87 Facts About James Hunt

James Simon Wallis Hunt was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in 1976.

James Hunt entered Formula One in 1973, driving a March 731 entered by the Hesketh Racing team.

James Hunt went on to win for Hesketh, driving their own Hesketh 308 car, in both World Championship and non-championship races, before joining the McLaren team at the end of 1975.

James Hunt had an elder sister, Sally, three younger brothers, Peter, Timothy and David, and one younger sister, Georgina.

Wallis James Hunt was descended on his mother's side from the industrialist and politician Sir William Jackson, 1st Baronet.

James Hunt's family lived in a flat in Cheam, Surrey, moved to Sutton when he was 11 and then to a larger home in Belmont.

James Hunt attended Westerleigh Preparatory School, St Leonards-on-Sea Sussex and later Wellington College.

James Hunt first learned to drive on a tractor on a farm in Pembrokeshire, Wales, while on a family holiday, with instruction from the farm's owner, but he found changing gears frustrating because he lacked the required strength.

James Hunt passed his driving test one week after his seventeenth birthday, at which point he said his life "really began".

James Hunt took up skiing in 1965 in Scotland, and made plans for further ski trips.

James Hunt first entered a race at the Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk, but race scrutineers prevented him from competing, deeming the Mini to have many irregularities, which left Hunt and his team mate, Justin Fry, upset.

James Hunt later brought the necessary funding from working as a trainee manager of a telephone company to enter three events.

James Hunt drove a Russell-Alexis Mark 14 car bought through a hire-purchase scheme.

James Hunt took his first win at Lydden Hill and set the lap record on the Brands Hatch short circuit.

In 1969, James Hunt raced in Formula Three with a budget, provided by Gowrings of Reading, which bought a Merlyn Mark 11A.

James Hunt won several races and achieved regular high-placed finishes, which led to the British Guild of Motoring Writers awarding him a Grovewood Award as one of the three drivers judged to have promising careers.

James Hunt was involved in a controversial incident with Dave Morgan during a battle for second position in the Formula Three Daily Express Trophy race at Crystal Palace on 3 October 1970.

James Hunt's car came to rest in the middle of the track, minus two wheels.

James Hunt got out, ran over to Morgan and furiously pushed him to the ground, which earned him severe official disapproval.

James Hunt later met with John Hogan and racing driver Gerry Birrell to obtain sponsorship from Coca-Cola.

James Hunt's career continued in the works March team for 1972.

James Hunt collided with two cars at Oulton Park but finished third at Mallory Park after a long duel with Roger Williamson.

The cars did not appear at Zandvoort, but James Hunt still attended the race as a spectator.

James Hunt decided to consult Chris Marshall, his former team manager, who explained that a spare car was available.

James Hunt made a brief venture into sports car racing at the 1973 Kyalami Nine Hours, driving a Mirage M6 along with Derek Bell, finishing second.

In South Africa, James Hunt retired from fifth place with a broken driveshaft.

James Hunt's season highlight was a victory at the BRDC International Trophy non-championship race at Silverstone, against the majority of the regular F1 field.

James Hunt finished sixth in Brazil and retired with an engine failure in South Africa.

In Spain, James Hunt led the first six laps before colliding with a barrier with the same cause of retirement in Monaco.

James Hunt had a further two retirements in Belgium and Sweden, both of which were due to mechanical failures.

James Hunt finished fourth in the Championship that year, but Lord Hesketh had run out of funds and could not find a sponsor for his team.

At the British Grand Prix, James Hunt was involved in a first corner incident on the first lap with Lauda which led to the race being stopped and restarted.

James Hunt initially attempted to take a spare car, however this was disallowed, and during this time the original race car was repaired, eventually winning the restarted race.

James Hunt dominated the restarted Nurburgring race, building an immediate lead and remaining unchallenged to the chequered flag.

At Zandvoort, James Hunt overtook Ronnie Peterson on the 12th lap and resisted pressure from John Watson to win.

At the next round in Canada, James Hunt found out that he had been disqualified from the British Grand Prix and Lauda had been awarded the victory and thus received three additional points.

At the penultimate round in the United States at the daunting Watkins Glen track, James Hunt started from pole and took victory after a close battle with Jody Scheckter.

The sliding scale of points for the top six finishers meant that James Hunt needed to finish third or better to overtake Lauda in the championship.

James Hunt was the last British Formula One champion until Nigel Mansell won the 1992 championship for Williams.

James Hunt made an acceptance speech after the event which was considered "suitably gracious and glamorous".

James Hunt was later released, and tested at Kyalami where his McLaren M26 suffered a loose brake caliper which cut a hole in one of the tyres.

James Hunt recovered and put the car on pole position.

The race saw James Hunt suffer a collision with Jody Schekter's Wolf and another with Patrick Depailler's Tyrrell, but he still managed to finish fourth.

