♪
( Spectators cheering )
( Engine roaring )
( Heartbeat )
( Heartbeat slows )
( Engines roaring )
( Low, steady heartbeat )
( Sirens approaching )
Martin Brundle: Everybody thought I was dead.
I didn't have a bruise on my body.
I didn't have anything at all.
I looked up, and I saw a red flag.
That's lucky... they've stopped the race.
Back then, we had the restarts, and...
Also we had spare cars,
so your mind goes, "get in the spare car."
And new ear plugs! Man: Yes, okay.
And new glove, and new gloves!
Martin Brundle: And so, you can't start until you've seen Professor Watkins.
"Where's sid? Anybody know where sid is?"
I ran towards him like crazy.
I got there, and he said, "I can see you're okay.
I've just watched you run 300 meters. What's the date?"
I said, "it's the 10th of march."
He said, "yeah, then you're fine. Get in the car."
♪
Martin Brundle: There is no doubt about it...
a few years before, I would have been a dead man.
Martin Brundle: We want to see something exceptional,
breathtaking, that we think we can't do.
We want to see gladiators, warriors.
And let's face it, we do like to see a bit of a shunt.
But we don't want to see deaths.
Man: Miracle of miracles! This is well nigh unbelievable!
Martin Brundle gets out of the car,
and he's seemingly all right.
Martin Brundle: It is incredible how this changed,
and how suddenly it became unacceptable to die in the name of sport.
♪
Man: Grand prix is like the Olympics of motor sports,
with the cars in all national colours:
Blue for the French, green for the British,
red for Italy, and white for the Germans,
until Mercedes stopped using paint on those silver arrows...
Man: Michael schumacher wins,
and becomes the most successful grand prix driver of all time!
Man: The silver cars that are the pride of Hitler Germany.
Man: Alfa Romeo wins, driven by the fabulous Nouvalri.
Man: What a feeling for Fernando Alonzo.
He wins the Italian grand prix at monza.
Man: As the French announce their search for the fastest man
in a new world championship series to be entitled formula 1,
with the inaugural race to be held at silverstone.
Man: Enzo Ferrari for one is not impressed
with the new wave of British motor racers.
Il Commendatore has labelled the new independent designers
garagistes, the men who cannot build engines.
Man: Fangio is beaten in buenos aires
by former team-mate and fastest rival stirling moss,
in a Cooper funny car, no less.
Man: What courage by these men,
to push these cars and themselves
to their very limits. But that is formula 1.
Narrator: Formula 1 was born in a bygone time...
When boys' heroes reigned in the sky.
Nigel Mansell: When you're young, you wanted to be a formula 1 driver.
You wanted to be an astronaut,
you wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Damon hill: After the second world war,
the mindset of going off
and doing something courageous in a vehicle,
this just naturally flowed into what became formula 1.
Martin Brundle: When you see photographs and film of that era,
the seriousness of them is awe inspiring.
I grew up in that world.
My dad was world champion '62, and I was 2.
They all had this genuineness about them.
They all were the real article.
John Watson: I certainly had respect to those that went before me.
Some of them were my contemporaries.
I met one time probably in my view
the greatest grand prix driver ever,
and that includes people like Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
Fangio. Fangio.
Fangio.
Juan Manuel fangio.
Narrator: The first big name in formula one
may have been the best driver ever.
Fangio would win five world titles,
a record that stood for 40 years,
surpassed only by Michael schumacher.
Whenever you drive those cars that fangio had to race in,
it's very scary.
You have to hold yourself on the steering wheel.
No safety belts.
The helmet was just like a hat.
Goggles. And you had to be brave.
Narrator: The most celebrated driver in a dangerous time
survived.
The year fangio retired, 1958, the formula changed.
The sport's governing body announced from Paris
that formula one would crown two world champions each season...
one title for the fastest driver,
and another for the manufacturer of the fastest machine.
Mario Andretti: This was the evolution, you know?
Each team has to take engines,
take chassis and technology to the absolute limit.
Narrator: In this new competition,
the British began to challenge the old world continental powers.
John barnard: All the English teams were considered to be
the garagist's by... by Ferrari and the other racing teams.
One englishman would set the pace of progress,
in racing and the entire automotive world.
Colin Chapman: We basically go racing 'cause I like it.
I like the competitiveness of it,
I like the comradeship of it.
And I also like the technical fallout that comes from it.
John Surtees: Colin Chapman was a great character,
if at times a bit cavalier.
(Laughing softly) Oh, I don't know about that.
Colin Chapman was an engineer who learned to fly,
an entrepreneur who made lightweight sports cars for the public,
as well as for grand prix, under the name lotus.
In those days, lotus was an out-and-out racing car.
My father, he was always pushing the envelope.
Good engineering means you've designed something to its limit.
Colin was the Maverick of all time.
He was a genius.
He was the team owner that you want to drive for.
By 1963, Chapman had designed
the fastest machine in formula one...
And he had the fastest man behind the wheel of a lotus.
Sir Jackie Stewart: Jim Clark was the best racing driver
I ever raced against.
The whole exercise was to be as good as you can get...
on the limit.
And Jimmy drove in such a way
that he was never over the limit.
He was never erratic. He was never spectacular.
He was spectacularly fast, but in an unspectacular fashion.
It was smooth and clean and beautifully handled.
He would win more formula one championship races
than any driver before him,
finishing in second place only once in his career.
Sir Jackie Stewart: He was a country boy.
He was a farmer from the borders of Scotland,
quiet and almost innocent.
Jim Clark: I'd like to get back here much more often.
It's, uh, great relaxation to get back here,
and very much the opposite from racing.
Clark became the face of formula one,
with another champion, Graham hill,
playing his affable foil.
Damon hill: Everyone was quite close.
Jim Clark had been to our house,
and I knew Colin Chapman sort of the same way as I knew my dad.
They sounded the same, and they had the same moustache.
Sally swart: Colin was an extreme extrovert,
great fun to be with,
but very different in character to Jimmy, really.
Jimmy was quieter. But they were like brothers.
Together, they were racing on the limit
of man-made speed and ingenuity.
They won four world championships between them,
and a record five British grand prix.
But for all their success,
they failed to take the chequered flag
at the most famous motor race of all.
Fast cars and courageous souls from all over the world
have been racing through these streets since 1929.
Monaco is terrifying.
You cannot believe it's possible
to hold a motor race round Monaco.
In the first few laps, you stick your head up to see where it went, 'cause
it's just guardrails that you can't hardly see.
You're millimetres away from barriers.
Jenson button: You either do a lap that you're so proud of...
you're always wondering if you're ever gonna do that again...
or you end up in the wall.
Lewis Hamilton: The danger aspect to this
is one of the parts that drives us racing drivers.
It's something we love.
One man mastered these streets
like no other driver in history.
Jo Ramirez: Monaco was a special place for senna.
He was the best in the world.
His concentration on one lap was just uncanny.
♪
Narrator: Ayrton Senna won Monaco a record six times,
one more victory than the man with the derring-do moustache.
Graham hill came to Monaco in 1966
to defend his third straight victory.
Graham hill: It's a tremendous race and a great one to come and watch,
and if anybody's gonna come and see a grand prix, this is really the one.
It's such a nice place to be, anyway.
To come to Monaco and talk to men
is a waste of time, so excuse me.
That's when motor racing was really dangerous,
and sex was safe.
Mario Andretti: Still today, what defines formula one
is the sense of prestige.
It's an event. Kings want to be there.
Princess grace of Monaco: For me, it's a thrill to see an expert at work.
Upon meeting Graham hill, you like him.
Watching him made me become more interested in racing
and what these men were doing.
In those days, hill's fiercest rivals
were also his closest friends.
