To you, James Hunt was an F1 playboy who bedded 5,000 women. To me, he was Dad - who doted on me... and his 300 budgies

By Caroline Graham

PUBLISHED: 18:22 EST, 25 May 2013 | UPDATED: 18:22 EST, 25 May 2013

Fond memories: Tom Hunt remembers his father as a doting Dad

He was motor racing’s first poster boy – ruggedly handsome, golden-haired and as unconventional  on the track as he was colourful off it. At the peak of his fame in the 1970s, James Hunt’s death-defying antics on the racing circuit and party lifestyle won him rock-star status and legions of devoted fans.

Famous for his dishevelled, almost hippy style, he once boasted he had bedded more than 5,000 women. There were plenty of male fans, too. Motor racing aficionados loved Hunt’s laconic, understated approach to driving like a demon as well as his gripping rivalry with the great Niki Lauda.

Yet there was another side to him which few would guess at – a home-loving family man who was never happier than when with his wife and two young sons.

‘The father I knew was very  different from the man the world knows,’ says elder son Tom, speaking for the first time of his famous father. ‘He had a very gentle, compassionate, loving side.’

Today’s Monaco Grand Prix marks the 40th anniversary of 1976 Formula 1 World Champion James Hunt’s grand prix debut and 20th anniversary of his death.

Tom, who was just seven when his father died from a heart attack aged 45 in June, 1993, will be trackside for the race.

‘The footage and pictures give a very two-dimensional version of him. People concentrate on his wild antics and the glory days of his racing, and of course that was part of him, but there was another side of him that only his close friends and family saw, and that was a far more complex man.

‘He was a devoted dad who spent hours with my brother Freddie and me. We lost him young and it saddens me that as the years go on my memories fade and I feel like the images of him in the 1970s are what I know best rather than remembering Daddy from the 1990s.

‘He could spend hours in the aviary talking to his budgies.

‘He was an extremely loyal friend. And, of course, he was a wonderful father.’

The father that Tom remembers, and whose driver’s licence and honorary Playboy Club membership card he treasures, bears little relation to the pin-up with the party lifestyle.

Few can forget the then press reports of his outrageous parties. Joan Collins, then at the height of her Dynasty fame, came to his 40th birthday dressed as a peacock.

Hot stuff: James Hunt, pictured here with a model, was very much the poster boy for F1 in the 1970s

Another close friend was snooker genius Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, with whom Hunt downed copious amounts of his favourite vodka and Five Alive cocktails.

Instead of the hard-living glamour boy, Tom, now 27, recalls a man almost entirely consumed by domestic interests – including his collection of 300 prize-winning budgerigars, upon which Hunt doted.

‘My earliest memory is of us putting up a climbing frame together in the back garden,’ he says. ‘The garden was his pride and joy. He spent hours getting the lawn just so. It was always mowed in perfect lines and Dad would spend ages showing me exactly how he did it.’

Tom, Hunt’s son from the racer’s second marriage to vivacious interior designer Sarah Lomax, the daughter of Rosemary Lomax, the first woman to train a Gold Cup winner at Royal Ascot, recalls his father tending the budgerigars devotedly.

‘His greatest love was those budgies. We’d hang out in the aviary for hours. He knew everything about them and took such pride in them. It was like he entered a different world out there. Mum would have to ring a bell to get us in for supper.

‘People always go on about Dad and his playboy reputation. But those birds of a feathered variety were his true passion. I never saw anything negative. To me he was the best daddy ever.

Even though he died when I was young, I have so many memories – of holidays in Portugal, of flying a kite with him on Wimbledon Common, of feeding the Canada geese on the common.’

Tom is in Monaco this weekend to launch a new company which aims to preserve and protect his father’s  legacy through a line of official James Hunt clothing and memorabilia, as well as a charitable foundation. He has given up his job as a pub manager to concentrate on his new project.

When the drivers line up on the grid for today’s race, widely considered the most prestigious and glamorous  of the Formula 1 season, former world champion Kimi Raikkonen will be sporting a special tribute to the late racing driver: a helmet emblazoned with the name ‘James Hunt’.

But a much more lavish celebration of Hunt’s achievements will be unveiled in September with the  cinema release of the £100 million Hollywood blockbuster Rush in which Chris Hemsworth, the teenage star of Thor, plays the charismatic racing driver. Already it is being hailed an Oscar frontrunner.

Directed by Ron Howard, the Oscar-winner who made A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon, it tells the story of the epic battle between Hunt and arch rival Niki Lauda for the 1976 championship which was marred by  a fiery crash that nearly killed Lauda and culminated in a cliff-hanger finish at the rain-lashed Japanese Grand Prix that saw Hunt win by a single point.

Though utterly competitive on the track, Hunt – dubbed ‘Hunt the Shunt’ because of his numerous spectacular crashes – and Lauda were close friends away from racing. So highly did Lauda think of his rival, he once said: ‘He is the only man whose life  I really envied. Even towards the end, when I saw him in scruffy trainers, you knew there was a man who had lived life to the full.’

The film is said to contain some of the most thrilling and authentic race footage ever captured, according to  a handful of Hollywood insiders who have seen the finished movie.

Fans: Tom, left, mum Sarah and brother Freddie with Hunt in one of his cars

‘It’s amazing that Dad’s story is now going to be told to a whole new generation and to a global audience,’ says Tom. ‘They’ve done an amazing job in recreating the cars and the mood of the 1970s. Chris is a huge heart throb and it’s obvious why they chose him.’

