Britain’s coolest Grand Prix driver of the ’70s. James Hunt smoked fags while he was racing. He wore too much gold jewellery. He could drink Oliver Reed under the table. He crashed – a lot!
He got all the best birds and he was an ever-present item in the gossip columns, never more so than when his first wife (Suzy Miller) went off with Richard Burton.
Hunt won his first Grand Prix in 1975 with a well-timed triumph over Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312T in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort.
The following year he was signed to the McLaren team and immediately stamped his authority on the new situation by taking pole position for his first Grand Prix in Brazil.
He won the F1 World Championship without sleep!
In retirement, James busied himself with various business ventures and stayed involved in F1 through his commentating duties with Murray Walker on BBC television.
By the early 1990s his life had settled down despite his money problems and it appeared that James would grow old gracefully.
It was not to be though, and in June 1993 he died at his Wimbledon home of a massive heart attack. He was just 45.
Video
Related Posts
Yorkshire Ripper The 'Yorkshire Ripper' killings started in July 1975 and continued until November 1980, during which time 13 women were murdered…
Professor Julius Sumner Miller American physicist Professor Julius Sumner Miller was the brilliant and wonderfully mad professor who introduced young Australian television viewers to…
Ossie Clark Raymond "Ossie" Clark moved to London from Oswaldtwistle Lancashire (from whence came the nickname "Ossie") in 1962 to enrol at…
Nadia Comaneci Fourteen-year-old Romanian gymnast, Nadia Comaneci, delighted crowds at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada. She won three gold medals, a…
Rudi Gernreich Like his art world contemporary Andy Warhol, Rudi Gernreich was a modern visionary and shrewd press manipulator. He guaranteed himself…
Stock, Aitken & Waterman In the late 1980s the pop charts were awash with songs written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and…
Jeremy Thorpe John Jeremy Thorpe was born on 29 April 1929, the youngest child of a leading lawyer and former Conservative MP,…
Disc Jockeys (UK) In Britain, Radio 1 and Top of the Pops began in the Sixties, but by 1970 the Disc Jockeys (or DJ's) had…
Hunt won his first Grand Prix in 1975 with a well-timed triumph over Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312T in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort.