( Indistinct remarks and laughter )
Sir Jackie Stewart: The intimacy was incredible,
from the racing drivers to the mechanics
to the wives and the girlfriends.
The camaraderie was very deep.
Sir Jackie Stewart: We went on holidays together.
We lived together. We travelled together.
Brigitte Hill: You felt very much part of this family
growing up together.
Motor racing was just a part of it.
The drivers formed a trade union,
the grand prix drivers' association.
The women soon followed suit with the doghouse club.
Damon hill: Well, the doghouse club is where I was kept,
growing up with the wives and girlfriends of drivers.
What do they call them now? Wags, I think.
Brigitte hill: Betty brabham stood up at one dinner,
and she said, "Jack's in the doghouse."
And they all realized they were all feeling very much the same way.
Sally swart: They were always playing with engines
or something like that,
not paying nearly enough attention to us.
Bette hill: The fact that he's going to work all night on his car,
and then it's going to break down after two laps.
You have to love this man
to be a good wife of a racing driver.
Vocalists: ♪ gimme some lovin'
♪ gimme, gimme some loving' ♪
♪ gimme some loving'
brigitte hill: Wives did the lap scores,
and that would decide the grids,
because there was no real sort of official time keepers.
These kind of slightly romantic memories
that everyone's got of the whole thing.
♪ So glad you made it ♪
♪ Hey, hey
♪ so glad you made it
we just were a clan to ourselves.
They travelled by caravan, town to town,
country to country, for six months straight.
Even the most celebrated drivers raced
in the lesser formula two series
in the off weekends
to keep this family circus on the road.
Max mosley: I drove formula two with Bruce Mclaren
and Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark...
all sorts of top drivers of that era.
I got the shock of my life because they were putting the brakes on
at about the point going into the corner that I was taking them off.
John Surtees: There is a point where you don't think
you should take it beyond, when you're on the edge,
and you're just pushing your luck a little.
Max mosley: The problem is, when you push it to the limit,
it's irresistible, and as soon as you've done it,
you want to do it again.
The charismatic young Italian Lorenzo Bandini,
racing for Ferrari,
died after a fiery crash at the 1967 Monaco grand prix.
This was the beginning,
when the evolution of the machines
began to overtake the standards of the tracks.
The seeds had already been sown
for an uprising within the drivers' ranks.
Just months before Bandini's death,
the fia changed the formula for entrance.
Max mosley: They doubled the size of the engine
and more than doubled the power.
Sir Jackie Stewart: They were just racing on the same tracks
as they had done almost pre-war.
The racetracks hadn't changed.
The medical facilities hadn't changed.
The marshalling hadn't changed.
And suddenly the cars were going almost twice as fast.
That same year, Colin Chapman convinced
the mighty Ford motor company
to invest in a powerhouse engine
for his new, even lighter design.
He signed Graham hill to drive for team lotus,
alongside his old rival Jim Clark.
The number one man in motor racing
started selling space on his racing machines,
like billboards in motion.
Sponsors meant money.
Money meant making better cars.
He'd paint the car any colour you wanted,
as long as he could have more resources to realize his ideas.
For the 23 drivers in the grid,
sponsorship meant exposure.
Soon, every boy's hero was a racer.
Maurice Hamilton: My first real hero was...
was Jim Clark, no question about it.
To me, he was the guy I would like to have been.
One of Jim Clark's first drives
in the red-and-gold colours of gold leaf tobacco
was in Germany.
Max mosley: It was a formula two race.
It was 1968, at Hockenheim.
In April. And I was on the grid.
( Indistinct P.A. Announcements in German )
( P.A. Announcement in German )
Sally swart: The whole world stopped when that happened.
Damon hill: You don't understand when you're young, really, what's going on.
But I remember watching the television when Jim Clark died.
As you have probably heard,
yesterday Jim Clark, racing driver Jim Clark,
was killed in Germany.
And I believe he was a friend of yours.
Yes, he was a good friend of mine, Peter,
and I think, you know, I'm very sad about it,
and everyone involved in motor sport
all around the world will be very sad.
He was a very fine driver, wasn't he?
I think one of the greatest,
perhaps, uh, perhaps the greatest yet.
Sally swart: It was a deflating tire, that's what Colin thought.
He was really, really devastated.
He was never quite the same after that.
Colin Chapman: This is the tragedy of motor racing,
is when you do get close to a driver
and there is an accident, of course it...
it hurts you so much more.
He was, I would say, my best friend,
best friend I've ever had.
Max mosley: There was no barrier,
and the car went in full speed,
into the trees.
I'd always explained to my wife that
as long as you were reasonably careful,
it was all perfectly safe.
Sir Jackie Stewart: We suddenly realized that if Jimmy died...
( Sighs ) God, anybody could be killed.
Sir Jackie Stewart: In 1968, we had a driver die
every month on the same weekend
for four consecutive months.
And we were racing on the fifth weekend
in circumstances that we should never have been allowed to go out in.
You couldn't see sixty meters of visibility
because of the fog and the heavy rain.
And the very first question I asked
when I got out of the car was, "is everybody okay?"
Max mosley: If you spoke to the fia or the organizers
and you said, "this is really very dangerous,"
they'd say, "well, if you think motor racing's dangerous",
"then slow down a bit. Don't drive so fast. It's entirely up to you."
Sir Jackie Stewart: They were blind to the reality.
They didn't know those drivers.
They didn't know the drivers' wives
and the drivers' fathers and mothers.
Max mosley: I thought to myself in those days,
if ever I get into a position of any power in this world,
I will do something about it.
One month after Clark's funeral,
Graham hill climbed back into his lotus
and won the Spanish grand prix.
Damon hill: What my dad did with lotus,
he re-galvanized the team
by not letting this tragedy be totally destructive to everything.
Max mosley: In '68, Graham hill went on,
and he still won a world championship.
( Spectators cheering )
Max mosley: And you just realized this was another world.
The drivers could just go on.
Some just don't care about risk.
Man: Down from the Vialone, 185 Miles an hour,
four cars virtually together,
and down to the Parabolica they come.
Can Stewart hold the line on this, the last lap?
Somebody's challenging... it's Rindt going through!
Jochen Rindt takes the lead in the Parabolica,
on the last corner of the last lap.
And it's gonna be a fringe factor to win. It must be!
It's... it's over the line together!
And it's almost a dead heat! It's Jackie Stewart,
Rindt, Beltoise, and Mclaren!
Nobody has ever seen the finish of a motor race like that!
I won the race by about this much,
from Jochen Rindt.
And the crowd went absolutely bananas.
They suddenly were on top of us,
and the police were trying to keep them back.
We ended up by locking ourselves in a toilet!
And they were still outside banging the doors, trying to get in.
( Spectators shouting )
There was no more enthusiastic a crowd of spectators
than that of the Italians.
They really follow the motor racing with a passion.
They're so spirited, they're so enthusiastic.
From that point of view at monza,
it's certainly the capital of the world.
( Opera singer singing in Italian )
Man: It's one of their beloved ferraris in the lead,
and another of them in second place.
The tifo all around me are erupting.
The Ferrari flags are flying.
The counting horses are counting.
And Michael schumacher wins in Italy!
Since 1929,
Ferrari fans have come to monza...
The Tifosi.
Tens of thousands strong,
cheering,
praying,
crying,
for a German...
Or a South African...
Or an englishman.
The Italian fans stormed over
and lifted me up and carried me down
to the podium. It was incredible.
In my early years, I struggled
to sort of understand what it means, Ferrari.
Yeah, okay, it's a race car.
Yeah, right, it looks good,
but didn't understand about the history.
Enzo Ferrari, Il commendatore,
created a dynasty.
In the first two decades of formula one,
his powerful engines had delivered six championships.
