Spain 1976, the Grand Prix that Hunt won twice from Ferrari and Niki Lauda

The rivalry of Niki Lauda y James Hunt in the Formula 1 It was so iconic that it became a movie when it was released in 2013. Rush. throughout that historic 1976 seasonMarked by the Austrian’s accident at the Nürburgring and the Englishman’s title in torrential rain in Japan, the fight for the championship was fierce between Ferrari y McLaren. And the biggest controversy between the teams occurred at the Spanish Grand Prix, the race that Hunt won twice.

The story began before that May 2 in which the fourth scoring event of the World Cup was played. During the previous year, the McLaren M23 had been taken as a template by the FIA ​​because, being the widest car on the grid, its measurements would be the basis for the new regulation that was to come into force at the 1976 Spanish GP.

The team that had won its first title in 1974 replaced its star driver Emerson Fittipaldiwho had gone to fulfill the dream of his own team (Copersucar), with Hunt, who had arrived in F1 in 1973 at the hands of Lord Alexander Hesketh -whose investment in F1 culminated in 1975- and convinced his compatriots to replace the Brazilian.

At 28, his goal was fight an old enemy of Formula 3 as equalsNiki Lauda, ​​who after a year at BRM had been hired by Ferrari in 1974 and was the reigning champion.

However, 1976 had begun with an overwhelming dominance of the Prancing Horse (The Austrian won the first races, in Brazil and South Africa, and Clay Regazzoni the rest in the United States) and two retirements from the Englishman in the McLaren, who had only scored second place on the Kyalami circuit.

But the fourth test came with news. On May 2, 1976, an article in Clarion pointed out that, in addition to highlighting the debut of the six wheeler tyrrell“almost all the cars” had had to “modify their structures due to regulatory variants, in terms of their dimensions, spoilers, air intakes, etc.”

The new technical provisions seemed to go down very well with the McLaren at the Circuito Permanente del Jarama, as Hunt took pole position, ahead of Lauda and the new Ferrari 312-T2.

“First Hunt, but Lauda won”

The race in Madrid came one month and five days after the last scoring GP of the season, in Long Beach. At that time, Lauda had gone to his farm in Austria, where he had fractured a pair of ribs falling off a tractor.

At Ferrari there was already talk of replacing him with Maurizio Flammini, from F2when the champion responded to La Gazzetta dello Sport: “Italians are only good for spinning around the church”.

Painkillers helped him get into his Ferrari and trail behind Hunt in qualifying. He even started better and hit first in the race, passing the Englishman in the first corner of the Spanish track.

The cars with the Marlboro advertising and the numbers 1 and 11 painted on the nose maintained that 1-2 for 32 laps. Was when the medicines stopped working for Lauda.

Unable to resist Hunt’s attacks, the Austrian let the Englishman’s McLaren pass and also Jochen Mass’s, who would later abandon due to engine failure. The Ferrari man thus recovered second place, although finished more than 30 seconds of his rival for the title.

After seeing the checkered flag, the Englishman got on the podium and celebrated his first championship victory with McLaren. But in the paddock the rumor that his car had irregularities was running faster than the cars on the track.

The Spanish commissioners then went to review it and resolved the disqualification of James Hunt when it was verified in the technical verification that the width of the rear axle exceeded the specifications of the international regulations of Formula 1 constructors by one and a half centimeters.

Hunt left Madrid defeated and Lauda as the winner. But McLaren would not accept the sentence and would appeal the sanction before the FIA, since not only had the gap been minimal -the difference was less than one centimeter on each side and the car measured 216.8mm instead of the mandatory 215mm– but also attributed it to the new tire introduced by Goodyearas the manufacturer had switched from transverse to radial construction, which caused the tires to bulge.

The verdict, two months later

After the victory on the desk, Lauda prevailed in Belgium and Monaco, where Hunt only added retirements. titles like “Stroke Another Crown” o “Doesn’t get tired of winning” they accumulated in the newspapers anticipating a new coronation of the reigning Formula 1 champion, who after six tests had 51 points and his greatest pursuer was his teammate at Ferrari, Regazzoni, at 15.

That changed in July, just after James Hunt’s victory at the French Grand Prix. “A sports court of appeals restored to the British his victory won in the last Grand Prix of Spain”reported the Clarín publication on July 6.

“As it will be remembered, the English driver was disqualified after winning the Formula 1 competition, consequently awarding victory to the Austrian Niki Lauda. The measure was taken after Spanish officials discovered that the rear wing of the McLaren driven by James Hunt was one and a half centimeters wider than accepted by the new rules,” he added.

The article detailed that “the appeals court, whose decision is final, based its ruling stating that the ‘imputed difference was minimal’and also took into account that the provision came into force on the first day of May, the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix, although in fact it had been announced a few months before”.

The decision undoubtedly influenced a championship that seemed to be favoring Lauda, before he suffered the shocking accident that almost cost him his life on August 1 in Germany. With those points, the Austrian fell from 55 to 52 at the top of the World Cup, while Hunt added 26 against the 17 he had before the court’s decision in Paris and went from fourth to second place.

Hunt celebrated his achievements at the desk in the best way: on the track of the next race, at Brands Hatch. There he became the first English winner of the local GP since Peter Collins in 1958 -in the middle it was won by the Scots Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart-, but the Sutton-born man received a severe setback when he was disqualified and the victory passed -once again although without turning back- into the hands of Lauda.

The rest of the story is known. In the following GP, at the Nürburgring, the Austrian had an accident and the Englishman won, which he repeated in Zandvoort, while his rival followed him on TV at the hospital.

On September 12, 40 days after their last shared race, they met again at Monza and they battled until the end of the season, when Lauda got out of the Ferrari on October 24 after running two laps of the Japanese Grand Prix. In torrential rain, Hunt finished third, one lap behind Mario Andretti and caught up with him to become world champion by one point.

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