Niki Lauda’s horrific crash at the Nürburgring on 1 August had changed the complexion of the Formula One season. In an incredible display of courage he was back behind the wheel 33 days later to finish fourth in the Italian Grand Prix, a performance which captured even the imagination of people with little or no interest in the sport. The Austrian’s burnt face and singed eyelids became one of the year’s enduring images, a symbol of heroism. To the neutral observer, nobody was more deserving of the World Drivers’ Championship than Lauda, although victories for arch rival James Hunt in Canada and the United States had sliced the once seemingly unassailable lead to just three points approaching the final Grand Prix of the season at Mount Fuji.
Mario Andretti had qualified on pole in his Lotus with Hunt’s McLaren alongside and Lauda on the second row. Come race day and the weather was appalling. Motor Sport wrote that ‘streaming rain and low cloud swirled round the circuit and completely concealed Mount Fuji’, restricting visibility to around 100 yards (91.4m). The track was frighteningly slippery for the untimed morning practice session. Just keeping the car on the road was a major achievement. Speed was very much a secondary consideration. The 73-lap race was due to start at 1.30p.m. but the drivers appeared to have little appetite for driving nearly 200 miles (322km) in such conditions. John Watson was heard to remark: ‘In the wet, with no visibility, you only want someone in the bunch to lose control and you might have a massacre.’ Of the 25 drivers, only the fearless Vittorio Brambilla (March) and Lauda’s Ferrari team-mate Clay Regazzoni declared a definite commitment to start, although a few others indicated that they would probably be prepared to race if push came to shove. Hunt was among them. Ideally he wanted the race postponed but, rain or no rain, mist or no mist, he was not going to miss out on the chance of winning the World Championship. He had come too far … and not only geographically. Lauda did not relish the prospect of racing at all. After Nürburgring he valued his life too much.
The inactivity around the pits made the 80,000 crowd restless and as it became apparent that no start was imminent, they started the slow handclap. The organisers shared the drivers’ concerns but, in view of the crowd’s reaction, feared that a cancellation might incite unrest and so they announced that the race would start at 3p.m. A number of the drivers still thought that conditions were too dangerous but their protests fell on deaf ears. Race officials insisted that the rain had stopped and that the worst of the water had been cleared from the track, despite the fact that pools of standing water remained on the pit straight. In the absence of solidarity, the drivers decided to give it a go. By three o’clock it was raining again, but the race went ahead and after a tentative warm-up lap through plumes of spray, the cars were away. Hunt got a flyer, slithering around the first lap from Watson’s Penske. Back in third, Lauda was already struggling. Understandably beset with apprehension, the last straw came when he felt the Ferrari aquaplaning on the pit straight at the conclusion of the opening lap. ‘It was absolutely unbearable,’ he said later, ‘sitting there panic-stricken, seeing nothing, just hunched down in the cockpit waiting for somebody to run into you.’ After two laps, Lauda came into the pits and told the mechanics he was retiring from the race. Trying to protect their man, Ferrari subsequently explained away the retirement as a technical problem, but Lauda was honest and admitted that he had been too scared to continue. ‘It was like murder out there,’ he added. ‘Sometimes I could not tell which direction the car was going. For me it was the limit. There are more important things in life than the World Championship.’
With Lauda’s exit, Hunt needed only to finish fourth to dethrone the reigning champion and claim the crown for himself. All of the cars were on wet tyres but as the race progressed the rain began to ease off, with the result that the track slowly dried out. It was merely a matter of time before the drying surface began to destroy the wet tyres. Not that this appeared to concern Hunt who, approaching half-distance, held a comfortable lead over McLaren team-mate Jochen Mass. With Mass riding shotgun, Hunt’s charge towards the title appeared unstoppable. Then on lap 36 Mass hit a wet patch and slid into the barrier, out of the race, thereby elevating the six-wheeled Tyrrell of Patrick Depailler to second. By now the sky overhead was blue. Mount Fuji was visible once again. The soft wet tyres were wearing away at an alarming rate. Hunt was in a dilemma. He could feel the left rear tyre deflating. Each time he flashed past the pits he looked for a sign telling him to come in for fresh tyres. Nothing. Depailler and Mario Andretti were starting to close. On lap 62 both overtook the ailing Englishman, but when Depailler pitted for new tyres, Hunt regained second spot.
His relief was short-lived. With six laps remaining his front left tyre disintegrated as he rounded the long loop to the start/finish straight. His only consolation was that the tyre had blown near to the pits, for it would not have lasted an entire lap. Hunt’s pit stop lasted 27 seconds and dropped him back to fifth behind Andretti, Clay Regazzoni, Alan Jones and Depailler. He rejoined the race in a blinding rage, convinced that his team’s refusal to call him in earlier had cost him the championship. As he completed lap 69, a pit board mistakenly told him he was sixth. On lap 70 Hunt’s fresh tyres enabled him to surge past Jones and Regazzoni, neither of whom had stopped. He was now third behind Andretti and Depailler, although he didn’t know it at the time. Over the final two laps he desperately tried to catch Depailler but the Frenchman was still some 30 yards (27.4m) ahead at the chequered flag.
As he rose from his car, Hunt was in a black mood and began ranting at McLaren team boss Teddy Mayer for costing him the title. Having sorted out his calculations, Mayer tried to explain to his driver that he had finished third and was world champion, but Hunt couldn’t hear a word through his helmet and carried on screaming abuse. Even when he removed his helmet, he still refused to accept the fact that he was champion until he had seen it in writing. There had been too many false dawns already in that memorable 1976 season.