Ferrari had also lost six drivers.
( Speaking Italian )
By 1969, Ferrari,
like every other team on the grid,
was chasing Chapman and lotus into a brave new world.
Sir Jackie Stewart: Suddenly, we were running biplanes.
Max mosley: When the wings came, it was a step change.
The aerodynamics gives the tire more grip.
That enables the car to go faster round the corner.
Obviously, the drag from the wings
makes the car go slower on the straight,
but peak cornering speeds went up.
Mario Andretti: Obviously, as you increase the cornering speed,
things become more dangerous.
This was the evolution of the sport.
You cannot stop progress.
The first team to take advantage
of aerodynamics was lotus.
Herbie Blash: I remember Colin Chapman arrived
at 4:00 in the morning, and he'd suddenly had this dream...
huge wings.
In Spain, at the second grand prix of the '69 season,
Chapman ordered his mechanics to expand the wings
the morning of the race for his defending champion,
Graham hill,
and his new driver,
a German-born formula two star named Jochen Rindt.
Eddie Dennis: We could see from the pits
the wings appear to start to buckle.
Graham's went first.
One of the boys ran back to try and signal.
Jochen's car.
Rindt's wings collapsed at the same turn in the track.
Hill escaped unhurt,
then fought to pull his young team-mate
out of the wreckage.
Rindt suffered a broken nose, a fractured jaw,
and shattered confidence in the man building his cars.
If Jim Clark had been like a brother to Colin Chapman,
Jochen Rindt was like a petulant son.
Eddie Dennis: Jochen had a few ups and downs with the old man.
Orphaned when he was just 15 months old,
he assumed his family inheritance at 18,
and started buying racing cars.
At 25, he married a fashion model, Nina Lincoln,
the daughter of another racer.
John Miles: Jochen was acerbic,
apt to react very strongly to situations.
( Speaking German )
Eddie Dennis: On one or two occasions,
rindt wouldn't actually drive one or two cars because he felt
that the design of the car was unsafe.
Max mosley: Drivers, when they're young,
they will drive whatever you give them.
Jochen rindt was completely different.
Eddie Dennis: I can remember at one point
he put a dollar sign on his helmet.
He was looking for someone to buy him out of his contract.
Max mosley: Jochen, he had this mysterious manager
called Ecclestone.
John Miles: Rindt and Bernie were always playing cards,
and he had a sort of a live-wire,
sort of businessman feel about him.
Herbie Blash: Bernie could handle Colin Chapman.
Normally people went up to Colin
and they were more or less on their hands and knees.
He wanted jochen to drive a car that jochen didn't want to drive,
thought it wasn't safe.
They had a few arguments over that.
All these cars were super light
and probably not safe.
It was certainly gonna be quicker.
In 1970,
Chapman unveiled a new-look lotus
for his steely young driver
that would bring formula one into the modern age.
John Miles: The wedge shape, the side radiators...
it was all highly advanced and amazingly...
Fragile.
The car was being developed at race meetings
in the back of trucks.
A lot of things fell off, broke.
John barnard: The whole safety thing wasn't even an issue.
Let's not beat around the bush...
a designer's first requirement
is to make it fast.
Being quick comes first.
One month into the 1970 season,
rindt set aside his reservations
and sent Chapman's new lotus
roaring into the history books.
Sir Jackie Stewart: Jochen rindt and I were the two fastest drivers,
that'd be fair to say.
I saw a lot of the back side of his car in 1970.
They came to monza
with almost twice as many points
as the second place team,
owner/driver Jack brabham.
At practice, we often decided to take the wings off the car.
It was all to do with straight-line speed.
At monza, you gained more down the straight.
Eddie Dennis: Seventy-five percent of the drivers take the wings off.
The wings were off my car, and the car was absolutely,
for me, undriveable.
It's the first time I've been really, really frightened
in a racing car.
Jochen felt the only way he was gonna go really fast
was to get rid of the wings
and sort of hang the consequences.
Eddie Dennis: But the 72 had never been raced without wings.
Sir Jackie Stewart: I ran back to see Nina, his wife,
to tell her what was happening,
but I didn't know what the situation was with jochen,
but I certainly didn't want to worry her.
Bernie and I ran down to the Parabolica
to see what we'd find.
Jochen had gone by then.
Eddie Dennis: It comes over you
that you're the last person they talked to.
You search your brain to see if there's something that you've done wrong,
but jochen, he said, "leave the wings off," he said, "for sure."
( Speaking German )
That you would stop racing.
( Rindt laughs )
One of the first men
to openly question the safety of his sport
was silenced at the age of 28.
Two months later,
his widow was awarded the world championship...
the only posthumous title ever won in formula one.
The lesson of jochen rindt was that
had he had even basic proper medical attention,
he would have survived.
Sir Jackie Stewart: The grand prix drivers' association
had a really good articulated vehicle
with everything on board.
The people did not put him into that vehicle.
They took him to the wrong hospital,
and the time he'd got to the right hospital, he'd died.
Jochen rindt was the third formula one star
to be killed that season.
Bruce Mclaren was killed at goodwood.
Nineteen days later,
piers courage was killed in the Dutch grand prix.
Those were tragic times in so many ways,
because we lost some icons of our sport.
He had an accident.
As far as the world knew, that's what happened...
he'd had an accident and got killed.
And nobody really looked behind it,
why the accident happened
and could somebody have done something to stop it happening.
Mario Andretti: It always took some kind of a tragic event
for us to say, "you know what? We can do better."
We're getting smarter and smarter about these cars.
We're able to make 'em go faster.
Why can't we use the same knowledge to make 'em safer?
There is a parallel between formula one racing
and space.
As a kid, I followed all the moon missions.
NASA technician: Five... four... three...
Two... one. Ignition sequence...
NASA technician: Lift-off! We have a lift-off!
Koen Vergeer: It was the same time
they sent men in rockets to the moon.
They are carrying fire inside these machines.
They are driving over the edge...
Into new worlds, getting beyond boundaries.
Also about life and death.
( Spectators cheering )
Koen Vergeer: And that's formula one, too.
You knew when the season started,
one or two of your heroes would be killed.
Koen Vergeer was among the legion of boys worldwide
who became obsessed with formula one
during its most violent decade.
He was just 11 years old when he saw his first race,
the Dutch grand prix at Zandvoort.
Koen Vergeer: We went there by train,
and you go into the sand of the dunes.
And nothing is organized... no signs at all, nothing.
You can be lost in the dunes, if you want to.
And after a half an hour, you find the track.
John hogan: In the early '70s, formula one was
really a little bit of a circus act.
Maurice Hamilton: You'd go to a grand prix.
Until the cars cars came out to practice,
you wouldn't know who's gonna turn up.
Paddy McNally: Each team would negotiate
with the individual promoters at these various circuits.
John hogan: In fact, the organizers paid the broadcasters
to show the grand prix.
The whole business was much more informal in those days,
so even as a fan, you could literally
go into the paddock, and there were your heroes.
Koen Vergeer: Jacky Ickx was my hero. He had his mysterious name.
Jacky Ickx, the baby-faced Belgian,
with Ferrari in 1970,
was the one driver who could have caught
jochen rindt for the championship.
In truth, Ickx came perilously close to becoming
the fourth casualty of the season.
( Spectators screaming )
Jacky Ickx: Being burnt is one of the most painful things you can have.
You can be broken, you can have all sort of things,
but being burned, it's really... it's terrible.
Jacky Ickx: I never thought it could happen to me.
It's not gonna happen to me.
You always think it's going to happen
to the other driver, not to you.
John Watson: It was never going to happen to me.
Sir Jackie Stewart: A lot of drivers have the philosophy
that it's always someone else who has an accident,
it's never themselves.