Tom and his mother and brother were extras when the scene in which Hunt won the 1976 World Championship was filmed.

‘It was so surreal to sit in the front row of the grandstand and watch “Dad” win a race. I never saw him drive.  I wasn’t even born until 1985. But you got a real sense of the excitement of racing in that era and the huge love and support of the crowd for Dad.’

Hunt’s first wife, model Suzy Miller, left him for Richard Burton, but he was devoted to Sarah, whom he  married in 1983 and affectionately nicknamed ‘Beast’.

The brothers grew up in a seven-bedroom home on tree-lined Bathgate Road in Wimbledon, just steps from Wimbledon Common. The house was home to a menagerie of animals, including a German shepherd called Jackson, a foul-mouthed parrot called Humbert and the budgerigars in a state-of-the-art aviary in the back garden.

Hunt managed to keep his children out of the limelight much of the time. But nonetheless there was  no escaping the public acclaim that followed him everywhere.

‘Obviously there was the glamorous playboy side of him that captivated the British public when he was racing,’ says Tom. ‘In those days, Formula 1 was so much more sexy, glamorous and dangerous.

‘A lot of Dad’s contemporaries died. These days it’s big business and a lot safer.

‘Dad was never big-headed. When he partied he did it in a humble way.

‘He never dressed up in designer clothes or wore huge sunglasses. He never tried to look cool.

Rivals: Niki Lauda (left) and James Hunt argue about a crash between the two at Zolder race track, Belgium

‘But he was naturally cool in the same way Steve McQueen was. And people responded to that.
‘He was cool in a way I don’t think celebrities in today’s era are. These days people try so hard. Dad didn’t try. What you saw was what you got. That’s why people still love him.’

Hunt started out driving for Lord Hesketh – who once quipped he made a small fortune from motor racing after starting  with a large one – then switched to McLaren.

‘Dad was very professional in the way he raced,’ Tom insists. ‘He was a fearsome competitor and put it all out on the track. But it was nothing like Formula 1 today.

‘I think people related to the Hesketh team. They were posh but they were not just a bunch of Hooray Henrys having a laugh. Of course there was that side to them, but they were deadly serious about what they were doing. Once Dad got behind the wheel, he was all business.’

Financially, Hunt never reaped  the rewards of today’s drivers. Stars such as Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel earn a salary of around £15 million a year, but can earn tens of millions more in endorsement deals. After James retired from  racing, he went on to become the ‘voice’ of Formula 1 for the BBC during a 13-year stint as a commentator alongside Murray Walker.

His public school charm, dry humour and unflinching honesty (he would routinely berate drivers for being ‘spectacularly stupid’) earned him millions of loyal fans, even though Walker complained that his  co-host would routinely turn up  hungover and shoeless in the commentary box.

While Tom didn’t inherit his father’s love of speed, his brother Freddie, now 25, flirted with a motor racing career. He also played professional polo and now lives with his girlfriend in Argentina.

The new James Hunt collection will feature the navy blue and gold colours of his school – Wellington College in Berkshire – as well as designs by artist Nicolas Hunziker who has worked with the estate of Steve McQueen and the Porsche car company. There is also talk of a  collaboration with Barbour.

‘We want to make sure Dad is portrayed in the right way,’ says Tom. ‘It’s all about ensuring the highest level of quality in the products and doing something he would be proud of. To the world he’s James Hunt, but to me he’s just Dad. I’m so proud of him and my goal is to build something that would make him proud of me.’

For more details  about the James Hunt Racing Collection and the James Hunt Foundation, visit jameshuntf1.com.

Niki Lauda: Hunt's shock at how close I came to death...

When F1 legend Niki Lauda  was winning his three world championships, it was a darker time, when death could be waiting at the next corner.

Lauda watched a succession  of good men die in racing cars, and himself suffered injuries so appalling that he was given the last rites after being trapped in his burning Ferrari at Germany’s Nurburgring in 1976.

‘Our pressure at the time was that we did not know if we would wake up the next day,’ he says.
Lauda, now 64, was given a shocking reminder of those dangerous days when he watched a preview of Ron Howard’s stunning movie Rush, about his F1 rivalry with James Hunt.

‘I have to say, watching the accident in the film really affected me,’ he says. ‘It all came back. All these years later, you think, “S**t, that was how close  I was to death.” ’

All eyes on me: Chris Hemsworth played James Hunt in the film Rush - pictured here portraying his popularity!

Remarkably, Lauda returned  to the race track for the Italian Grand Prix just six weeks after he cheated death in Germany.

Only when he saw himself on screen bandaged and scarred did Lauda truly appreciate the effect his return had on others.

‘For the first time, I realised how my appearance shocked everyone, James included,’  says Lauda.
He has only one quibble with the way actor Chris Hemsworth portrays James in the new movie.

‘I admit I was astonished when  I saw Chris Hemsworth as James. He talked in just the same voice. But I would say there was just one difference: James always looked like he had just got out  of bed, and Chris looked like he came from a beauty salon,’  he recalls with a smile.

Of course, Lauda still misses Hunt, his great friend and partner in a host of adventures that are unknown to Formula 1 drivers today.

‘The pressure we had was staying alive, living every day  as if it was your last,’ he says.

‘This changes you. At least one driver, sometimes two, were killed in every year of my career. Today, there is no threat. These guys should be grateful that Formula 1 is so safe.’

And wistfully, he adds: ‘I would have loved James to be there with me at the premiere of Rush in London in September.’