e for the championship this year. Pete Lyons, Autoweek's man with the F1 circuit, talked to James recently, and the following interview is the result. Lyons: James, 'what do you make of Ferrari's withdrawal from Formula One, and now that the team is out, who is your main threatforthechampionsh}p? Hqnt:: I had reckoned that even without Niki Ferrari would still be the major opposition. They have the best car, there's no denying that, and when you have the best car it makes life a little bit easier. ' So I'm a bit surprised they've pulled out, but I would think their ranks were in a little. bit of confusion quite apart from the accident. Their reliability and their luck seemed to have deserted them recently, and Regga had been making a whole series of mistakes which doesn't help a team. But they have a lot of resources, I mean alot, and I would have thought they could have got themselves together. Now I would say it's Jody who must be the main threat. The Tyrrells have been going well, they've been very, very consistent, Jody's been scoring points regularly-and particularly recently. Lotus are getting quicker, but at the moment they haven't found the combinatin of speed and reliability that really is required and all the time. They' re on the verge of it and they could COme through, but I don't think that whatever they do at this stage is going to materially affect the Championship. They might win a couple of races, but if I can manage to finish second behind them then fine. I'm not worried about them scoring points. But my main rival for the rest of the season is going to be me! We're in a good position now, I mean the team, and we're on form. I can't see any reason why form should change, and I would say that to all intents HOOSIER HUNDRED The World's Richest Dirt Track Race Championship Cars See the nation's TOP championship drivers in action! Sat., Sept. II INDIANA STATE FAIRGROUNDS Qualifications-12:00 Noon Race-2:00 PM Reserved Grandstand Seats-$8.00 Uncovered Bleachers-$7.00 Tickets available by mail order or at Ticket Office, Administration Building, Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, Indiana 46205. and purposes we can beat on road right now. So our job is going to be to finish races, to get good consistant finishing. We're competitive enough to overhaul Niki' s points situation if we do that. Lyons: Are you going to have a tendency to slack off a little, perhaps? Hunt No. No, not yet, I don't need to do that."I believe that attack is the best form of defense, right? Suppose I start saying, what I have. to do is just fin'ish ahead of Jody, and I start driving really defensively. It's completely against my nature, ' but if Jody was running, say, fourth in a race so I just said to myself, right, I'll just sit in third place and everything's going to be fine-well that's no bloody good,. because I'm picking up the odd point on him every time, and all of a I break down or he has a win and he's in front ofme. So I've got to get out there and. open up a big gap. And it will never get to be a defensive driving situation, because if I succeed in opening up a big points gap then I'll not have to drive defensively and I'll attack because I want to win the race and have fun. Unless we come to the Jast ,race and ' I need mathematically two more points or something, then of course I must drive completely tactically in that situation. I hope to persevere and cross that bridge when I come to it. But before then you might as well be getting ou t there and having a go at winning the races. That's what it's all about. Lyons: Do you in fact have a sense of "fun" when you're competing in a race? Hunt Ah-not really, no. No, it's too serious a job. Much too serious a business. I supose I enjoyed my last lap of the 'Ring, last week; I mean the thing was very much overshadowed when we heard about Niki, but at that stage we didn't realize he was badly injured and I was able to relax very much and, uh, just enjoy driving around, being out there. But you don' t often get moments like that in Grand Prix racing these days. The enjoyment isn' t so much the fun of going out there and racing, as it's the satisfaction of doing a good job. These days the races . are too tough, they're bloody hard work, you know? I'm knackered when I finish a Grand Prix, and it's not just concentration, pressure not to make a mistake, and to drive the very best you Lyons: James, how has your driving been so far this year? Hunt Uh-well, I think it's largely been pretty good. Yes, I'm pretty happy with it. One always has reservations, 'you know, I mean if you take it race by race I wish I was starting My starts have been very poor, by and large, I ones last year. Making starts-well, the Ferrari's got to an easier car to get off the line because it's got a better engine for it. Starting is a difficult business in that it's a bit of a compromise-plus,I have a tendency to use long fir.st gears for, ab, reasons, 'round the track, I use first gear quite often around a lot of circuits where some people don't bother, so they've got a short first. But getting a Ford engined car off the line is a compromise, in that if you give it the big bootful, the big drop on the old clutch, you can really light the back wheels up. And that's a terrible start, you just sit there wi th the back wheels sp inning; right? And