On a fast track to men behind the machines

On August 1, 1976, during the German Grand Prix on the Nürburgring, Niki Lauda’s Ferrari spun across the track, bounced off an embankment and burst into flames, trapping the 27-year-old Austrian in a searing inferno.

It was the moment that changed Lauda’s life. The near-fatal horror crash left him with lasting scars both physical and mental. Unable to escape his cockpit for more than a minute he breathed in toxic fumes that damaged his lungs and throat. And after losing his helmet in the accident Lauda’s face was exposed to temperatures of more than 800 degrees. Yet 39 days later Lauda, his head swathed in bandages, was back on the track. It was what he did.

That same year was memorable for James Hunt, too. The blond Englishman, a combination of playboy, wild man and aristocrat, took the world championship. It had been Hunt versus Lauda. A thrill ride on and off the circuit. A volatile, controversial, always exciting battle between two rivals. Formula One had never seen anything like it.

Turning that rivalry into plausible box office gold fell to Peter Morgan, the British scriptwriter who previously handled The Queen, The Damned United and Frost/Nixon. Adding Lauda/Hunt to his portfolio of biopics was never on the cards until he was asked to write a film about Jackie Stewart. His response was unequivocal: “Not even Jackie Stewart’s mother wants to see a film about Jackie Stewart!”

But having undertaken some research he re-discovered the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The bonus was that he knew Lauda.

Thus Rush was born.

He calls the Hunt/Lauda dynamic “fantastic” but admits the men he put on the movie screen were far more complex than he had ever anticipated. And as Hunt, the bed-hopping, champagne-swigging golden boy had died, aged just 45, from a heart attack in 1993, he focused his attention on 64-year-old Lauda.

“The Hunt family was very nervous,” he recalls. “Ron Howard and I met James’s brothers for dinner. Gradually, bit by bit, [they agreed]. I think they looked in our eyes and felt that we weren’t out to just talk about James Hunt in bed.

“I went and saw Niki in Ibiza, which is where he lives a lot of the time. We talked for about four hours. I have no understanding of cars. Niki explained oversteer, understeer, all the stuff you need to understand and why. When he talks he distils things to their essence. There’s no such thing as a dull conversation with Niki.”

Morgan sought the story of the men rather than the machines they drove. It was this emotional connection that inspired Morgan, not the speed and danger of Formula One in the 1970s.

Hunt was the public schoolboy and stockbroker’s son who was expected to be a doctor. Instead he went into motorsport, first at Hesketh Racing and then McLaren. Lauda had a similar experience, being effectively disowned by his family. Both men, claims Morgan, were rebels. And as recalled by Hesketh team manager Anthony “Bubbles” Horsley, Hunt suffered from profound depression.

“James was clearly a complex character. Anyone as self-destructive as that has got to be. I don’t think any of us are fooled by just how beautiful and blond and gorgeous and attractive he was. Clearly there was a lot more. There’s a darker movie to be written about James but that wasn’t 1976. That was his glory year. I think there were things about James Hunt’s masculinity that Niki envied.

“He was quite uncertain of his own attractiveness, only to then find himself in a rivalry with a conspicuously beautiful man. And only then to have your face burnt off. So quite apart from the point of the rivalry in the Formula One season there were other things going in their rivalry and in their competitiveness.”

In the film, Australian Chris Hemsworth and German Daniel Brühl play Hunt and Lauda. There are bitter jibes, good-natured banter and verbal swordplay fitting of champions seeking the crown. Then there is that crash.

Rush ends with a shot of the real-life Niki Lauda. He is silent, watching Hemsworth and Brühl at work. The scars he received at Nürburgring are evident. But it is his eyes that tell a story.

Says Morgan: “I think he was concentrating so hard on surviving that he at no point concentrated on what the impact of his injuries were on those close to him. When Niki takes off his hat you have to concentrate not to stare. It is very graphic, his scarring and disfigurement.

“I think Niki could see in watching this film how difficult it has been for everybody dealing with his disfigurement. People had been having conversations with him in a near-frozen state for 40 years. When he first saw the recreation of the accident he was really shaking and he’s tough to shake, as you can tell.

“He was tearful, very tearful.”

History tells us that the climax of the Hunt/Lauda battle was not Lauda’s accident but when Lauda chose not to race in torrential rain at the Japanese Grand Prix. Hunt did race, came third and won the world championship by one point. As a finale it was not the stuff of filmmakers’ dreams.

“Niki pulled out, which was great and full respect to him for doing what he did but there was no climax. James was just going round and round in circles until he won. In the very last scene [of the movie] you see Niki as an old man when he’s reflecting back. I said to Ron, ‘Film Niki. Just film him.’

“He looked very emotional in that moment. It was him watching Daniel the actor losing the world championship. And he still cares. But if he was going to lose to anyone he was going to lose to James. He’s always said that.”

Dream pairing for race movie

The pairing of Peter Morgan with director Ron Howard is expected to be a dream team – once again.

Morgan’s experience in writing about real people – The Queen, Brian Clough in Damned United and the recently deceased David Frost, will combine with Howard’s emotional handling of stories based on real life, from A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13, to the last movie the pair made together, Frost/Nixon.

In Frost/Nixon the pair told the story of a battle between two titans of their own worlds, taking each other on in a head-on battle. Based on Morgan’s hit play, the movie was a worldwide success.

Rush (15) is on saturation release.