But of course you're always on the very thin line
between survival and even disaster,
or certainly death.
Jackie Stewart had a huge accident at spa.
He was trapped in his car upside down,
and he was soaked in fuel.
Max mosley: The great fear was fire in those days.
Those cars were all effectively a mobile bomb
because in an accident,
the fuel went everywhere and caught fire.
Nigel roebuck: When jacky had his accident, no one was wearing seatbelts.
That's because they preferred if they hit anything
to be thrown free from the car.
It's proof how amateur we were...
organizers, teams, and drivers.
Both jackies had been cut out and escaped,
only to become absolute rivals in the revolution.
♪
Ickx won at Zanvoort in '71,
while the other Jackie won his second world title.
We were in total opposition.
Pure competition.
The flying scot became chair
of the grand prix drivers' association,
and as world champion,
the de facto leader in the uprising.
You're all wearing seatbelts
because in these cars,
an unfastened seatbelt is no good.
While baby face refused to join the union.
Jacky was not a believer in the safety movement.
John Watson: Jacky just didn't want to be part of the GPDA
because it didn't quite suit the image of jacky Ickx.
( Vintage audio )
Jacky Ickx: I was not part of it because that's the way I am.
Nigel roebuck: What he didn't like was threats.
You know, "we will not race tomorrow unless you do this."
You know, union tactics.
Max mosley: The fia in those days was very weak,
and anyway the fia consisted of the organizers,
so there was no proper organization.
Sir Jackie Stewart: For me, it was a very simple, black-and-white case.
You know, we had to get the race tracks themselves
to recognize they needed to do more...
had to put more fencing up or more barriers up.
It was all costing money,
and they had never had to spend the money on the race track before.
Stewart became the new face of formula one,
as steel armco barriers were installed
at places like Zanvoort and silverstone.
Max mosley became a constructor
and team owner of march engineering.
Bernie Ecclestone joined him in the paddock as an owner,
after buying Jack Brabham's old team.
And on the wings of aerodynamics,
a new stable of young guns arrived
to fill the empty drivers' seats.
♪
We were very aware then
that the drivers had massive respect for each other
because they knew,
a bit like fighter pilots in world war ii,
that they might not come back.
There was Jody Scheckter of South Africa;
The quiet Austrian, Niki Lauda;
John Watson of northern Ireland;
Other British hopefuls... James hunt,
David Purley,
and Roger Williamson;
The super Swede, Ronnie Peterson;
American playboy Peter Revson,
whose family created revlon cosmetics;
And the renaissance man from France, François Cevert,
hand-picked by Stewart for team owner Ken Tyrrell.
( Speaking French )
Sir Jackie Stewart: He was like a young fighting cock.
He was enormously good looking,
had an incredible pair of eyes, and, uh,
did a lot of damage with the young ladies.
François absolutely idolized Jackie.
Paddy McNally: He was almost up to.
Jackie's standard at that time.
We had probably one of the strongest teams
that would have been in motor racing.
Everything I knew about the sport,
I was passing on to him.
What do you think about emerson as a pilot? Who?
Emerson Fittipaldi. Who?
You know, the guy who won the world championship.
Oh, yes! Ha ha!
Colin Chapman had his fourth world champion
in eight years,
a brilliant young Brazilian named emerson Fittipaldi.
Emerson Fittipaldi: We were, like, 21 drivers
establishing grand prix racing.
Your odds are 7-to-1 to survive.
Colin told me, "emerson, I don't want to get too close to you",
"and you know the risk you have.
At any time, I can lose you."
Cevert's gonna be your danger, I reckon.
You beat him, I reckon you'll win the race.
That was Colin Chapman.
John Watson: My first grand prix was in silverstone,
the British grand prix.
Graham hill walked into the room, it was like...
almost like a God walking in.
But if you can't compete with them
and get into that car, and go out
and literally "put your cock on the block,"
then you shouldn't be in it.
Man: The cars now coming up onto the grid,
and they'll only be held there for seconds
before the flag falls and the start of the race.
At the beginning, you were just trying to prove to yourself
and to other people that you were fast enough.
Man: The flag's up.
Man: Jackie Stewart going through on the inside,
behind Ronnie Petersen.
Jackie Stewart made a blinding start.
It's still Petersen, just holding Stewart out
as they go through copse for the first time.
Jody Scheckter: What a driver is there for is to take it
to the limit and keep it at that limit,
and that's in every part of every corner.
It's keeping it right on that limit.
Man: And then François Cevert.
Jody Scheckter's lost it.
Jody Scheckter has been hit,
a multiple shot at the end of the first lap.
Jody Scheckter, with the Mclaren.
Man: They're stopping the race.
Here comes Jackie Stewart, terribly fast,
and Ronnie Petersen coming up, terribly fast.
Jody Scheckter: It's a lot of adrenaline's gone into you,
and you're nearly just laughing all the way to the pits
until you tell the guys what the bloody hell happened, you know?
Eleven cars retired, but no one was killed.
Very lucky.
Silverstone, which was one of the biggest,
if not the biggest accident in formula one,
brought it home to me... to win, you've got to finish.
Man: Two minutes to go... ( Continues indistinctly )
The next race was the Dutch grand prix at Zanvoort.
We were up on a hill because my father could film
very good from there,
and then you could walk down to a fence.
Behind the fence was the armco.
As a kid 11 years old, I want to be in that
vortex of sound and colour.
( Engines roaring )
Koen Vergeer: The sound goes through your bones
into your stomach somewhere,
and I remember the first time I saw the cars coming.
I thought, this is my world!
Eight laps into the race,
there was a single-car collision with the newly installed armco barriers.
Koen Vergeer: I saw a car flying through the air,
and I looked straight into the cockpit.
But it was in a flash,
and the car shattered on the asphalt.
Nineteen seventy-three, when I had march,
it was Roger Williamson. One of our cars.
He was a close friend.
Jo Ramirez: David Purley stopped his car, got off,
and he was trying to lift the car.
And there was all...
lots of people just watching.
Nobody came to give him a hand, and he was desperate.
Sir Jackie Stewart: We passed it every lap.
Yellow flags were being flown to slow us down,
but the race was never stopped.
In those days, they didn't stop races.
Jo Ramirez: Jackie was probably the greatest ambassador
the sport has ever had,
and he was a great pioneer of safety,
but if he had to drive,
he would jump in the car and drive.
Sir Jackie Stewart: When the visor goes down,
you escape from the grief...
the dramas, the troubles, the pain and suffering.
And it was only when you came back...
you know, the visor went back up...
that reality, you became aware of,
again.
Man: Williamson's dead. There's no lap of honour.
Quiet presentation.
Jacky Ickx: It's clear that, in racing,
we are all the same.
In life, we need just some extra luck.
Koen Vergeer: For me, at 11 years old,
it was terrifying,
but also fascinating, what was happening there.
I think they thought we were gladiators,
and if you went into the coliseum,
you knew there was lions in there,
and that chances are you wouldn't get out.
Koen Vergeer: I really began to cry,
but at the same time, I thought,
how can you cry about someone you knew nothing about?
Max mosley: He was an ordinary working-class lad
who'd just done it by his own talent.
Those things have a big, big effect on you.
The year Roger Williamson died,
the fia established mandatory on-track rescue equipment
and fire regulations.
By then, the doghouse club was raising money each year
for the families of fallen drivers.
Max mosley: Because there were things that could be done,
maybe it was immoral, but on the other hand, I couldn't say,
because there were people who wanted to do it.
The only requirements
to replace the fallen on the grid
were guts and money.
Man: Lord Alexander Fermor-Hesketh,
the third baron of Hesketh!
Lord Hesketh was 22 years old when he formed Hesketh racing.
Lord Hesketh: I got into racing entirely accidentally.
