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10 January 2022Two Guys in a Rush
They weren’t the fastest or the most successful drivers Formula 1 has ever seen, but there was something about the rivalry between 1970s drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda that was elemental
'E ach year 25 drivers line up on the start line for Formula 1,’ says Niki Lauda in the opening scene of Rush, the recent film about the rivalry between the Austrian racing driver and James Hunt. ‘Each year, two of us die. What kind of person does a job like this?’
The answer is a very strange person; someone such as Lauda, who came back from the dead after a horrific crash in the 1976 German Grand Prix, or someone like his British counterpart James Hunt, a playboy with a reckless attitude, a drink in one hand and a girl in the other.
They were Cavalier and Roundhead, chalk and cheese. Lauda was a tactician, an engineering nut who went to bed early the night before a race. His nickname was the Rat. Hunt was a risk-taker, a swashbuckler, who’d arrive drunk at the track, throw up and climb into the cockpit. His nickname – Hunt the Shunt.
Poles apart makes for perfect Hollywood source material and the two drivers are well served by the film about them. Rush’s director is Ron Howard, whose fact-driven films – Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon – are his best. The screenplay is by Peter Morgan, on a roll since writing The Queen.
Chris Hemsworth plays James Hunt, the Thor actor catching Hunt’s stockbroker-belt accent, easy manner and libidinous smirk. The harder job of playing Lauda goes to Daniel Brühl, a chameleon-like German actor who pops up everywhere, from Good Bye Lenin to The Bourne Ultimatum to Inglorious Basterds. He nails it.
So, top talent, a huge budget, great actors. No wonder the film has buzz. But the question is: why them?
Perhaps it is partly the innocence of a bygone age, Marlboro logos on cars, blondes in tight T-shirts and the lure of 1970s pitstop glamour. But the real answer is Senna – the 2010 documentary by Asif Kapadia about the bitter rivalry between Formula 1 legends Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Ever since Steve McQueen made his grand folly, Le Mans, Hollywood had steered well clear of films about the race circuit. Senna finally laid to rest the notion that the public wouldn’t shell out for films about guys driving round in circles.
The difference between Senna and Rush is that, while they were driving at least, Prost and Senna really did hate each other’s guts. With Lauda and Hunt the rivalry was more professional. And each driver could see something in the other that he didn’t have himself. Hunt lacked Lauda’s discipline. Lauda lacked Hunt’s ‘through the gap’ mentality.
Lauda was a tactician, an engineering nut who went to bed early the night before a race. Hunt was a risk-taker, a swashbuckler, who’d arrive drunk at the track, throw up and climb into the cockpit
But though they were different, Hunt and Lauda did have one thing in common – courage.
James Simon Wallis Hunt turned his back on his comfortable family background and a career in medicine after catching a whiff of the circuit while racing Minis.
He came to prominence in 1973/74 driving for Lord Hesketh’s Formula 2 team. Hesketh, whose butler would serve champagne and oysters in the pits, was the last of motor racing’s goodtime Charlies. His buccaneering style and Hunt’s swagger were an ideal fit. And though laughed at by the big teams when they first arrived at circuits – cars without logos seemed particularly bizarre – the track success of this amateur outfit was soon turning heads.
Of course it could not last and after one season of Formula 1 in 1975, Hesketh discovered why race teams have sponsors. His money ran out. Hunt was saved from the dustbin by McLaren, who signed him up on the cheap.
Finally in a car, the McLaren M23, which could rival the then seemingly unbeatable Ferrari, Hunt went into the 1976 season chomping at the bit and ready for action.
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda had been cut off without a penny by his wealthy family when he announced he wanted to race. He responded by taking out a bank loan and buying his way (an unheard of approach) into the March team.
His first season racing Formula 1 cars for March in 1972 was a catastrophe. So Lauda did the unthinkable and took out another bank loan and bought himself into the BRM team in 1973. Now hugely in debt, the Austrian was only saved from bankruptcy when Enzo Ferrari signed him in 1974. Lauda responded by telling Enzo Ferrari that his car, a 312, was ‘a piece of shit’. He set about updating it and finished second in his debut race. The following year, 1975, he won his first World Championship.
As the 1976 season dawned, both Lauda and Hunt believed it would be their year. In a way, both were right.
Lord Hesketh was the last of motor racing’s goodtime Charlies. His buccaneering style and Hunt’s swagger were an ideal fit
Lauda started strongly. He won four of the first six Grands Prix and came second in the other two. He had twice the number of points of nearest rivals Jody Scheckter and Hunt when the Grand Prix circus arrived in Germany.
Here, Lauda did something extraordinary – he called on his fellow drivers to boycott the race, arguing the Nürburgring was too dangerous. It went to a vote. Lauda lost. The race went on.
Irony at its most brutal was visited on the Austrian when, on the very first lap of the circuit, his car’s tyres lost grip on the left hand turn into the Bergwerk corner. The Ferrari hit the embankment, burst into flames, bounced back onto the track and was then hit by two other cars. Lauda was trapped inside the blazing wreckage.
His fellow drivers eventually pulled him out, but Lauda was hideously burnt. Worse still, his lungs were scorched from breathing in burning fuel.
Lauda should have died. A priest read him the last rites. Instead, while his rival drivers raced three Grands Prix without him, Lauda mounted the greatest comeback in the history of sport. A mere six weeks later, his newly rebuilt eyelids still taut, half his ear missing, the bandages on his head oozing blood, he finished fourth in the Italian Grand Prix. Lauda was back.
It all came down to the last Grand Prix of the season, in Japan. Hunt had to beat Lauda outright to win it. In preparation he had spent the two-week run-up, according to Tom Rubython’s biography, Shunt, ‘on a round-the-clock alcohol, cannabis and cocaine binge’ at the Tokyo Hilton where every morning the driver would meet arriving British Airways stewardesses at reception and invite them to his room for a party – ‘they always said yes’.
His first season racing Formula 1 cars for March in 1972 was a catastrophe. So Lauda did the unthinkable and bought himself into the BRM team
When the cars finally roared off the grid Lauda surprised everyone again. It was raining heavily and, after only two laps, he pulled over and refused to race any more, claiming it was too dangerous.
The decision effectively handed Hunt the race, though the Brit had to drive like a daredevil to clinch the title.
Lauda’s decision ruined his relationship with Enzo Ferrari, who never quite forgave him for putting his personal safety first. To show his disgust, the ever-professional Lauda won the World Championship the following year, then walked out on Ferrari to launch his airline, Lauda Air, not even competing in the last two races of the season.
For Hunt, 1976 was his one and only year.
Having been World Champion, he pretty much lost interest. He became a commentator for the BBC, continued the playboy lifestyle and died, aged 45, of a heart attack in 1993.
For both men 1976 was a year which would test and expose their very different temperaments. Regardless of which man’s spirit you admire the more – calculating Lauda, or fornicating Hunt – each stayed totally true to himself. And if that isn’t the stuff of Hollywood…
Words: DH
