LADS ON TOUR! The Story of the Hesketh Formula One Team (1973-1978)

[Music] rich people in Motorsport combine like cheese on toast and the best way to make a million in Motorsport is to start off with 10 million or however the saying goes but sometimes people can be so rich it doesn't matter what they spend and in turn they can end up being a team that has quite the reputation these days it's the likes of Lawrence Stoll who are the rich people in racing billionaires buying Out Racing teams and then running them to advertise one of their other purchases in this case Aston Martin but in the past you've had other millionaires that have turned up or had people that claim to have more money than they actually did but then in the 1970s a team turned up on the grid who were just pure Lads Lads Lads archbishops of banterbury if you will and they were the hesketh Formula 1 team this team was set up by Thomas Alexander from more hesketh the third Baron hesketh but we'll just shorten this down to Lord hesketh as you can probably assume from all of this he's a British nobleman who was absolutely freaking loaded and had been since he was 4 years old he inherited the Barony in 1955 when his father died at the age of just 39 and he became a member of the House of Lords but before the politics came the racing in 1966 at silon a 1931 Rolls-Royce Phantom showed up but it wasn't any ordinary Phantom as this one was the car from the 1965 film the yellow Rolls-Royce in it were Charlie kryon Stewart Pierce courage Charles Lucas and Jonathan Williams and they were being driven around by their chauffeur Anthony Horsley better known as bubbles those four used to share a flat in Harrow where Frank Williams occasionally crashed on their sofa it's amazing how all this links together doesn't it but yeah there's also not that many pictures of bubbles I can use sorry Bubbles and Frank would later travel around Europe having various Formula 3 related adventures and then bubble's racing career ended when his car crashed at the nurburg ring he'd seen Frank go off in front of him and well followed him he took his wrecked car back to England where he later ended up appearing on TV in several advertisements flogging anything from stuffing to beer after doing that for a bit he and a friend decided to go to batan cuz why not when he returned he had no money and set up a used car dealership in North London grafting for well over a year when his path crossed with Lord hesketh both were interested in going racing so they went back to Formula 3 with hesus goal to make bubbles world champion but it turned out that bubbles just wasn't that good of a driver so they took on a second driver who had just been Let Go by March James hunt hunt had started his career in touring cars and moved into single seaters like hesketh he was from a more upper class family CU his dad was a stock broker and his mom was a descendant of Sir William Jackson who was a railway entrepreneur and industrialist who was also a member of parliament at of Formula 3 racing 1970 hunt had been involved in an incident with another driver Dave Morgan at Crystal Palace Morgan Had attempted to overtake hunt at the final corner and they collided with hunt in the gravel with only two wheels on his car hunt got out of the car and pushed Morgan to the ground and as you can imagine the Clark of the course was not happy with this both were hauled in front of the powers at B and eventually hunt was cleared while Morgan ended up with a 12-month ban in 1972 hunt had ended up at the works March team and was able to string together some decent results although he was disqualified from AAS at Alton park for an illegal engine before being dropped in favor of yak and mass hunt took a spare cut and against Max Mosley's instructions raced in a March for another team while he' gained the nickname hunt the shunt he was the sort of person who would fit right in at hesketh hes then built up a bit of a reputation for being LS LS LS o and were just the people that weren't really the sort of people you'd expect to find in a Formula 1 Paddock there was a lot of champagne there was a lot of women and they were way more interested in having fun than doing any sort of super serious racing a lot of the other teams were looking at them with raised eyebrows while racing in Formula 3 through 1972 both hunt and Bubbles had smacked their cars into every barrier imaginable and Bubbles knew that he wasn't cut out to be a driver so he took a step back and became the team manager since both the cars have been written off by hunt and Bubbles hesketh hired a March 712 for the British F2 finale at Alton Park hunt would be third behind only Ronnie Peterson and Nikki louder so it was settled hes would be in Formula 2 for 1973 the team got hold of the C's ts15 the successor to the ts10 that had won the 1972 European F2 title at mallerie Park hunt was running fourth when his suspension went and then he had his F1 debut at the non-championship race of Champions at Brans he was third in a ts9b once again from 30s hunt later wrote that car off at po so hes looked at what was going on and thought well screw it let's just go into Formula 1 so they started negotiating with Max Mosley who was one of the the owners of the March team to get themselves a car and they used of all things grain to buy it no really that's what they used they originally offered five bags of grain Mosley wanted 10 but they eventually settled on eight at £1,000 a bag so it was 8 Grand to leas the car including all the bits and pieces they need like gear boxes and Spares and then got two dfvs off Cosworth and were at Monte Carlo for the 1973 Monaco Grand Prix hum was running sixth before the car died at the next race he did finish Sixth and got a point which was up to Fourth at the British G Prix third at the Dutch Grand Prix and then second