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The smell of rain hung heavily in the air that day. Light danced across the grid, courtesy of the finely-misted raindrops that sparkled against the brightly-hued chassis of the racing machines lined up one next to the other.
Though the rain had ceased, the track was positively drenched. To call the conditions sub-optimal would have been flattery teetering dangerously on the border of a flat-out lie.
How fortunate, then, that James Hunt thrived on the edge.
He craned his neck to peer past the mechanics gathered around his car, catching a glimpse of a familiar blood-red Ferrari. Its rat of a driver hadn’t exactly been wrong regarding the risks involved with racing the Green Hell in these conditions, that much was true, but the race track never took kindly to cowards. Niki Lauda just didn’t have the winner’s mentality. Didn’t have that drive, that follow-through.
James smiled to himself. Lauda may have held the track record, but when it came down to it, he would brake. He would play it safe. Twenty percent risk, no more, no less - it was a mantra that he would not shut up about. There were no such hang-ups for James. The rain upped the stakes just enough to play straight into his hands. A scared Lauda was a Lauda that wasn’t going to be passing him any time soon.
It was time. Engines roared all around him in a deafening cacophony, howling and barking with each warming rev like a pack of furious wolves. The lights came on.
3, 2, 1.
Go.
The first lap was a disaster. Mass sailed past them on his slicks, the one risk James hadn’t quite yet been willing to take (because Niki wasn’t, and damnit, every once in a while James did actually trust Niki’s judgement over his own), pushing straight through to first position unchallenged on a track that was growing drier by the second. After only one lap, the pit lane had turned into your average motorway traffic jam, with every driver and their goddamn dog deciding to rectify their mistake in tire choice and switch to slicks. A flash of blood red in his periphery confirmed that his ratty little friend had realized his mistake, too.
“Come on!” James urged, gesturing vaguely into the air as if that would make the mechanics go any faster. It wouldn’t. In fact, they were, as usual, rather unbothered by his impatient complaints, carrying out their given tasks with precision. The car was set down and released, hitting the track with fresh, cold tires within less than a minute. No red behind him. Good. It served him right. James pushed his foot to the floor, lifting only to shift up the gears, down them at the bends, like clockwork. The cold tires slipped against the still-damp track; dangerous, but manageable. The track really was awful. At one point, he had almost certainly lost contact with the ground, landing rather roughly in a move he hoped hadn’t damaged anything. The last thing he needed was for this beast of a car to give up the ghost again, as it had the unfortunate tendency to do.
He only made it one lap around again before he was halted by a flash of red. Not Lauda this time, but the red flag. The race was stopped. One lap after the first stop, and James found himself back in the pits once more, handing off the steering wheel and leveraging himself up out of his tin can with a purposefully drawn-out groan and annoyance prickling under his skin. “Alright, which one of these morons managed to fuck up this time? Don't they know how to drive?”
There’d been an accident, someone had said. A particularly fiery one involving one of the Ferraris. Not Regazzoni, because Regazzoni was standing behind him with his hands on his hips, listening intently with obvious concern.
James crossed his arms. So Niki had crashed. Unlike his Ferrari teammates, James wasn’t concerned, though no one seemed to know anything specific. Loathe though he was to admit it, Niki was a good driver, perhaps even one of the best on the circuit today. Crashes happened all the time. If anything, it meant that James could gloat later about standing on the podium without Niki breathing down his neck, ribbing him for his earlier assertion about being track record holder - such things didn’t matter in a race. All that mattered was the performance brought to the table that day, and Niki hadn't delivered. Ha, ha. It was about time that Niki had a DNF, Lord knew James had had enough of those this season.
They didn’t really know anything beyond the fact that there was a fire, anyway. The stewards were tight-lipped in their panicked scurrying to organize the clearing of the track, refusing any comment. It wasn’t until a handful of other drivers who’d been caught in the mess had been returned to the paddock that they were able to learn any of the specifics of whatever had happened up there. James wouldn't deny being curious about what his greatest rival had managed to screw up.
On top of the fire, there’d been two additional collisions. A complete mess at Bergwerk. A total of three cars, including Niki’s Ferrari, had been rendered undriveable while one driver was taken away in an ambulance under the howl of sirens and flashing blue lights. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which driver that was, when Lunger and Ertl were standing right there, sans car.
“He’s okay, though?” Regazzoni had asked. James swallowed thickly, something like concern finally rearing its head through the adrenaline high of the race. Blue lights and sirens were never good.
John Watson, one of several witnesses to whatever had happened back there, shrugged. “As okay as you can be after a crash like that. Looked… nasty, but, you know, he was talking. And walking. He’s off to hospital for those burns.”
