Free Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry by Tom Rubython

illness, Hunt was particularly frightened of burning his clutch on the start line and feared he would make a poor start and let Lauda lead away.
    Hunt’s fears became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that is exactly what happened as Lauda went off ahead of him. Hunt said, “I erred on the side of safety; one thing I didn’t want was to not get to the first corner at all.”
    But it was Clay Regazzoni who outran both of them. He led the opening laps, with Lauda close behind and Hunt third after a very brief challenge from Fittipaldi, which faded as quickly as it had begun.
    It was immediately clear that Lauda was much quicker than Regazzoni, and so he bided his time, knowing it would come. But after seven laps, Lauda suddenly got annoyed and started harrying Regazzoni. They were looking like anything but teammates as they squabbled on the track. On lap nine, Lauda swept past and within one lap opened up a three-and-a-half-second gap, demonstrating to Audetto, who was standing in the pits with his stopwatch, how superior a driver he was.
    Watching how easily Lauda had disposed of Regazzoni, Hunt saw his chance and on the next lap also went past. Regazzoni had overcooked his tires trying to stay in front and quickly lost his right front tire, which had worn to the canvas. He had to pit when the tire finally gave way.
    The race seemed set for a battle royal between Hunt and Lauda, but the contest ended as quickly as it had started when Hunt’s new Cosworth engine let him down. One of the eight fuel injector trumpets fell off, and the cylinder stopped firing altogether. The engine would still have taken him through to the finish if it hadn’t been for the trumpet moving around and eventually dropping into the throttle slides.
    Lauda was then briefly challenged by Jean-Pierre Jarier’s Shadow-Ford car, which was flying and looked set to overtake him. With nine laps to go, Jarier drove the fastest lap of the race. But at that moment, Hunt inadvertently delivered to Lauda a huge favor. Hunt’s throttle jammed wide open and threw him into the catch fencing at high speed. Catch fencing, widely used in that era of Formula One, had many faults; but that day it probably saved Hunt’s life. That, coupled with his skill in spinning the car around, prevented what would have been a major accident. As it was, Hunt was able to get his car out of the fencing with the engine still running, and he drove it back onto the track. But the oil cooler had been ripped off, and it had deposited an oil slick on the track just as Lauda and Jarier were coming around. Lauda’s greater experience and cunning enabled him to navigate his way through without mishap. But Jarier couldn’t; he locked his tires and skidded off into the barrier, crumpling the car and leaving Lauda to cruise to victory.
    Lauda’s win had been heavily aided by the problems of Regazzoni, Hunt, and Jarier, all of whom would most likely have beaten him on the day. But Lauda didn’t see it that way at all and was ecstatic that he had vanquished all his rivals, including Emerson Fittipaldi, who brought his dire Copersucar car in 13th in front of some very disappointed fans. Jochen Mass finished sixth.
    Lauda didn’t care how the victory had been achieved and believed he had taken on all comers and demolished them. But Hunt was brutally honest about his own performance: “I wasn’t quite quick enough; I was about five seconds behind Niki when I had trouble. A trumpet fell off and the engine started misfiring, and then, not content with that, it jumped down the throttle slides, which stuck it open in the middle of a great long corner. I wasn’t man enough to handle that, even though it was only on seven cylinders.”
    After all the drama of qualifying, Hunt was magnanimous in defeat. And any thoughts that Mayer had had of firing him were completely gone. Both men were relieved when the race was over, and discord turned to complete harmony. In post-race chats to journalists, it