I'd just met the prettiest hooker I'd ever,
ever met in my life,
and I saw this post card counter,
and it had this charming Teddy bear.
I drew onto the Teddy bear
a crash helmet and a union Jack.
I think it has an atmosphere
of the old-type grand prix teams,
and, uh, I think that's anything truly British
deserves supporting.
Lord Hesketh: We were there to have some fun.
That was about it.
Maurice Hamilton: They were slightly upper class, weren't they?
Lord Hesketh and so on.
The more serious journalists thought
that one didn't come in and do formula one racing like this,
and drinking champagne and having fun. Not on.
Man: We don't want any pictures, we don't want any pictures!
Ha ha ha ha!
♪
Lord Hesketh: We've got a driver in f2.
He hasn't got a very good reputation,
but he is very, very fast.
His nickname is "hunt the shunt,"
'cause he tends to crash cars.
John hogan: It was not dissimilar
from a man owning a very expensive horse,
and his jockey happened to be James hunt.
You want to... you just want to get a level?
So if I say "shuts and fuck" and all that sort of stuff.
Oh, dear. Well, cancel it, then. Can we rub that out?
Jody Scheckter: He drank a lot and smoked a lot of funny things.
He had his fun. He had girls to die for.
John Watson: He was the kind of thing you'd read
in your comic when you were a kid growing up
and dreaming of being a grand prix driver.
James was the epitome of everything a kid would want to be.
Jane Birbeck: James was so attractive as a person.
He not only attracted girls, but he also attracted a lot of...
a lot of, uh, men.
I mean, I don't mean like that,
but he just had that ability to charm people,
and freedom within himself,
that some people found a little unnerving.
Woman: When you go around with these racers,
you start to know almost everybody here.
It's like a big family for you,
and you get your big interest with.
Emerson Fittipaldi: It was a lot of fun.
It was a transition in the world of young people...
the sideburns, the bell bottom trousers,
the hippy time.
Four hours west of Woodstock, New York,
formula one hosted an outdoor party
every year for two decades.
Maurice Hamilton: Everybody used to stay at a place
called the seneca lodge, which was a hunting lodge.
With all the American whooping' and hollering',
it was a great scene!
The Glen had a reputation
as a place for champions.
Jochen rindt won his first grand prix here,
as did emerson Fittipaldi.
François Cevert won in 1971,
and was runner-up in '72, to his mentor.
♪
In 1973, the Tyrrell team came to the Glen
with Jackie Stewart having already wrapped up
his third world championship.
By 1973, I had decided that my last race
would be Watkins Glen, my hundredth grand prix.
Jody Scheckter: Jackie's retirement was still, um, hush-hush at that time.
Sir Jackie Stewart: Only three people knew.
François didn't know, or even Helen.
I didn't want to tell my wife,
because I didn't want her saying, "if it's this dangerous,
why don't you stop now, and then we'll be happy?"
Oh, it's a fantastic feeling, even the other one,
because, uh, the roof thing I've got
is so smooth and delightful,
it's even a nice impression for the driver.
You know, it's... Vrroooom! Very...!
Cevert was sort of thinking
he was ready to be a number one driver in his own right.
He set out to prove it in qualifying that year,
at the Glen.
( Vintage audio )
Cevert. Bloody hell.
( Sighs )
Jody Scheckter: I was the first one on the scene,
and I jumped out the car to try and help him.
I remember then trying to get his belts,
and the just turned around
and I knew it was all over.
( Vintage audio )
It was the most horrible sight.
I wouldn't want anybody to see that, ever.
Jo Ramirez: Nothing broke in the car.
It was just going too quick.
He hit one barrier, then he went across the circuit,
hit the other one, and that turned the car over.
And maybe [If] the barrier would have been a little bit higher,
then he would have been okay, but we will never know.
Man: Because of the incident on the circuit,
practice for today for formula one cars is now concluded.
Emerson Fittipaldi: Went back to the pits.
I didn't say anything to Colin, to my wife.
Just walked into the parking place,
where there was nobody.
And I want to pray with God and say,
"what I'm doing here? Help me."
Man: Gentlemen, remain standing, please,
for the playing of the national anthem of France,
in memory of François cevert.
( Les marseilles playing )
Sir Jackie Stewart: I chose not to race the next day
out of respect to François.
Nothing to do with my own personal concerns.
It was an unfortunate way to end a career,
but in the other way,
maybe it was part of why I never wanted to race again.
Roy Topp: I think it was the right thing, not to race.
Very sad.
Sir Jackie Stewart: I was just so angry that the sport
could do it in this way,
and continue to do it in this way,
and not sufficiently change itself,
to put its own house in order.
John Watson: There's about 15 minutes or so
before the race, so I was hanging around the pits,
and Bernie said, "well, what are you doing? What are you doing?"
I said, "well, François's dead."
He said, "well, so what? He died doing something which",
"up until that fraction of a second,"
was giving him the greatest joy, pleasure, fulfilment.
"You're a racing driver. Get out and do your job."
François cevert: Every man in the world is looking to make
from his passion his business.
That's what I have done. I cannot be more happy.
Everything I do about my auto racing,
I enjoy it. Anything.
Because it is my passion.
Lord Hesketh: When the guys flying the mustangs
came back in from five or six hours over Germany,
and they probably lost 15% of the formation,
they went to the bar.
And they went to the bar with a very good reason.
( Revellers whooping )
Sometimes you have to get up in the morning,
look in the mirror, and say, "are you prepared to put it on the line?
Are you prepared to actually lose your life today?"
Because if you're not, you have no right being there.
Emerson Fittipaldi: I said to myself,
I need to forget everything that happened before,
because I love this sport.
( Spectators cheering )
Jo Ramirez: It is like a drug. Once you get in it,
it's even more difficult to get out of it.
In 1974, emerson Fittipaldi
began to fill the void left by Jackie Stewart,
both as the fastest man and the voice of reason.
♪
While steel armco now ringed most circuits,
two more drivers had been killed
after collisions with the barriers:
The American Peter Revson,
and a young Austrian driver in only his second start,
Helmuth Koinigg.
Max mosley: The Marshall appeared with his helmet.
His head was still in it because he'd gone
under the barrier and it just took his head off.
Emerson Fittipaldi: It was like it was a nightmare.
Emerson Fittipaldi: I remember Barcelona.
Friday morning, after practice,
I saw the armco barriers held with just bolts,
no nuts, and wire.
And I touch one. I kick, and fall.
Fittipaldi, now with Mclaren,
refused to even practice.
The organizers of the Spanish grand prix
threatened to impound all the cars in the grid
if the defending champion did not drive.
Max mosley: I thought, this is a world sport.
I cannot believe that a world sport is run like this.
Max mosley: So the drivers had a meeting
in the texaco motor home.
Emerson Fittipaldi: We had to fight with the organizers...
I mean really fight.
Nigel roebuck: The track was sort of in the hills above Barcelona,
and Friday afternoon, there was silence.
( Birds chirping )
( Distant race engine revs )
Then there was just one car, just one engine.
( Engine roars )
Nigel roebuck: Somebody said, "it's gotta be Ickx."
While Jackie Stewart had stepped aside,
the other jacky was still on the title hunt.
Baby face Ickx had taken Fittipaldi's place at lotus.
Jacky Ickx: With the racing, frankly,
you have to be individualistic,
in a way, and also selfish.
Max mosley: The pavlovian reaction
to the sound that they could hear,
that was it. Then they all got in there and drove.
( Engine roaring )
Nigel roebuck: It was a very, very tense atmosphere,
extraordinarily tense atmosphere.
The actual team mechanics were bolting these barriers together.
On race day, Fittipaldi held true to his word.