Good. Great. Well, not good, not great, but also not terrible. Niki’d gotten unlucky, but he’d go to the hospital, get patched up, and be back to busting James' balls in time for the Austrian Grand Prix. That was that. Perhaps James would even persuade him to give him some recommendations for places to visit while in the Land of the Krauts. It was his home country, after all.
The race proceeded later that day, and James got back in the car to finish first without any hint of a challenge. Adrenaline kept reality at bay all the way up until the podium, where celebrations had been notably muted and filled with hushed whispers about Niki Lauda.
Niki Lauda, who had been standing just after the accident but was now reportedly in critical condition, fighting for his life in a hospital bed. That's what they said. “Fighting for his life.” And when they said it, they said it with a sense of doom and an air of respect so very unlike the usual media circus. For the first time, James found himself throwing up after a race prior to the involvement of any booze.
Earlier that morning, Niki had proposed a boycott on the race, citing unsafe track conditions and insufficient safety precautions.
And James had laughed, called him a coward, and accused him of using filthy tactics to secure the win.
The boycott proposal failed by a single vote. Just one.
“You know, Niki, every now and then it helps if people like you.”
Those were the last words he’d said to the man, practically glowing with Schadenfreude. Niki had taught him that word, and it was an incredibly useful one. You had to give the Germans (or, well, Austrians) one thing, and that was that they sure knew how to smush words together to create something new and so incredibly to-the-point. Schadenfreude - damage-joy. Joy in, or from causing, damage. Fucking poetic.
James didn’t feel very joyful at all, anymore.
Twenty percent risk, that had been Niki’s firm boundary. And yet, he’d gone out on that track and raced anyway.
Crashes happened to everyone. Small, mechanical failures, spin-outs, stalls, contact. Those things happened nearly every race, even in the very best conditions. Hell, James himself could sing a song about all the various ways a car could fail.
Big crashes were just as inevitable, albeit blessedly more infrequent. They were still bound to happen when you were racing a steel death trap with the power of a small legion’s worth of horses under your ass, especially on a wet track far too big for its own good. Safety was definitely not the greatest of concerns for the FIA, though they barely went a full year without a fatality.
James himself had always assumed that he’d go out in either a glorious blaze of cocaine, girls and booze, or in his car. That’d been what drove him, quite literally. That adrenaline high of knowing that death could be right around the next corner, waiting with open arms. It's what pushed him to drive the way he did, reckless and with very little regard for his own safety, tempting death with every risky overtake and charging ahead with everything he had. He lived every day like it was his last. It made him feel alive.
But Niki wasn’t like that. The man was a perfectionist to a degree that was probably psychiatrically concerning (though James knew exactly what they said about glass houses and throwing stones). He knew the risks going in. He was careful, damnit. He was supposed to be behind James because he drove like a grandfather, not because of a crash. Not because he was on his fucking deathbed.
The reports on the television ran all night, showing the crash in its full, un-edited glory. It was very effective at clearing up most of the earlier uncertainties. Niki’s Ferrari skidded off track and crashed against the barrier at a breakneck speed, catching fire as it was turned sideways and was thrown back out into the track - right into the path of an oncoming car. Lunger's Surtees collided with the blazing Ferrari, sending Niki, barely visible through the flames and the mercifully low resolution of the film camera, lurching forward with the force of the impact. As if that hadn’t been enough, Ertl's Hesketh followed close behind, unable to avoid the pile-up. Several racers had gotten out of their cars to attempt to pull Niki out. Not the fire marshals, of which there was only one with poor equipment to boot, but the drivers. It was Roger Williamson all over again, because the FIA clearly hadn’t learnt its fucking lesson despite all of its vapid, empty assurances.
It was a well known fact that the rules and regulations of Formula One were written in blood, but apparently, that of Williamson had been washed away in the warm summer rain. Now, it was Niki's that stained the track.
The Nordschleife was oversized and understaffed. Just like he'd said, before he got into the fucking car anyway and raced to what might have been his fiery death. And James might as well have been holding the match in his own hand.
Despite everything, Niki was standing when they finally brought him out of the flames. Unlike Williamson, he made it out. Battered, helmetless, but clearly alive.
James wasn’t sure it would have changed anything, had he not been. He’d still have climbed back into his car as soon as the race restarted and pushed the pedal to the metal, clinching an easy first-place without the so-called fastest rat of Austria on his tail. He wasn’t like Chris Amon, who’d pulled out even before the news broke that Niki had not, in fact, been okay at all.
The more time went on, the more details emerged that the other drivers had declined to outline at the track. Reports, statements, interviews. The vultures were nothing if not thorough if they smelled a story.