James Hunt won in Silverstone after trailing the Brabham of John Watson for 25 laps.

James Hunt then took a further victory at Watkins Glen.

At the Canadian Grand Prix, James Hunt retired after a collision with team-mate Jochen Mass and was fined $2000 for assaulting a marshal and $750 for walking back to the pit lane in an "unsafe manner".

In Fuji, James Hunt won the race but did not attend the podium ceremony resulting in a fine of $20,000.

The M26 was revised as a ground effect car midway through the season but it did not work, and without a test driver to solve the car's problems, James Hunt's motivation was low.

In Germany, James Hunt was disqualified for taking a shortcut to allow for a tyre change.

James Hunt was greatly affected by Ronnie Peterson's fatal crash in the 1978 Italian Grand Prix.

James Hunt took his friend's death particularly hard and for years afterwards blamed Riccardo Patrese for the accident.

James Hunt believed that it was Patrese's muscling past that caused the McLaren and Lotus to touch, but Patrese argues that he was already well ahead of the pair before the accident took place.

For 1979, James Hunt had resolved to leave the McLaren team.

The team's ground effect car was uncompetitive and James Hunt soon lost any enthusiasm for racing.

James Hunt managed not to collide with the wall, but only finished 8th in the race.

James Hunt retired at the Spanish Grand Prix after 26 laps.

At Zolder, a new Wolf WR8 was raced but James Hunt crashed into a barrier hard enough to bounce back onto the track.

Warr recalled James Hunt telling him that he discovered that if he nudged the car up against the barrier and give it a squirt of throttle in second gear, it would break a driveshaft.

On one occasion, James Hunt wanted the microphone and went up to Walker, who had continued for longer than expected, and grabbed him by the collar, with Walker having his fist near to James Hunt.

James Hunt had a reputation for speaking out against back-markers who held up race leaders.

James Hunt further suggested that Jarier should be banned from racing "for being himself".

James Hunt did not want his commentaries broadcast in South Africa during the apartheid years but when he could not stop this from happening, he gave his fees to black-led groups working to overthrow apartheid.

James Hunt commented on Grand Prix racing in newspaper columns which were published in The Independent and elsewhere, and in magazines.

The team's main sponsor, Marlboro, offered half the figure but negotiations ended after James Hunt broke his leg while skiing.

James Hunt had tested on the Paul Ricard Circuit a few months prior to test modern cars and was several seconds off the pace and believed he would be physically prepared.

James Hunt attempted to persuade John Hogan, VP Marketing of Philip Morris Europe, to support the possible comeback, and presented him with bank statement for proof of being indebted.

James Hunt made a brief appearance in the 1979 British silent slapstick comedy The Plank, as well as co-starring with Fred Emney in a Texaco Havoline TV advertisement.

James Hunt competed in an exhibition race to mark the opening of the new Nurburgring in May 1984.

James Hunt was hired by John Hogan as an adviser and tutor to drivers who were sponsored by Marlboro, instructing them in the tactics of driving and the approach to racing.

Mika Hakkinen and James Hunt had discussions about not only racing but about life in general.

Whilst living there as a tax exile, James Hunt was the neighbour of Jody Scheckter, and they came to be very good friends, with James Hunt giving Scheckter the nickname Fletcher after the crash-prone bird in the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Peterson was a quiet and shy man, whilst James Hunt was the opposite, but their contrasting personalities made them very close off the track.

James Hunt then arranged for the young Canadian to make his Grand Prix debut with McLaren in 1977.

James Hunt was involved in a relationship with Taormina Rieck from the age of 15.

James Hunt met his first wife, Suzy Miller, in 1974 in Spain.

James Hunt started dating Lomax when she arrived back in Britain, and they dated throughout the winter.

James Hunt arrived late for the service, with proceedings delayed further when his brother Peter went to a shop to purchase a tie for him.

James Hunt met Helen Dyson in the winter of 1989 in a restaurant in Wimbledon, where she worked as a waitress.

The day before he died, James Hunt proposed to Dyson via telephone.

James Hunt died in his sleep on the morning of 15 June 1993 of a heart attack at his home in Wimbledon.

James Hunt was known as a fast driver with an aggressive, tail-happy driving style, but one prone to spectacular accidents, hence his nickname of James Hunt the Shunt.

In reality, while James Hunt was not necessarily any more accident-prone than his rivals in the lower formulae, the rhyme stuck and stayed with him.

Hunt's name was lent to the James Hunt Racing Centre in Milton Keynes when it opened in 1990.

The service was attended by 600 people and on 29 January 2014 James Hunt was inducted into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame.

James Hunt's helmet featured his name in bold letters along with blue, yellow and red stripes on both sides and room for the sponsor Goodyear, all set on a black background.

The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatised in the 2013 film Rush, in which Hunt was played by Chris Hemsworth.

James Hunt said that Hunt was one of the very few people he liked, a smaller number he respected and the only one he had envied.