Relaxing in the pit lane during practice for the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix, James Hunt shares a joke with a young Princess Caroline of Monaco, who is sporting a Jackie Stewart T-shirt that we’re sure would have drawn a typically droll comment from the British World Champion…
Sadly for James, that’s where the laughs would end that weekend, as engine failure put an end to his race – one of eight retirements in a season that would prove lacklustre in comparison with his whirlwind (and now legendary) championship victory the previous year. The 1977 season would also prove expensive for Hunt, who received hefty fines for a number of ‘offences’, including assaulting a marshal following an on-track contretemps, walking the track in an ‘unsafe manner’, and simply not bothering to attend the podium ceremony for his comfortable win at the season finale in Japan. Well, he was never one to bow to the establishment, was he?
Photo: Sipa Press/Rex Shuttershock
