James Hunt joins McLaren. He quickly shows what an excellent driver he is despite media pressure concerning his personal life.

James Hunt's wife Suzie ran off with Richard Burton, a famous Welsh film star who had been married a number of times to, among many others, Elizabeth Taylor. This was huge publicity; it made all the daily newspapers – The Sun, The Mirror, The Telegraph. Every daily newspaper in the world wanted to talk to us and him. It was really scary, the pressure was quite amazing. Reporters from daily newspapers are very, very good. When a man from The Mirror or a man from The Sun gets hold of you then…well. They’re good at asking those impossible questions like: ‘Are you still beating your wife?’ Yes, No, or No Comment – either way you’re stuffed.

We paid James very little because we didn’t have to pay him anything. Salary was based on points and because we had the best car in Grand Prix racing so we could get him for next to nothing because he needed the drive. This always enraged him and became one of my techniques for getting him to move quickly in races. We'd stand with him before the race on the grid with the headphones on and I would always bring up the subject of money. I would ask: ‘Did you fly first class to Japan James?’ or ‘Are you allowed to bring your girlfriend?’ He would explode because he was always flying cattle class and his girlfriend was never allowed along; I'd walk off laughing to myself and watch as his anger made him drive faster and faster.

James became our driver in ’75 and we took him to Silverstone and – being England – it snowed. We realised he was so long in the legs that we couldn’t fit him in the car. We used to call him Quasimodo because he was like a hunchback with very long legs. We had to cut the front of the car out and move the pedals forward. He also had to cut off the ends of his shoes to make his feet as short as possible.

Anyway, the rest is history. We went to Brazil to this race in Interlagos and he put the car on Pole: he was the fastest. In the race he was leading comfortably until the car broke. We knew we had a good deal.

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure