Hunt vs. Lauda

Nearly 40 years later, 1976 is still remembered as one of the most dramatic seasons in the history of Formula One. It pitted the sport’s two greatest teams, Ferrari and McLaren, in a pitched battle waged at race tracks around the world—as well as in newspaper headlines and the courts. At the center of it all were two drivers who couldn’t have been less alike: Ferrari’s calculating champion Niki Lauda, and McLaren’s brash, brilliant newcomer James Hunt. Their strikingly different personalities and intense professional rivalry should have made them bitter enemies, but they were actually good friends who shared similar family backgrounds and faced many of the same struggles in their early racing careers.