at the US Grand Prix which was pretty good considering they had no sponsors and the whole thing was funded out of a stately home in northamptonshire attached to which is toaster race spelled toester but it's pronounced toaster and the rest of the crew wasn't exactly the big brains at Lotus either the guy that drove the transporter was the grandson of the designer of the Royal Albert Hall the head of catering was a restaurant owner from Chelsea and a man called Christopher Sykes was documenting the whole thing as if it was some sort of Logan pool Vlog they had a piano to entertain people in the garages they had celebrities and mat brought along for a piss up and the image of the amateur public school boys way out of their league was very much placed on them by well everybody the attitude was if we're going to spend a load of money on racing in the world's most glamorous dangerous and Cutthroat Motorsport we're going to have a jolly good time doing so and that's on top of the Rolls-Royce Cornish that was the transport between the hotel and the track at Monaco when they first turned up and then there was the logo it was based off a postcard that hes had received off a girl he knew way back when and it had this yellow teddy bear on it so he took that teddy bear put a white racing helmet on it then put the Union flag on the white helmet and that became the team's logo on top of this hunt was running around with this badge on his raceit that said sex Breakfast of Champions it was a completely different time and when the team entered Formula 1 for a full season with the hesa 308 designed by Harvey POS white the team captured the public imagination because Britain in 1974 was not a fun place to live we had the 3-day working week as people sought to save energy there was also higher rates of inflation higher rates of unemployment and wages couldn't increase with the inflation because of government imposed caps on the private and public sectors hesketh and Hunt became the Plucky underdogs that people liked because they had that devil makeer attitude and were running a car without sponsors on and because hunt was so charming and was the epitome of women love and men want to be me it gained the team a lot of attention because hes was one of the richest men in England he could run it all and pay hunt 15 grand a year which was a lot of money back then bubbles admits in a motorsport.com interview that they did ruffle a few of the feathers Teddy Meer the boss at McLaren hated them and other teams didn't think they were proper because they seemed to be more about the fun rather than the serious racing all this at a time when someone could be killed especially if they weren't taking things as serly as they should have been but when they picked up that March from Mosley's place they end ended up somehow walking away with Harvey pwe and Nigel stra who were among the Aldo Costas John barnards Ross Bruns and Adrien newies of the time POS later claimed that the only reason he'd ended up at hesketh was because they'd got him absolutely mortal while hunt would retire for most races That season he was still able to claim three podiums in a fourth place which put them in good stead for the following year it was supposed to be powered by a V12 but they had to make do for want of a better phrase with the tried and tested dfv hunt found the to be better than the old March and it was good for points finishes if the car or hunt could just make it to the end of them hes revised the car for the 1975 season moving the oil radiators and changing the body work about hunt challenged for victory at Argentina finishing second in that race but it was the 1975 Dutch gr Prix where they showed the F1 world that yes they were having a laugh but they actually had something hes had arrived at the 1974 Dutch gr pre off the back of five retirements in a row for hunt they arrived at zandvoort and everything seemed normal Friday glorious weather Saturday perfect conditions for qualifying but when they woke up on the Sunday it was absolutely lashing it down enter the famous line uttered by Lord hesketh himself we saw all the teams getting their spanners out and we just thought well we know absolutely all about setting a car up so better leave it as it is the race probably wouldn't have been run today even in 1975 They delayed it as much as possible before they allowed the drivers to go out on the wet tires louder had qualified ahead of his teammate and Hunt was in third qualifying 410s off poll and mixing it with the likes of tyell braam and McLaren when the green flag dropped or the Lights Went Out whichever format was being used at this time the two Ferraris LED hunt though had pitted for dry tires early on in the race and by lap 15 he was in the lead in the final 20 laps louder was putting immense pressure on Hunt to try and get him to make a mistake because overtaking was proving very very difficult hunt had actually been pushed into a mistake at Argentina and finished second but this time he managed to hold on and and managed to cross the line about a second ahead of louder when the checker flag finally dropped the Ferrari was the class of the field that year people had turned up expecting a dominant display from the prancing horses and louder was the best driver on the grid at that time so it all seemed a given even at xanor an overtaking move at turn one in theory should have been relatively easy for Nikki but Hunt's defensive driving that day showed the F1 world that he and hesketh were more than just womanizing party animals that didn't take things seriously although hes himself admits after the race he went into blackout he also said that the only person on the F1 grid that did take him seriously was Enzo Ferrari himself Hunt's epic win at xanor his three second places and three other points finishes netted hesketh fourth in