Niki had been trapped in the blazing inferno that once passed for a car for a full fifty-five seconds before anyone was able to pull him out. Fifty-five seconds, and they’d only managed to free him once he’d lost consciousness and stopped struggling long enough for them to unlatch his safety belt. And how cruel was that? It wasn't until the agony had forced the fight out of him that he could be saved.
He still stood, after, because it was Niki fucking Lauda and not even that crash could fully knock the spite out of that man.
It was fifty-five seconds of burning, and then another several minutes before the ambulance reached him.
Ironically, this, too, had been something he had criticized that morning, when James had accused him of cowardice and swayed the goddamned room into racing anyway. Of course Niki just had to go and prove his point in the worst way humanly possible. Spiteful asshole.
As the evening dragged on, the crash flickered across the television screen, again and again and again, and James found himself unable to look away. He owed Niki that much. After all, it was only because of him that he'd even gotten into that car.
Around midnight, another news anchor rattled off yet another report with a grave expression. Niki had suffered severe burns to his face and hands, broken his cheekbone and sustained several other fractures. A laundry list of injuries, but it was his lungs that meant that the media were reporting as if Niki was already a dead man. He'd slipped into a coma. No one expected him to survive.
James drank alone that night. Not in celebration of his first place. It’s not like that was worth anything, anyway, when his only true equal lay dying because James couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut and yield to Niki’s better judgement in a situation far more important than the question of slicks versus wets.
Visiting Niki in hospital was out of the question. The last thing James wanted to do was to look into Marlene’s eyes when he was the one at least partially responsible for almost making her a widow. If he was being honest, that was only part of the reason. His last memory of Niki was him glowering up at James with his hands across his chest, brown eyes sparkling with furious indignation. Whole. In one piece. Truly outraged, but uninjured. His usual ratty self.
James didn’t want to see Niki weak. It wasn’t right. Niki wouldn’t want to be seen like that, either; he knew him well enough to be certain of that. So he didn’t go. He tried to write, tried to apologize, but the words never came out right. The bin beside his desk was filled with various iterations of Dear Niki or Dearest Rat if he felt like making a pathetic attempt at feigning normalcy, all composed in wildly varying states of sobriety. Attempts at apologies, attempts at humor, attempts at friendly small talk and generic get-well-soon messages that fell completely flat.
Not one letter made it to postage.
A month passed, and with it, several more letters and two races that James won with an ease that felt anything but rewarding.
In his dreams a flaming Ferrari spun its way across Bergwerk to the agonized screams of a man burning alive.
When James arrived at Monza two weeks later, he was certain it would be just another race-day as colorless and drab as Austria and the Netherlands before it. Overshadowed by the ghost of his rival. Of course, he'd still driven like hell; in fact, he drove even harder than before, tempting death with metaphorically raised middle fingers at every sharp turn. It was hard not to feel alive, then. He needed that.
But it wasn't just another race day. The pit lane was abuzz with a nervous sort of energy. Above them, the grandstands were in an excited uproar, crowding near the Ferrari garage. Regazzoni and Reutemann were hardly crowd pleasers, though Reutemann had drawn some attention particularly due to just how fast Ferrari was willing and able to replace Lauda after Germany, but that was certainly not enough reason to warrant this much excitement.
"What's going on?" James asked, nodding up to the stands.
Alastair Caldwell, who had just wandered back from the direction of Ferrari, met his gaze as he came to a stop beside him to take a long drag of his cigarette. "Jesus, it's Niki," he said. "He's here. He's racing."
Wordlessly, James glanced back toward the commotion, brows knitted.
There was no way. Niki Lauda was burnt to a crisp and had inhaled such a broad variety of incredibly toxic fumes that he'd been given a less than twenty percent chance of living to tell the tale. A twisted, ironic trade-off: twenty percent risk, to less than twenty percent chance of survival. They'd read him his last rites, damnit. And he was here? Not only here, but ready to climb back into the thing that had very nearly become his coffin just weeks earlier?
God, but Niki was here. He was alive, he was here. He was racing.
Mind made up, James nodded his farewell toward Caldwell and wound his way around dozens of reporters that'd flocked outside the Ferrari paddock. Clay Regazzoni and Luca Di Montezemolo were standing just outside the garage, at least partially obscuring the inside from the flashing of cameras. They both spotted James at the same time and shot each other a look. Behind them, James caught sight of a figure leaning over a table, seemingly reviewing some schematics or strategy plans with a rigidity so familiar it nearly knocked the wind out of him.
He couldn't, and wouldn't, fight the smile that found its way onto his lips.
