Hunt’s son tells of softer side to F1 champion

The free-spirited playboy Hunt, died aged just 45 of a heart attack came after years of hard-living.

But his eldest son, Tom, 27, recalls how away from the limelight he enjoyed the simple pleasures of feeding ducks, flying kites and walking dogs on Wimbledon Common.

Tom, who was seven when his father died, also told of his great love for snooker – and his passion for keeping up to 250 budgerigars in an aviary in his garden.

He spoke at a pub near his home in rural West Sussex ahead of the general UK cinema release on Friday of the Ron Howard-directed film Rush.

Starring Australian Chris Hemsworth as Hunt and Spanish-born actor Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda, Rush depicts the friendship and fierce rivalry between the pair on the race track in the 1970s.

It features the battle for supremacy between the pair and Hunt’s famous World Championship triumph in 1976 when he clinched the title from Austrian-born Lauda by a single point in Japan.

It was in that same year that three-times F1 champion Lauda suffered appalling burns in a crash at the Nurgburgring.

Tom Hunt, who has a striking resemblance to his late father, praised the film-makers and said it was “brilliant”.