GPBlog's Top 50 drivers in 50 days - #38 - Denny Hulme
A McLaren M23, similar to the one Hulme drove in his later F1 days
F1 News
Good evening and we’re back once again with GPBlog’s countdown of our top 50 F1 drivers of all time. It’s just 38 days until the Australian Grand Prix finally kicks off the 2020 season. Before that though, if you missed yesterday’s piece on 1980 world champion Alan Jones then you can click here to read it, but if not then let’s crack on with Denny Hulme…
Perhaps one of the lesser known F1 world champions, Hulme competed in an era with some of F1’s very best, names such as Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi and Graham Hill. You’ll have to return in a few weeks or so to read about them, but Hulme managed to come out on top in 1967 and take his only F1 title.
The New Zealander began his F1 career with Brabham in 1965 as an occasional third driver to team boss Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney, scoring points in both the French and Dutch Grands Prix.
In 1966 Gurney left the team to found his own team, allowing Hulme to become second driver behind Brabham.
His car was capable that season as Brabham took his third title, with Hulme down in fourth. However, his season was better than the results suggested, with four of his races ended by reliability with Hulme finishing on the podium in every race he completed, although he didn’t manage to get a victory.
1967 was Hulme’s year as his and his car’s consistency allowed him to triumph over the faster Lotus cars. He took victory at the second race of the season in Monaco as his rivals for the title Clark and Brabham retired and five podium finishes in the next six races put him nine points ahead of Brabham with three races to go.
That run included an impressive win at the Nurburgring as Clark’s reliability issue put him all but out of contention for the championship.
Hulme retired as Brabham took P2 in Italy to close the title race up, but consecutive thirds saw Hulme become the first and only man from New Zealand to win the world title.
Following his title win, Hulme decided to link up with fellow Kiwi Bruce McLaren at his team, the famous McLaren squad that is still running in F1 today.
Their first season together was pretty successful as Hulme won two races and was level on points with Hill heading into the final two rounds but too consecutive retirements saw him finish down in third place.
The next couple of years were promising without making a real title charge before a disastrous 1971, which saw Hulme finish 13th in the standings the year after Bruce died.
Hulme was to finish on the podium seven times including one victory in 1972, but opted to retire at the end of 1974, fearing the dangers of the sport after his friend and former teammate Peter Revson’s death at Kyalami.
He returned to New Zealand, often racing there, mostly in touring cars.
He died behind the wheel at the 1992 Bathurst 1000 after suffering a heart attack, aged just 56.
Hulme was a driver who took advantage of his consistency to get the best results. Perhaps not on the same level as some of his counterparts in the same era, but Hulme did what he had to do to win the big prize.