4 replies to this topic

[Ralliart]

Many believe that James Hunt retired when a drive shaft broke on his Wolf F1 car at Monaco '79. His biographter mentions several instances of Hunt getting back in a race car, but he missed some.
"(After Monaco) James tested at Dijon...(and) then they went testing at Silverstone. Peter warr rented the circuit, had 12 mechanics and two cars there...James turns up and practices for a day and a half and suddenly announces that he is going to retire. Peter asks him if he is going to finish the tests and James replies, "A rabbit has just run across the circuit and another one might do the same to me and cause an accident, so I think I will pack it in now."...So it was agreed that he was just paid for the half season he had done and he lost a half million dollars. But then came the crunch: the following day he rang up Peter and asked if he could be released to drive for Ligier, instead of Patrick Depailler. To me, it is unbelievable, but there it is. Peter replied that...if he drove a racing car, he would sue him for all he could."
Rob Walker
Oct. '79 Road & Track
In '80, Hunt was offered a one-off at Long Beach, according to his biographer, but he broke his leg skiing
In '81, Hunt was offered 2.6 million pounds to drive for Brabham in '82 (according to one report)
In late '81 or early '82, Hunt was photographed by Geoff Goddard driving an Aston Martin-Lola GTP car
In '84 he raced at Brands Hatch w/Bell and Watson in an "historics" race?
In '90 he drove a Williams F1 car at Paul Ricard
In May '91, Hunt was thinking of racing in the DTM and tested, along with Pedro Lamy and Diogo Castro Santos, at the Neue Nurburgring on an AMG Mercedes; Hunt on Ludwig/Kreuzpointner mount. Drove a few laps, said "it was really a lot of fun" He couldn't decide to commit to the DTM and was even thinking about CART.

[masterhit]

He also went back to his main love and competitive hobby - budgerigar breeding. Seriously...

[dolomite]

Didn't he drive the Wolf in the Gunnar Nilsson trophy thing at Donington after Monaco '79?

[AlesiUK]

i was lucky enough to see James Hunt drive a race car late in his life.

It was either 1989 or 1990.more likely to have been 89 i think.i was a silverstone with my dad who was working for Cobra at the time,they were testing some Brazilian animal.Marco Greco i think?.Anyway pacific racing were there as well with JJ lehto.At the time Pacific were sponsored by Marlboro whom i think James was still involved with.He turned up at the test and decieded he wanted to try a modern F3000 car,he had problems at first persuading the track officials to let him go out since he no longer held a competition license.However he was eventually alowed to go out and he did 8 or 9 laps and was not much slower than JJ.

[Megatron]

He also was offered a heafty sum by Marlboro for 1980 in a McLaren, but turned it down. Considering how terrible that machine was, it might have looked like a good move, but had Ron Dennis had big plans for the struggling outfit.

Andretti was also offered a McLaren in 81, but chose the Marlboro Alfa instead. What a bad call, but after Giacomellis performance at the Glen in 80, it was a close one.