the Constructor Championship but things weren't going particularly well for the lads from toaster because hesketh was starting to run out of money and he ended his involvement with the team on top of this Emerson fit aaly was leaving McLaren to join his brother's copasa team I think that's how it's pronounced and this left an opening for hunt to go to McLaren so he did the team now in the hands of bubbles carried on POS weight had taken the 308 B to Wolf Williams and made it into the 308c bubbles and Co turned their car into the 308d and hired Howard erle to drive the car having shun the idea of being sponsored the car was now blue and was sponsored by rler the cigarette paper people and Penthouse which is a uh gentleman's special interest magazine let's put it that way Penthouse even ran an issue when the sponsorship was signed featuring the car on the front cover with a scantily clad human female lying on the side podt because that was the image of the team all they needed on top of that was backy from the spearm mitt Rhino which is um well it's a nightclub and that's all you need to know how would the ultimate Lads team look today in Formula 1 I might have to attempt to paint one and stick it on Instagram or put it as a community post or something CU I've got this idea that it would be Nando protein shakes sports betting stellar artoa and something to do with MMA but the 308d had had some issues at the rear the arrow was a bit all over the place and the rear end wasn't particularly fun to control a seventh place at the British corn Prix was the best they could do and scored no points that year the 308d was upgraded to the 308e for 1977 and the team expanded briefly into a three car operation due to Bubbles doing whatever he could to bring in money but only one of the cars was starting races as the other one or two was failing to qualify for those Grand Prix in 1978 the team slimmed back down to one car and was now backed by Olympus cameras and also had a revolving door of drivers Eddie cha in his only appearance with the team was the only time a hesketh would make the Grid in 1978 with deina galissa and Derek Daly not qualifying well Dy couldn't even pre-qualify for the three races he was therefore but at the non-championship international trophy at silverston he had dice with hunt McLaren for the lead of the race but a stone cracked his helmet viser and he was out after the Belgian cor pre of 1978 the team folded following the demise of the team hesketh entered politics he was already a member of the House of Lords but didn't get active until the attempted assassination of Thatcher by the IRA in 1984 Thatcher had visited hesketh after the attack and hesketh had explained that he'd never taken his seat to which she said you must it's your duty after which hes held several positions under Maggie and later John Major including Chief whip of the House of Lords working under the Secretary of State for the environment and minister of State for industry he's no longer a member of the House of Lords in 1999 the House of Lords act removed all but 92 peers and he was not one of the 92 that was elected to keep his seat he was then treasur of the conservative party but then had to sell the Eastern neston estate where the Formula 1 team had its base due to financial difficulties in 2011 he defected to the UK independence party or ukip which is a party with the main goal of seeing the UK leave the European Union obviously that's now happened so what are they doing bubbles meanwhile runs an organic granola company called angry squirrel which is a far cry from his adventures in the 1970s with hesketh it's a bit like Guns and Roses going into the scented candle industry they say the flame that burns twice as bright burns out twice as fast a phrase often repeated when reading up about all of this but the idea was to have fun it seems the team did have fun I can't imagine the later years being fun but it's probably one of those fun while ited sort of things bubbles hesketh champagne women James definitely a team of the time that would never wash in any Motorsport padic today let alone Formula 1 I think that's why they're looked at in the way they are because they really were of the time society and the sport have moved on since the 70s and in modern Formula 1 could you imagine all of those Shenanigans happening it just wouldn't happen because of like I say the the business of Formula 1 has changed but hesketh remains quite the Time Capsule put it that way so then a revisit to the famous hesketh team of the 1970s if this has taught you something new about the history of Motorsport then do like the video so I know I've done a good job and for more stuff like this get subscribed with the Bell on so you never miss out on anything else to do around here massive thanks as ever to the kind folk at patreon and if you want to support the channel at a more personal level and keep the picture purchasing piggy bank topped up there's a link to patreon Discord socials and my affiliate links down in the description or if you want to support at a more overt level there's super thanks and there memberships if you want to do that so until next time I've been aen M have a cracking day wh every live in the world and I'll see you all again soon for another video [Music] goodbye

Channel: Aidan Millward

Views: 44,368

Keywords: hesketh, james hunt, rush movie, 1976 f1 season, niki lauda, ferrari, lord hesketh, politics, maggie, maggie thatcher, margaret thatcher, britain, uk, 1970s, formula one, f1, the race, autosport, motorsport magazine, talking head, podcast, vlog, comedy, history, racing, motor racing, motorsport, good old days, adien millward, storytime, lads, lads on tour, aldas, tommo, wtf1, josh revell, peter brook, matt amys, driver61

Id: y1VauYA6SnY

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024