Emerson Fittipaldi: I did one lap and come in,
as defending world champion.
I went back to Geneva,
and when I landed, Swiss TV waiting for me.
I didn't know what happened in the grand prix.
The rear wing of Rolf Stommelen's embassy-hill-Lola
broke off, sending the car into the barriers.
Nigel roebuck: We're about 25 laps into the race,
and I can remember saying to the guys with me,
"Jesus, that's Rolf. He's in the crowd."
Stommelen survived, but four people were killed.
( Emerson Fittipaldi speaking French )
Max mosley: Once drivers start worrying seriously about safety,
you know that their fastest days are over.
If you took all the formula one drivers,
even the current crop of racing drivers,
and said, "here are two cars. That one is very safe."
That one's extremely dangerous.
If you crash in it, you'll probably get killed...
"But the dangerous one's two seconds a lap quicker."
There would be no discussion about which one they'd drive.
They'd all get in the dangerous one.
That's why it's the people running the sport
have to take responsibility.
Just weeks after the failed strike in Spain,
the most unlikely rivalry would spark
along the Dutch coast at Zanvoort.
A battle between two drivers
would help turn the tide in the revolution.
Lord Hesketh: Practice Friday, fantastic.
Saturday, blue sky.
Wake up Sunday morning,
and suddenly it's pissing rain.
Absolute pouring rain.
♪
Lord Hesketh: Everyone else had their spanners out,
wings are going up.
I look at the car, I say, "look, we know
"absolutely fuck-all about how you set a car up,
so we'd better leave it just the way it is."
( Engines roar )
Lord Hesketh: James does four laps,
and he's in front of both ferraris.
Koen Vergeer: When James hunt approached,
all the crowds went to the fence.
"Yeah, there he is again! There he is again!"
Lord Hesketh: You'd suddenly see white car, red car...
Koen Vergeer: ...Niki Lauda in the Ferrari...
getting closer, getting closer.
"Oh, yes! Keep him behind, keep him behind!"
Lord Hesketh: And then we won.
James hunt held off Niki Lauda
in his powerful Ferrari,
and gave team Hesketh their first win
after three years of trying.
That's just brilliant.
You know, the David and goliath... fantastic story.
The playboy garagistes had prevailed
over the most storied team in formula one.
Lord Hesketh: Party basically started in the back of the truck.
It's fair to say that eventually I went into blackout.
It was special, 'cause the only guy who ever,
ever took me seriously was the commendatore.
But then he was the only guy who counted.
Mr. Ferrari was the most decorated man in motor racing.
He'd famously said,
"aerodynamics were for people who could not build engines."
But he also hadn't won a title since 1964...
Until Lauda.
Niki Lauda: You know, in Italy, there are
a lot of emotions around the racing team.
If you win, it's quite easy;
If you lose, it's quite difficult.
John Watson: Niki was a clever guy. He was a good operator.
Probably the ideal Ferrari driver.
Emerson Fittipaldi: Niki's very technical, cool.
James, even being English, he was very emotional.
He'd come in my motor home before every race.
"Emerson, can I use your toilet?"
I'd say, "James, come on!"
With one epic win under his belt,
hunt left the Teddy bear behind
for a chance at the title.
He signed with the '74 world champion constructor, Mclaren.
Those days, you got five years,
with the death rate and everything else.
He had a new future.
Jane Birbeck: The Mclaren outfit was very structured.
Everybody wore uniforms,
but James just wore whatever he wanted.
♪
While Lauda took the role of champion,
leading the charge for safety in the drivers' union,
hunt became the new face of formula one.
I don't know whether the drivers today
go out and have a party till 3:00 in the morning
and jump into the car. Who else could do that?
I don't think you can get to that level being,
you know, just who you want to be.
You have to be, to a certain extent, what...
what a racing driver's supposed to be. You know, quick.
Hunt took pole position in qualifying
for the first two races in 1976...
while Lauda took the chequered flags.
I think they respected each other,
but there was a need.
Niki really wanted to be a cool guy,
and he wasn't quite a cool guy,
and he used to wind James up whenever he had the opportunity.
Man: What about this fellow James hunt this weekend?
Well, James hunt won his grand prix in Holland,
so I think he's a very, very strong competitor now.
( Indistinct remark )
Niki would psych the other drivers out
just by talking to them. I mean...
Hunt's first win came in Spain,
but it was taken down when the wing
on his car was judged too wide.
I don't know how wide it is anyway, you know?
I didn't even know there was a rule about it.
I just drive the damn thing.
♪
At Monaco, Lauda took the lead
at the first turn... And never looked back.
It was his fourth win in six starts.
Jody Scheckter: He didn't seem spectacularly fast,
but he won races, and you could rely
that he's not gonna do anything stupid.
Hunt stormed back in France, and after a disputed start,
took the chequered flag before a home crowd in britain.
Man: The victory flag's cinched,
and James hunt crosses the line to win the British grand prix!
Well, now, James, they've changed the regulations concerning the wings,
and yet you're still extremely fast.
How do you do it? Big balls.
Forget it. Can't you print that?
We can't print... but it's true!
The difference between drivers is maybe
the quantity of desire you have to win races,
because the talents are equal.
That includes whatever the weather is
when you're at the race course.
♪
Monza, spa, Monaco...
they were quite famous tracks.
But one was reckoned as a symbol of pure driving.
It's the highest possible challenge.
♪
In the shadow of Germany's Eifel mountains
lies a monstrous race track, 22 kilometres around.
Jacky Ickx: Hundred sixty-eight corners.
At the time, 17 jumps.
So you were flying 17 times at the Nürburgring.
Sir Jackie Stewart: If a car went off the road, you never saw it.
It just disappeared into the trees or the bushes,
or down a ravine.
Hitler built it in the depression.
It is the most challenging,
the most rewarding,
the most dangerous,
the greatest racetrack in the world.
Jacky Ickx: To win at the Nürburgring,
that means that's the race of your life.
In 1976, the defending champion
and points leader Niki Lauda
called on his union to boycott the Nürburgring,
citing unsafe track conditions.
They couldn't marshal it.
It would take an army of fire-fighters to do any good.
( Vintage audio )
Hunt cast his vote to race.
Lauda was defeated by the slimmest of margins...
one.
Brett lunger: I came round the turn,
he was sideways in the middle of the track. His car was on fire.
Man: There's Brett lunger
getting out of the Surtees
and into the flames.
Brett lunger: The Ferrari had different belts and different systems.
Art Merzario had driven a Ferrari.
He was able to get in, undo the belts.
I was on top of the car,
and I grabbed Niki's shoulders
and pulled him out of the car.
Man: Lauda is finally dragged clear
from the burning inferno.
The race of course is stopped.
I remember him saying to me, "what's my face like? What's my face like?"
In fact, he didn't know he'd ingested
a lot of toxic fumes
from the burning resin and fibreglass
of the bodywork of the car.
People were already talking about him in the past tense.
We were both certain that when we turned the radio on,
we'd hear the morning news saying he was dead.
I couldn't see anything. I was just listening.
Must have been in the hospital.
My wife came into the room where I was lying,
and, uh, she started crying, so...
which didn't certainly help me.
I told her afterwards,
"listen, why did you cry when... when you come in?
Because I felt bad."
She said, "unfortunately",
I only recognized you on your feet."
Because I was burned so bad, in my head and everywhere,
that she had a shock.
And that was the real issue at the time,
so I thought, "shit, I must fight now to stay alive."
Five weeks later, I was back in the car in monza.
Brett lunger: Niki walked down the pit Lane
to where my team was,
and he said, "Brett, thank you."
And then walked away.
Niki lauda: I knew the risk I was getting myself into.
The easy way back is to drive as quick as possible.
Don't wait.
As long as you wait, is more worried you get.
