When F1 really was better: Mosport, Watkins Glen and Hunt’s great double

There are two reasons why I find myself harking back this week to two Formula 1 grands prix that took place in North America almost exactly half a century ago. The first, as regular readers of my weekly Motor Sport columns will know, is that I like anniversaries: they provide an agreeable excuse to rummage through the past, to dust off a memory or two, and to remind ourselves that the sport we love has a long and rich history. The second reason is more compelling still: the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport on October 3, 1976, and the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen seven days later, were both brilliant F1 races.

Moreover, the background narrative could hardly have been more dramatic. As the F1 teams and drivers flew into Toronto International Airport then drove the 60-odd miles (or 100-odd kilometres if you prefer) eastwards to Mosport, the F1 drivers’ world championship was delicately poised between Ferrari’s Niki Lauda and McLaren’s James Hunt. To be precise, Lauda had 61 points, Hunt 56. But the drama was more than just numerical, for Lauda had returned from intensive care only six weeks after his violent and fiery Nürburgring accident to race to fourth place at Monza, and now, three weeks after that heroic comeback, here he was at Mosport, his body still battered and his face still scarred, ready to do battle on track again. Nonetheless, Hunt, knowing that the F1 world title was there to be taken, had no intention of allowing sentiment to dampen ambition.

So it was no surprise that he did what he so often did when the pressure was greatest: he drove a scintillating qualifying lap to place his McLaren M23 on the pole, nearly four-tenths of a second ahead of Ronnie Peterson’s second-placed March 761, which on a circuit as fast and as dangerous as Mosport represented a substantial statement of intent – or, as Hunt himself used to describe his white-knuckle pole laps, “a big-balls effort”. Yet on race day Peterson made the better start, and he duly led the field away to Turn 1, a super-quick right-hander, while Hunt followed in the March’s wheel tracks and immediately began trying to find a way past. He found it on lap nine. Three laps later Patrick Depailler, driving one of Tyrrell’s six-wheeled P34s, also passed Peterson, and now the race acquired the shape that would make it memorable.

There used to be something wonderfully gripping about watching one F1 driver close on another, knowing that no pitstops would come to his aid and that what lay ahead was therefore a flat-out sprint to the line, but F1 has not been like that for many years, and more’s the pity. However, on a mild and dry Sunday afternoon 50 years ago, on a daunting racetrack 12 miles (or 20km) north of Lake Ontario (not Lake America, Mr Trump), we were treated to one of those races. Little by little Depailler’s Tyrrell inched closer to Hunt’s McLaren, until by lap 27 the gap was only 0.8sec. At half distance, lap 40, it was still 0.8sec. By three-quarters distance, lap 60, it had been reduced to just 0.3sec. Yet all the while Hunt defended impeccably.

Mosport was fast and difficult – just as, renamed Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, it is now – but back in the day it was scary too, for its safety provisions were rudimentary even by the standards of the 1970s. Hunt was therefore having to defend his lead while driving flat-out around a circuit on which an error could be genuinely cataclysmic. Depailler’s task was equally exacting – perhaps even more so – because he was being serially hampered by traffic. “Many times the backmarkers would let James go by,” he would explain after the race, “but then they didn’t see me coming, and many times I had to put my brakes on hard to avoid an accident.” Even so, each time that happened, he set about catching the race leader again, and each time he succeeded in doing so. It was a gloriously doughty drive, and it deserves to be remembered alongside the more celebrated achievement of the man he was chasing. But Hunt never made a mistake; he never gave an inch; eventually Depailler slipped back slightly; and the McLaren driver passed the chequered flag at the end of lap 80 to win by a smidgen more than six seconds.

It was only afterwards that we discovered quite how extraordinary Depailler’s drive had been. His Tyrrell’s fuel pressure gauge had developed a fault, and petrol had consequently begun to spray into his face from half distance onwards. The smell soon became overpowering. “After a while I became quite drunk,” he said later, “and in the end I was driving on autopilot. Worse, the petrol had got into my left eye, so I drove the last few laps with one eye closed.”

You might assume that Hunt was delighted with his victory, but you would be wrong, for he scarcely had time to savour it before he learned that the FIA had disqualified him from his British Grand Prix victory, thereby robbing him of nine precious world championship points. The consequence was both frustrating and perverse: although Hunt had just won in Canada, his points total remained on 56, exactly the number that he had arrived with. Worse still, Lauda had inherited Hunt’s British Grand Prix victory and the three additional world championship points accrued by being promoted from second place to first. By the time the drivers and teams rolled into Watkins Glen a few days later, Lauda, who had finished only eighth at Mosport and therefore out of the points, consequently led Hunt by 64 points to 56.

At the Glen, Hunt could hardly have been under more pressure, yet once again he responded by putting his McLaren M23 on the pole, thanks to yet another brilliant quali lap. This time the man alongside him on the front row was Depailler’s team-mate Jody Scheckter in the other Tyrrell P34 six-wheeler, and on race day it was Scheckter who made the better start, coolly leading the first 36 laps. But Hunt was never far away, and the battle between them became a fascinating contest between the tenacious drivers of two diametrically different cars whose handling characteristics were both changing as the race wore on. Scheckter’s oversteer was gradually becoming understeer, while Hunt, who had initially been fighting oversteer too, found that his McLaren was becoming progressively more neutral, and on lap 37 he took the lead.

For four laps he appeared to have gained control, but Scheckter was not prepared to accept defeat, and, when James was baulked by a backmarker, Jody took advantage and forced the Tyrrell back into the lead. Hunt, now furious, renewed his attack, leaving no margin anywhere, and on lap 46 he produced the kind of overtaking manoeuvre that used to make F1 an almost indecently exciting spectacle. At the end of the long back straight he outbraked Scheckter into the Loop, a fast and tricky right-hander, applying the McLaren’s anchors late and light in order to do so, then, having made his pass, he put the hammer down once again. On lap 53 he set the race’s fastest lap, four-tenths of a second faster than Scheckter’s best, and six laps later he had won the race by a shade more than eight seconds.

Very rarely has an F1 driver produced two more impressive race victories on successive grand prix weekends than Hunt did at Mosport and Watkins Glen 50 years ago. He delivered two stunning pole positions, and he converted them into two fearless race wins, on two fast and demanding circuits, battling two indefatigably gutsy drivers who had been every bit as keen to win as he had, and he had done it despite being stymied by the formidable psychological disadvantage of trying to win a world title fight in which F1’s governing body was manifestly keen to favour his rival: FIA may not stand for Ferrari International Assistance now, but it did back then. For the record, Lauda finished a distant third at Watkins Glen, almost a minute behind the leading pair, and his world championship battle with Hunt would go down to the wire at the next round, the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji, but that is another story, and a brilliant one.

It is fashionable to remember Hunt primarily as a playboy: the long, blond hair; the cigarette always on the go; the many women; the intemperate drinking; the unbridled partying; the irreverent attitude to authority; and the general impression that he viewed life as having been designed for his personal entertainment. All of that was true, but to reduce him to that caricature is to misunderstand a magnificent race driver. Why so? Because, above all, he was fast – very fast. More than that, though, he was also hard, combative, and capable of an extraordinary degree of concentration when the challenge demanded it. Those two grand prix victories in early October 1976 demonstrated that his flamboyance did not occlude discipline, and that his appetite for fun did not prevent him from being ruthlessly effective at the wheel of a mid-1970s McLaren F1 car.