if you do it the other way, the best possible start, it just roots the clutch. The ideal start is to run it on the clutch, all the way, l;l.t about 8000 so the engine' s really on the cam, slipping the clutch like a fiend. But it won' t take that. So what you have to do is compromise somewhere between, but if you slip the clutch more than a certain amount of t ime it won' t handle it. You end up with it cooked, slipping. I've done that twice. These are the things you learn. You learn that it's not worth even risking doing that, it's better to risk doing a bad start than not getting away at all. You see? Particularly if you're off the front row-you can't cheat when you' re on the front row! Last year I always seemeq to be on the third row and that was a good place from wh!ch to jump the start. But fve made a couple of good starts, you know, this year, but times when it, ah, didn't really matter. I made probably the best start I've ever made in my life at Silverstone this year. It was just the perfect start, I COUldn't hope for a bette.r one: Do you remember that? Everything gripped and there was no slip or anything and the thing just streaked away, itwas amazing. But it was. the non-championship race. And of course it was good that I got a clear run at the 'Ring, you know;thesecondtime round, that waS very important, but theoppqsition was severely weakened without Niki, you see, my main worry was gone. Lyons: Apart from the starts, how do you feel about the rest of it? Hunt Well, in Sweden I was particularly pleased with the way I drove, because the car wasn't very good there, it was really terrible. It was-trying to spin every time I turned into a corner. I went really absolutely on the limit, and over, I had several spins during practice, but I managed to produce a time that I didn't really think was possible. And in the race I was really pleased with my fifth, I, uh,youknow, Ithinkthatwas the best driving performance I've done this year. Because it was against enormous difficulties. And I think McLarenswere pleased, too, that was the time they made particular mention that they were happy with me. And that made me happy that everyone was pleased with me. To sort of keep the thing pointing the right way at point-scoring speed, was very' gratifying. JAMES HUNT Makofoto Lyons: Could you have done that last year, with the Hesketh? Or has something changed in your driving this year? Hunt: No, I could have done that with the Hesketh, largely, yeah. I think I've, you know, consolidated a little bit of experience, but I don' t think there's been a major change in my driving. I think I've been able to produce slightly more agressive driving this ye.ar, slightly more agressive with control, as it were. Just in there and having a go. Actually, I was thinking the other day, that it was a very good thing that I was with Hesketh as long as I was. Because if this had happened a year earlier, coming to a new team, I wouldn't have been able to do nearly as well given the competitiveness of the McLaren and the competitiveness of the McLaren team. Because with Hesketh we used to spend a lot of time exammmg ourselves. Bubbles (Horsely, team manager) used to exercise tremendous discipline. I would actually get into trouble with Bubbles if I would talk to anybody else after a practice before I'd sat down and he'd wrung the truth from me, and we'd all had a big post mortem. Whereas McLarens give me any discipline at all. They letme do exactly what I want to do, they don't take any notice of me. What the debriefing sessions we have at McLarens aren't the same sort of thing at all, I mean we will discuss something if we feel like it and in nobody wants to talk we don't. What I'm is that because we had all that at Hesketh, I really learned the hard way all about what you need to know and I got a very good background of experience there that's helped me a lot this year with the car. An example of that was at the 'Ring this time, we didn't even try any of the other tires that were on offer there, we just like the set we went out on straight away and stayed with them. Because we knew from exper- ience, we weren' t going to go any better on any other type of tire. That sort of thing, we don't waste time, whereas in the Hesketh days we would have had to run through all those tires because I really wouldn't have known. We' ve been able to simplify a lot this year. I run, you know, a very simple report system. I only report things that matter. I think McLarens probably appreciate that, because we don't surround things with a lot of BS, we don't make changes for the sake. of making change, if the car's already good. And because the car's been good-when it's going well-we've been able to concentrate on the important things to do with it. Lyons: Why are McLarens such a good team? Hunt: I'll tell you what the secret of the McLaren team is, it's intelligent use of experience. They have an enormous wealth of experience, and-it's very easy to misapply experience if you don't, you know, approach it sensibly, but they approach it and view it intelligently, and that's the main secret of their success. They're a very, very good team. Another thing is, they've always built a strong car, and they've got a good one at the moment. The M23.is very well suited to the tires that we use-there are a lot Continued On Next Page