( Spectators cheering )
He finished fourth and, you know,
kept his world championship hopes alive.
That's the most courageous thing I've ever seen.
♪
Lauda! Lauda!
After all he's been through,
I would like to see him right at the front,
fighting and, you know, unblemished.
Maurice Hamilton: Back against the wall,
James hunt went out and he won these two races
through just sheer determination and grit,
but there was something magical about what Niki lauda was doing.
He was a very tough competitor,
but most people questioned his sanity.
That accident gave him charisma.
Jane Birbeck: They became...
I hate to think what sort of buddies they became.
♪
Like playboys together, if you know what I mean.
Man: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Japanese grand prix.
This is the most exciting finish to a grand prix season
in over ten years.
It's down to a fight for the championship between hunt and lauda,
with lauda just three points ahead.
What an incredible end to the season!
John hogan: They ended up going to the Japanese grand prix,
and everybody wanted it,
and the broadcasters of the world said,
"ah, that's good! Let's... let's..."
"oh! We don't have the rights!"
"Oh! Now, how do we fix this?"
( Spectators cheering )
By 1976, Bernie Ecclestone and Max mosley
had become friends and partners
in the formula one constructors association,
the loose confederation of garagistes...
independent car builders.
Max mosley: Bernie was completely streetwise,
an absolutely brilliant tactician.
Nigel roebuck: Didn't take Bernie that long
to work out that the organizers
were making a lot of money,
and fundamentally the teams were getting screwed.
Lord Hesketh: Bernie came in.
He said, "I have bought all of the world's."
TV rights for a million dollars."
There were ten teams.
"You can all have 10% for $100,000."
Lord Hesketh: Nine idiots sat there:
"Think how much testing I could do with $100,000."
I said no thank you, and everyone else said no thank you,
and that's how Bernie got control.
Pathetic, really, but then that's how great fortunes are made!
♪
While the brabham owner would eventually sell his team,
he has maintained control
of the sport's commercial rights
ever since '76 and the showdown in Japan.
John hogan: Bernie said to the broadcasters,
"you can have the rights going forward,
but you've got to show every grand prix."
Lord Hesketh: As they say, the rest is history.
Niki lauda: In fuji, it was raining all day long,
that we could not drive.
At four in the afternoon, the race director came
and said, "we have to start the race now"
because the television time..."
But I said, "look, the rain is the same."
Those early days, things were run
a little bit more like a dictatorship
rather than a democracy.
It was me that said, "we're gonna start, no matter what."
Man: And the Japanese grand prix is under way!
James hunt's got a superb start.
That's exactly what he wants to do,
get in front of all those cars,
because when you're in the front, you don't have that spray.
When you're stuck behind in second, third, fourth, or wherever,
you have this massive plume of spray in your face.
It's impossible to see anything.
James hunt in the lead, in the Marlboro Mclaren.
This is the start he needs.
Mario Andretti: The visibility,
especially at the beginning of the race,
was no more than 20%, at best.
Man: Look at that mist!
How can they see anything driving in these conditions?
A hundred and eighty Miles an hour,
you're listening, and then you're watching your side of the road,
and if the car in front of you stops,
you're gonna be in trouble.
Man: And there's Jody Scheckter, going down on the inside.
Perhaps he thinks there's better grip down there on the inside.
And there, lauda, in the pits already,
having a cockpit conference with Forghieri,
the leader of the Ferrari team.
What's happened to lauda?
Niki decided to stop.
Man: And there is James hunt for the lead,
and lauda seemingly out of the race already.
He stopped. That was it.
In the entire 40-odd years I've been involved,
that's the only time I can remember
a driver actually stopping because the conditions were so dangerous.
Just incredible.
Man: He's spinning!
( Indistinct remark ) ...Out of the race completely,
and out of the world championship!
Jody Scheckter: It takes big balls
to make a decision like that.
Some people may think it's cowardly.
Um, I think it's probably the opposite.
He went against all the things that
being a grand prix driver at Ferrari are about...
in other words, you drive for Ferrari, not yourself,
and if you've got to die doing it, so be it.
Die, but at least die trying.
Ferrari were actually embarrassed for him.
You know... "No, the car is... the engine is finished..."
And all the rest of it.
Lauda actually got angry when he heard them doing that,
and told it straight.
Koen Vergeer: He was the one who resisted the myth of Ferrari,
and he said no, no.
Who said that before to enzo Ferrari?
To these days, I think I would never forgive Niki lauda.
That particular moment,
he thought it was too dangerous for him,
and he forget the... 50, 60 people from Ferrari
helping him to achieve.
The thousands of people in the whole of Italy...
he forgot all of those people in that time,
and their beloved lauda, he become selfish
and he said, "no, I don't want to drive."
Niki lauda: I don't regret it.
But I already saw what can happen.
Man: And so we've got about four laps to go,
and James hunt is still second.
Maurice Hamilton: The championship wasn't settled there and then
when he stepped out of the car
because James had to finish third or higher.
Man: James hunt's in the pits with one bald tire
and the others flat.
But there is Mario Andretti, in the lead.
Now, where does that leave hunt as he exits the pits?
Is hunt still in the top two hunt?
James hunt, racing for his life.
I think hunt is currently fourth.
And there's hunt, going past Alan Jones.
That will put him into third place,
and into the world champion title!
Will his car hold together?
James hunt...
And Mario Andretti takes the flag,
and here comes hunt!
James hunt has done it! Hunt is the champion!
♪
When he got out of the car,
James didn't know if he'd won the championship.
He thought he'd finished fourth.
( Vintage audio )
Hunt was world champion in the end, by one point.
Dramatic formula one folklore. It'll be there forever.
I met Niki. The first thing he said to me was,
"I loved your father."
And, I mean, I think dad quit at the end of the season.
He wished he could have shared the championship with Niki.
They both lived to win,
and he wanted to share it with him.
But he couldn't, obviously.
There can be only... one.
That was his shooting star moment, I think,
and it was the seminal changing point in formula one.
The fairytale ending belonged to hunt,
but it was Lauda's decision
to quit with the championship on the line
that helped change the sport forever.
If the fastest drivers refuse to race
out of fear for their lives
with the entire world watching,
there is no formula one.
We understood that culling racing drivers is not a good deal.
The public doesn't want to see these heroes
dying on television, dying in your living room.
Man: This week's big event is the British grand prix.
Really, safety came about with money.
John hogan: And that was all to do with the television.
That was the real breakthrough.
That's not really true.
The money helped,
but the whole point about safety is it depends
on the attitude of the people running the sport.
The new men taking the lead in the fight
were survivors in their own right.
It was obvious that something needed to be done.
A decade after Jim Clark's death shocked the world,
Bernie Ecclestone quietly hired
the leading neurosurgeon in London
as the official race doctor for formula one.
This was Bernie's idea,
to take on this permanent doctor,
Professor sid Watkins, a renowned brain surgeon.
Dr. Sid Watkins: The first year with Bernie
was a very difficult year
because nobody wanted sid Watkins at the circuit.
Jody Scheckter: They've got their own doctors,
and they don't like some englishman coming along
and saying, you know, "we want to do this."
At the German grand prix in 1978...
Dr. Watkins' fourth race...
the organizers banned the track doctor
from race control just moments before the start.
Bernie says, "well, pack the cars. We're leaving."
Race control replied, "what am I gonna do
with 80,000 Germans who are here?"
And Bernie said, "you can go and tell them to fuck themselves."
And they said, "the doctor can come back in"
♪
It was always said that sid Watkins
was the only man to whom Bernie Ecclestone always deferred.
Four races later, Dr. Watkins learned first-hand
the hardest lesson in formula one.
( Announcer speaking German )
( Spectators reacting )
Jane Birbeck: We watched it on TV.
