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PAGE 6 AUTOWEEK AUGUST 28, 1976

'Autoweek' Exclusive Interview:


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
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HUNDRED
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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

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