James Hunt?

Hunt was good but not great. The British press did their usual job of overstating his achievements and underplaying his failures. He made several driving errors and several tactical errors during his career to go alongside his occasional brilliance. And for one half of one season he managed to keep up with and sometimes beat one of the greatest drivers the sport has ever known. He was lucky to become champion, but he did put in some top performances during the second half of the 1976 season.

Btw, to the answerer above...Lauda is one of the top ten drivers of all time and Hunt should never be spoken of in the same breath except when discussing the 1976 season. They just aren't comparable in any other context. As to comparing Lauda to Hakkinnen... ay caramba...

EDIT

And further, Hunt won the title because of Lauda's accident PERIOD

Certainly the 1977 McLaren M26 didn't handle as well as the 1976 M23, so therefore are you saying that Hunt needed to have a car advantage in order to win the title?

He retired because he just became disenchanted with racing and racing people partly, as you say, as a result of Peterson's death. The uncompetitveness of his car in 1979 was directly linked to some poor performances from him in 1978, when his teammate, Tambay (in his first full season), scored as many points as Hunt. Hunt never would have been stuck driving the Wolf if his performances had justified being kept on by McLaren.

EDIT 2:

Lots of drivers have managed to be fast for a single season. Hunt drove the Hesketh past its limits in much the same way that Alboreto and Alesi would do for Tyrrell in later years. Those are drivers who he can fairly be compared with in terms of ability, even if they didn't win as many races as Hunt.

As to Hunt and Lauda's retirements in 1976...

Hunt: 3 accidents, 2 mechanical failures, 1 disq.

Lauda: 1 accident, 1 mechanical failure, 1 voluntary retirement, 2 DNS.

so the theory that Hunt suffered from a much less reliable car doesn't really hold water, with only two mechanical failures all season to Lauda's one (and at Monaco Hunt was running in 16th place when his engine blew, so it didn't make a lot of difference to his result that weekend). As I said above, Hunt made plenty of errors during his career, as his three accidents (in Brazil, Long Beach and Italy) show.

EDIT 3:

Oh and as to Hunt possibly being champion in 1975 and only being stopped by poor reliability, yes he retired 4 times but he didn't do himself any favours with 3 accidents along the way (although at Silverstone he was still classfied fourth). Lauda was, in 1975, the best driver in the world (admittedly in the best car in the world too). Anyway, Hunt wouldn't have beaten him in equal cars that year - no-one else on the grid would have either.

Hi Three Putt

I remember his divorces being expensive (no pre-nups), also he kept his two sons in private schools (which would ruin anyone). Also, being an international playboy doesn't come cheap!

The riding a bike incident was when he rode to Denny Hulme's memorial service a few months before his own death.

Anyone who ran neck and neck with Niki Lauda must have been pretty good. It is sooo hard to compare even drivers that compete against each other since one can't tell how much is the driver and how much is the equipment. Even harder to compare across generations - - maybe Hunt and Lauda were comparable to Hakkinen that is to say excellent but not all-time-greats like Fangio, Clark and Schumacher.

Off the track, Hunt was apparently incomparable ;)

Contrary to Rosbif's comments, the only year Hunt had a decent platform he won the championship. His rapid departure from the scene was due to (1) the uncompetitiveness of his cars and (2) his horror at the death of so many of his friends, particularly Ronnie Peterson.

Edit: in those days reliability was generally weak for many of the teams; though Ferrari was an exception the underfunded Hesketh team had awful reliability. Many feel that with a more reliable car in 1975 Hunt could have won both seasons. Lauda only failed to finish once in 1975 with an average placing of 3rd and 5 GP wins. Hunt was forced to retire 6 times but also averaged third when he finished. In 1976 Hunt failed to finish 6 times, Lauda - including the two races that he did not start following his crash as well as Japan where he pulled over - only failed to finish 5 times.

I'm not suggesting Hunt was as complete a driver as Lauda - nowhere near as professional for a start - but I do think that the record shows that he was at least as fast when his demons were under control.

Boy, you've pretty much written my answer when you asked your question because I think a lucky playboy was what he was. I like Hunt and he was considered a very generous man by some of his peers, but Hunt made too many driving errors and he was not known as a technical driver who advanced the car with his development skill.

In '76, He had the luxury of Lauda sitting out two races and still needed Niki to willingly retire from Fuji! Despite all those freebies, he only won by a single point.

Realistically, the careers of Hunt and Lauda should never be compared. . . but you would think that a rookie like Hamilton wouldn't instantly attain legend status. However, I've seen veteran F1 journalists write that Hamilton is ALREADY better than both Senna & Prost! Only a demented tosser would consider a triple and quadruple world champ inferior to a spoiled choker!

Hunt is somewhat comparable to Hakkinen, in my mind, in the sense they both nicked one wildly fortunate title. They benefited greatly from their main rival being hurt - Hunt in '76 and Hakkinen in '99. Hakkinen actually trailed Eddie Irvine going into the '99 finale! Eddie Irvine!

rosbif, do you know how and where Hunt lost so much money? He came from a fairly well-off family and must have made more from racing and sponsors. I remember reading that, later in life, his car had no tyres and were mounted on bricks and he had to ride a bicycle to get around.