James pulled Ronnie out of the car.
I was prevented from getting there by the police,
for about 20 minutes or so.
I mean, it was absolute mayhem.
The super Swede, Ronnie Peterson,
had both of his legs crushed in the pileup.
Eventually, Ronnie went off in the helicopter,
and we resumed the start.
Colin Chapman won his seventh and final
world championship with Mario Andretti.
He also lost his fifth driver.
Peterson died the next day, after suffering an embolism.
That was just a sword through my heart.
He should not have died from that.
If Dr. Watkins was in charge at monza,
Ronnie Peterson would probably [Be] sitting next to me.
Koen Vergeer: Peterson was one of the guys on my first race.
All the others disappeared.
They had stopped, or they had died.
On that day, when Ronnie Peterson died,
my childhood approach to formula one ended.
It was a turning point for the sport, too.
From that race on, Dr. Watkins began riding
in a safety car behind every start,
for the most dangerous lap of every race,
so he could be on hand in the event of an accident.
My job was really to look after the drivers, and that's what I did.
He standardized medical response within formula one,
mandating permanent medical facilities at each circuit
and helicopters on hand for every race and practice.
Sid Watkins was the man.
Formula one still lost four men in four years.
Man: An outstanding driver lost his life
through what was, in my opinion,
a pure motor racing accident.
But only two drivers were killed
over the next 12 years.
Each death was met with scrutiny by the men in charge,
and a haunting refrain by those
who knew too well the price of glory.
It's terribly, terribly sad,
but it's always happened and it always will.
It's just intrinsic to formula one.
Until one.
Martin Brundle: I was driving in the race,
and it was a really strange time.
We had just lost Roland Ratzenberger a day earlier.
And everybody starts looking over their shoulder
and looking round at what's gonna happen next.
And I remember that evening that we were talking about,
yep, it was Ratzenberger.
It was, like, his first race.
Not for one minute I thought it could ever happen to senna.
The three-time world champion
had become the new face of formula one,
the one driver who could finally challenge the great fangio.
Eddie Jordan: You had this great vision
of a mega star in Ayrton Senna.
He was revered.
He was probably the most popular world champion
because he had everything,
and he brought great style to formula one.
He brought it to another level.
He was one of the most gentle people
that you could imagine.
He was getting older,
and he was starting to campaign heavily for safety.
You've seen rubens?
He's all right. He's all right.
He's shocked, of course, but he's...
Dr. Sid Watkins: On Sunday morning,
just before the race, I said to Ayrton,
"you know, you're the fastest guy around.
Why don't you quit?"
He said, "I can't quit. I have to go on."
Maybe I should have been much more severe with him.
But then, you know, you've got responsibilities to all of those...
all of those boys.
And they were boys to me, see,
since I was so much older than them.
Lewis Hamilton: I was 9 years old,
and my dad told me that Ayrton's crashed and he's died.
And I think as a kid at that age,
it's always difficult to understand what that actually means.
But I went round the back of the car, I remember,
and I cried.
I couldn't let my dad see me because, you know,
you don't let a man see you cry,
but I remember that day, and I really was affected by it.
Still today, I say he's the greatest driver ever.
Maurice Hamilton: The biggest difference
between the death of Jim Clark on the 7th of April, 1968,
and Ayrton senna on the 1st of may, 1994,
is that the world needed to know the answer
as to why this had happened.
Why is this man dead?
Why is motor racing so dangerous?
The death of Ayrton senna was relayed by television
into the living rooms of millions of people around the world,
to people who didn't really know about motor sport,
but knew of him.
Somebody had to be blamed.
The new President of the fia
had been on the grid the day Jim Clark died.
I think it's distressing that so much of the press
doesn't appreciate the realities of the situation.
Max mosley had ascended
to the ultimate position of power within the sport
just months before senna's death.
They were absolutely concentrated on,
why did senna have the crash?
Totally irrelevant.
It's a sport done at the limit of human and... and mechanical ability.
When you do that, you're gonna have a crash.
The interesting question isn't why he crashed,
it's why did he get killed?
Mosley called on Dr. Watkins
to lead a scientific examination
into every aspect of the sport.
Michael schumacher: Max had a clear message,
saying that whatever is happening to a car,
there should be no reason to die in a car.
( Spectators cheering )
Martin Brundle: I remember going up in the air.
My first thought was,
please don't let me go in the trees,
because, you fly, you die, into the trees.
Martin Brundle: Then it starts to roll.
It feels like being in a tumble dryer, a washing machine.
When it stopped,
I could feel this liquid running down into my overalls.
I could smell fuel,
and I thought I was going to catch fire and burn.
Man: This is what we feared at this corner,
and that was very nasty indeed!
Damon hill: That's the first big accident since Ayrton senna,
and the whole world was watching.
Martin Brundle: It was the first race
where they'd raised the headrests, up beside the driver,
and that played a big role in me not being injured at all.
Not only was he alive, but he got back in the race.
( Spectators cheering )
And it struck me then that we'd moved on,
that the whole aspect of it had changed.
What happened was the attitude changed,
and senna gave the impetus
to really go into safety on a scientific basis.
In an arms race for speed,
no expense has been spared for survival.
Lewis Hamilton: Never had that fear.
Never been worried about death or the danger of getting hurt.
Sebastian Vettel: 270 kilometres an hour through the corners.
Ah, it's unbelievable.
Sometimes if you just look outside,
left and right, you think, am I crazy?
It's almost like you have control of the danger.
Bernie Ecclestone: There's probably as many accidents today
as there was then...
But the results of the accidents are completely different.
( Indistinct remarks from race announcer )
Male reporter: Have you seen the accident on TV?
Well, yeah, I-I have seen it also live,
when I was there! But, uh... ( Onlookers laughing )
Sir Jackie Stewart: The modern-day driver will never know,
and I hope and pray that they never find out
what it feels like to have the consistency of death surrounding you.
♪
Jacky Ickx: The idea was not to race and die;
The idea was to race and to last as long as possible.
After all I have said about Jackie Stewart,
I really did appreciate what he started.
Male vocalist: ♪ all this feels strange and untrue ♪
♪ and I won't waste a minute ♪
♪ without you
Nigel Mansell: Emerson and I have been
talking about it today, actually.
We're very grateful to be alive,
to have actually won the races we've won and driven.
Jacky Ickx: I think we all did something unbelievable,
at the absolute limit of the job.
Male vocalist: ♪ I want so much to open your eyes ♪
♪ 'cause I need you to look into mine ♪
♪ tell me that you'll open your eyes ♪
In our days, we knew if you made a mistake or something broke,
you had a good chance you wouldn't get out of it.
Emerson Fittipaldi: All these drivers,
they had a glamorous life, and they were incredible.
I love my sport, and it was awarding to be with my friends.
I'm knocking on wood every day
that I was one of the lucky ones that really dodged the bullets.
Max mosley: In the end, we were able to use all these developments
to literally revolutionize the crash safety
of the ordinary car industry.
Nigel Mansell: That's why it's such a fantastic sport.
It pioneers the evolution of the car, and going faster.
But safety's gotta come first.
Three thousand people get killed every day on the roads worldwide.
To make a one per cent difference,
even one per cent, is 30 people a day.
Really, that alone justifies everything
that's come from formula one.
But, you see, one's always haunted by the past.
Max believes everyone should live to a hundred.
I don't look back, actually.
I look forward. Yesterday's yesterday.
Man: Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
We are world champions! World champions!
Man: Oh, no! Mark Webber's gone right up there!
Oh! Mark Webber's gone completely over the top there.
♪
Male vocalist: ♪ all this feels strange and untrue ♪
♪ and I won't waste a minute ♪
♪ without you
♪