FOR THE HELL OF IT

Make a small fortune by starting with a big one
A season of fluctuating fortunes had served to spur Hesketh on; the team had high hopes of securing their maiden F1 victory when the cars lined up for the first round of the 1975 season in Buenos Aires. Hunt started in third position but soon found himself leading, the Doc’s tweaks to the 308 were now paying dividends. Eventually Hunt would have to settle for second place behind Emerson Fittipaldi, but Hesketh, still regarded as upstarts had laid down a marker.

The team were in the points again in Brazil and but for a fuel pump issue would have placed well in South Africa. Hesketh’s fortunes however took a turn for the worse over the next five races; Hunt crashed in Spain, Monaco and Britain, suffered transmission problems in Belgium and brake failure in Sweden.

Money was now fast running out forcing Hesketh to introduce an economy drive, gone were the yacht, helicopter and Rolls-Royce, this was now a team that needed results to pay the wages. Lord Hesketh was now fully aware of the time-honoured maxim that if you want to make a small fortune in motor racing it’s best to start with a big one.

Dutch courage pays off
Circuit Zandvoort is situated in the north of Holland and has hosted motor racing since 1948. When F1 rolled into the beach resort for the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix the skies were blue. In need of a result Hunt put the 308 through its paces to qualify in third place on the grid.

As race day dawned, the skies had turned grey and by the time the teams arrived at the track it was raining heavily. Whilst other teams worked feverishly to modify the set ups of their cars, Hesketh’s crew faced up to the stark reality that with the Doc now back in England working on the next car, the C Type, the team had nobody to adapt the car’s settings. Hesketh, Bubbles and Hunt all agreed that they should stick with dry settings but change to wet tyres.

Four laps into the race and Hunt, in fourth place, pitted to change to slick tyres. What Hunt’s fellow competitors and the eighty thousand strong crowd didn’t realise was that Hunt had discovered before anyone else in F1 that if the rain is beginning to ease off there is a dry line on the track, even on wet tyres. By lap fourteen the track had progressively dried down and following subsequent pit stops by other drivers Hunt was now leading the race.

With twenty laps to go Hunt was still leading but the Ferrari of Niki Lauda was now within a second of the 308. Lauda tried every trick in the book to force Hunt into a mistake, but there was nothing he could do to prevent Hunt from taking the chequered flag 1.06 seconds faster to claim his and Hesketh’s first Grand Prix win. In Lord Hesketh’s own words “We went mad to be perfectly honest”, the party was well and truly back on.

The party’s over
Hunt followed this extraordinary victory with second place in France backed up by second, fifth and fourth respectively in Austria, Italy and the United States. These results propelled Hunt to a final position of fourth in the Drivers Championship with thirty three points. Hesketh occupied the same position in the Constructors Championship. Despite this incredible performance the money had now run out and Le Patron was faced with the decision of finding a sponsor or folding the team.

Hunt by now had made enough of the right moves to attract the attention of McLaren who poached the Hesketh driver, a move that would see Hunt famously crowned Drivers Champion in 1976. The loss of Hunt to the team and the prospect of losing his cherished independent status was enough for Hesketh to close the team down. The name of Hesketh would later re-emerge on the V100, Lord Hesketh’s venture into motorcycle manufacturing.

The biggest ‘little’ racing team in the world had captured the public’s imagination. Scorned by F1’s establishment, Le Patron, Superstar, Bubbles and the Doc audaciously challenged the big boys and beat them at their own game. It was, as they say, one hell of a party.