AUGUST 28, 1976

AUTOWEEK

PAGE 7

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Continued From Preceding Page of people who go on and say, oh, it's "McLaren tires" or it's "Ferrari tires" and they're wrong. They're completely wrong. It's just that McLaren and Ferrari and one or two other people to a lesser extent have done the testing to suit their cars to the tires. It's the other way round. And a lot of the credit, in fact all the credit, is to the work that McLaren did last year with Emerson. I mean I don't take any credit at all, it's them and Emerson. They did a lot of work on the car last year and they got it very good; they went through some pretty terrible areas to get it that way, but they did it in the end. Lyons: Just why do you reckon you, meaning you and the team, went into a slump after Spain, and why are you out of it now? Hunt: Well. You really would have to ask Teddy that, And I don't think he 'd tell you! Because we 'd made a bit of a cockup, and we moved something, and when we realized it and moved it back everything was all right. No, I'm not going to tell you what it was! It might help other people. I don't think it would, but it might. Suffice it to say it was aerodynamic, and it was minor, and it was a cockup. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the kinds of circuits we were racing on, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the regulations thing, you know, after Spain. Other than the fact we were put into a panic and a lot of work and we didn't have any time to go testing. And it was only testing at Ricard that put the thing right. We suspected in Sweden what the problem very likely was, but we couldn't put it right then, we hadn't the gear. The trouble is, you see, I would like to tell everybody what it was because there 's a strong feeling that we must have been chea ting in Spain, getting an a dvantage, and as s oon as we narrowed the ca r w e were useless. But it 's j u s t nothin g whatsoever t o do with t h at, at a ll. Ly ons: Cer tain drivers get ou t of th e old Hesketh, that is the Williams, a nd say it's a ba d car, it doesn't h a ndle, no g rip.

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James Hunt

Hunt chats with Mclaren boss Teddy Mayer between practice sessions.

Jon fhompsoll

"I had a pretty funny career up to F1 and I didn't win any races."
Hunt: Well-they've got to set it up . That's their fault. No? Getting acarright, within reservations, is a combination of a driver and a team. The McLaren doesn't feel , to the driver, any better a car than the old Hesketh did. The 308 used to handle just as well, when it was handling well, and when it was handling badly it was just as bad as the McLaren is when it isn't handling well. They felt exactly the same, they went through the same motions, you know what I mean? Except the McLaren would appear to be slightly more efficient, it does everything that little bit faster. Which is faster than a driver can detect. I mean, if you took me down to a circuit and set me in first one car and got me really comfortable with it, lot of laps, right? Then a week later put me into the other one under the same conditions, and d idn't tell me any times and took away from me any measuring equipment, disguised the use of the rev-counter for instance-I wouldn't be able to tell y ou which was the better car. If you're only one mile a n hour faster around the whole track , who can tell the difference , from the feel? I mean they g o throug h the same motions. Lyons: Why was it that a t the beginning of last y ear you twice spun out of the lea d of a race, at Buenos Aires and again at Barcelo n a? You seemed to stop doin g that, in the popula r conc eption any way , at Za ndvoort. Hunt: Yeah. It was inexperience. I was, funnily enough, you know, crack ing under the pressure. Oddly enough. I was so w orried about it, leading, right? , that I was so busy telling myself to be careful, well you're in the lead now , just take it eas y and be careful-that when I got to the corner I was still talki ng to myself and not concentrating! The finally I worked out that you had to just sit and relax and get on with it, just drive normally the way you do when you 're not leading and not spinning, stop giving yourself a pep talk and not concentrating. I think in a way it was a good thing, because it gave me, you know, a good lesson. You learn all the time. You see, you get a bad training in Formula Three. In the days when I was running in F3 it was in a lot of ways a disadvantage to be leading because it' s very easy to overtake, you get a good tow with an F3 car. If you 've got somebody right up your chuff chances are he'll be coming past you at any moment sometime on that lap. On most of the tracks where there's any kind of decent sort of straight they j ust all come screaming past. Whereas in Formula One things are very much the reverse. It' s very, very difficult to pass in Fl, because

of the wings .g etting messed up . and you can't get very close to the car in front. It took me a while to really realize that, despite all the years I spent in F1. It took me a while to reali ze th a t w hen you 're in the lead of a GP you're really on top . A ll t he problems belong to other people. No matter how much faster they can go, no matter that they 're bre athing dO', \'n your neck . they s till can't fi nd a w ay r ou nd you . You see, you've got to r emember I h a d a p retty funny career up to Fl and I didn't win any races . So I didn't have any p ractic e at winning-and yo u definitely get pra ctice. I've go t a bit of practice now, and getting into th e mood for it. and once you get into the lead and realize y ou 're really the guy in charge

you get confidence, and you 're in much better shape. Once you get in the mood and get confident things g ets e a s y . There w as a point a t th e begin ning of this sea son that I brok e d own , but I was behind N iki a nd we were very closely matched. He j u st had the edge, but-it w as a ti ny, tiny edge. And I always said, half of that was the fact that they were in a winning streak and we were not. It only needed a tip of the scales and we'd get in to a winning streak and they'd be out of it. It's a very, very fine balance, and it only needs to swing a little bit. That was a ll it needed and I was not worried after the first couple of races, by any means . And then you k n ow it did swing, and now its m y job to k eep it that w ay.

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