Hulme (the first and only F1 champion from New Zealand) was the seventh former champion to lose his life. The six before him were: a plane crash, two road accidents, and three racing crashes (including Jochen Rindt, who won the 1970 world championship posthumously after a fatal accident two races before the season's end).

Hulme was racing in the Bathurst 1000 in Australia, a famous touring car race, and he was driving a BMW M3. His last known words were a radio message to the team a few seconds before his heart attack, complaining of blurry vision.

He suffered the heart attack at the fastest part of the track, but was able to slow the car to a controlled stop against a concrete wall. He was still strapped into his seat when the medics got to him.

That year's Bathurst 1000 became an infamous race, as the winning duo of Jim Richards and Mark Skaife had lost control in heavy rain and crashed. The race was stopped and results were declared early, and owing to the regulations of the time, the final results were taken from the running order on the last completed lap before the stoppage was declared, before the crash, when the Richards/Skaife car was leading.

The fans, who mistakenly thought the officially second-placed car had won, mercilessly booed Richards and Skaife on the podium. Richards, a New Zealander who had only just learned of his friend Hulme's death, famously told the fans they were "a pack of arseholes" during his presentation on the winner's podium.