#rivalery

     In sports there are always rival teams – like the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox or the New York Rangers vs. the Boston Bruins. But in racing, there may be teams but each person drives for himself, representing their name, in the hopes of being a chamption. No strategies are shared. It’s one man versus another. It’s every man for himself. The documentary film Hunt vs. Lauda: F1’s Greatest Racing Rivals shows the complexity of a real rivalry. But it also shows true sportsmanship, and friendship. Niki Lauda and James Hunt’s story is complicated. They worked together to try to make their sport better, they socialized together, they laughed and trained together. But once the green flag dropped, it was racing in its purest form – competition.

     Why watch this documentary? It shows the raw aspects of completion and rivalry and how that can shape a sport. Hunt vs. Lauda tells the story of the incredible 1976 Gran Prix season when these two drivers competed to become world champion of the Gran Prix. Lauda, with Ferrari, had won the championship in 1975 and had every hope of re-claiming his crown. Hunt joined McLaren, a British racing company that had been Ferrari’s arch rival, for the 1976 season to turn things around – to put McLaren back on the map and to prove to people that he wasn’t just a playboy.  British cars and British drivers had dropped off and McLaren and the British people were hoping Hunt would bring the British back to the top of racing. “James didn’t have a team, and we didn’t have a driver so we were thrown into bed with him,” said Alaisdar Caldwell, McLaren team manager at the time. It was like fate; McLaren had to take a leap of faith and run with it.

     According to the narration in the film, this was the most extraordinary season in the history of Formula One. It was sixteen races over ten months from January to October held at locations all around the world. History was being made in racing with the rivalry, and it went back and forth through the whole season. The film is constructed through archived footage of the 1976 Formula One season and told through the footage and interviews with family members, team managers, sports announcers, magazine editors, and Niki Lauda himself (James Hunt died before the film was made in 2013). People who witnessed the rivalry and were around at the same time in the field offer their opinions. The reason why the season is so important is not only because of the rivalry, but because it changed racing: It turned it into a worldwide television event followed around the world.

     The men’s different personalities reflected on the kind of drivers they were. The two drivers were the polar opposite. Hunt “was a fast, flamboyant showman who partied as hard as he raced,” said the narrator. The team manager of Lauda’s Ferrari team, Daniel Oudetta, said Hunt had “the natural talent to go fast in a car.” The narrator described Hunt’s rival Lauda as a steely Austrian who drove with cold, hard logic. “Niki was the scientist, the counterpoint, he was the ultimate, the first really, really technical driver,” said Autocar Sports Editor (1975-1984) Peter Windsor. James Hunt, for example, never played team sports but excelled at individual sports like tennis, and came to racing later on and Lauda came up in the traditional way, through karting.

    Everything throughout was archived footage from the time the event was taking place, and that footage was fused with new material, which were interviews with the people involved. The documentarians also used a lot of pictures, conveyed in Ken Burns-like effects – narrative slide shows with voiceovers.  The visual and the voiceovers made the viewer get a greater picture of actually what happened. You didn’t just hear about it, you saw it. For example, when Niki Lauda was injured badly on the track, you didn’t just hear about it – you saw him in the hospital and you saw his burned face. After his accident, when he was at the final Gran Prix even event of the year, you even saw him pulling off the track in his car, saying “I can’t do it, I can’t do it.”

     The documentarians also brought in a lot of pop culture and news about the era to show how the racing was a distraction for people from the things happening in the outside world. Hunt was a free spirit that people were attracted to in England while so much was changing in their country. The film also captures how racing changed, with new advertisers and promoters and product placement.

     Normally it’s just one person who changes a sport. Derek Jeter, Mohammad Ali, and even the horse Secretariat stand out. There’s always one exceptional player, or sportsman. But in this case, it was two men that made an unforgettable and unbelievable season of racing – the 1976 Gran Prix season, Niki Lauda vs. James Hunt. Both of them got into those cars not to get paid, but because they loved it. In the car they felt most alive. And Hunt raced like he had nothing to lose and nothing to live for, and Niki Lauda raced in the opposite way, cautiously and carefully as if he had everything to live for and everything to lose. The documentary provides pictures of these two complimentary characters.