Regazzoni and Di Montezemolo moved out of the way, moving towards the back of the garage. Clay didn't look away from James once as he passed, fixing him with a stare that was something between concern and a warning. They were protective of their teammate, but he wasn't someone in need of protection.
Unbothered, James called out. "Niki!"
And Niki looked up.
Just as involuntary as it had arisen, James' smile fell.
Niki's hair, once curly, was now a short, barely-grown-out buzz cut, partially hidden by the bandages wrapped around his head. That was the smallest change.
His face was a mess. His forehead, his ear, his eyelids seemed almost molten, scored with angry red marks that told the tale of the sheer agony he must have gone through within the past six weeks. His brows, once so expressive, had been singed off completely. It was frightening just how much the lack of eyebrows could change a face. Beyond all that, he was still bleeding under the bandages. Caked blood stood out against the pale skin around his ear, uncovered by the bandage. If James wasn't so familiar with him, he might not have recognized him at all. But he did. Despite everything, it was still Niki; buck teeth, rigid posture, and a familiar sardonic smile playing at the corners of his lips when James' own fell. His brown eyes sparkled with dark amusement as he met James' mortified expression.
"That bad, huh?" he said.
Even through the shock at his appearance, James was never so glad to hear that stupid Austrian accent in his life.
"No," he replied with a shrug that was meant to seem nonchalant. It was an effort rendered entirely ineffective by the fact that he couldn't stop staring with an expression he was sure reflected the horror he felt.
"In the hospital, I asked them straight, no bullshit, how bad my appearance would be," Niki said, "They said, with time it would be fine."
As he spoke, he seemed to fidget with an energy that just barely registered as uneasy. A strange sight to behold. Still, he held James' stare. "But it won't."
Niki was moving now, away from where Regazzoni and Di Montezemolo continued to watch with a careful eye, and towards James. Towards the reporters. Cameras clicked and flashed around them, but his confidence seemed to be returning by the second. He tilted his chin upward, letting the sun illuminate his ruined features.
"I can tell, seeing your reaction. I will spend the rest of my life with a face that frightens people," he concluded. He wasn't smiling anymore, though he didn't quite seem upset either. Instead, he seemed to accept it as fact with a quiet dignity James could scarcely comprehend. The sun caught on the still-wet wound that was once his right ear. He was within arm's reach now, close enough to touch, close enough to where James could see every detail of his mottled skin. Close enough to where he could hear the way his breath seemed to catch, subtly, on every inhale. Coming too short, too quick and with just a hint of a wheeze.
And James knew he had done that.
If it'd been him who'd been in that wreck, he didn't think he could do what Niki was doing now. He didn't think he could weather the stares, let alone the agony.
He looked away from Niki for just a second, just long enough to wrestle back control over his face and school his expression back into something more neutral. Swallowing away the last of his initial dismay, he willed the words that he hadn't been able to put to paper to come now. Better late than never. "You know, Niki, I tried to write you a letter at the time, to apologize."
Now it was Niki's turn to look anywhere but at James.
James took a steadying breath. "The driver's meeting in Germany, I... before the race, I swayed the room."
"Yes, you did."
"That race should never have gone ahead," he continued.
"No, it shouldn't."
"So, in many ways, I feel responsible for what happened and-"
"You were."
And for a moment, James was stunned into silence. He might've been faintly offended, were it any other time. Any other situation. But now, Niki's brutal honesty was refreshing. Relieving. It was proof that it was still Niki Lauda stood before him, despite the scars. His usual, ratty self. Though he still wouldn't look James in the eye.
"But trust me," said Niki, choosing his next words with obvious care, "Watching you win those races, while I was fighting for my life..."
Finally, he looked up, eyes lit with something like determination.
"You were equally responsible for getting me back in the car."
Of course it had been pure spite that had brought him back here. Not that James was complaining.
Still, he wasn't sure this was a responsibility he wanted to carry.
Niki looked like a walking corpse. Once again, the risk exceeded twenty percent. Perhaps even more so than even the fateful race at the German Grand Prix. James wasn't a statistics guy, far from it, but even he could see that Niki was here against all medical advice and against all sanity.
Distantly, James found himself wondering if he was here because he truly wanted to prove himself and defend his title, or if he just wanted to finish the job and go out with a bang rather than a whimper. The thought sent a shiver down his back.
But Niki was Niki, and Niki was not someone who required anyone to coddle or patronize him. He'd surely had more than enough of that between his doctors, his teammates, and his wife.
For a moment, they stood together in silence before James gave him an almost imperceptible nod of understanding. Of acceptance.
Niki turned on his heel and left, brushing past his waiting teammates. James returned to the McLaren garage, somehow both more and less nervous than before. Nervous, but lit with energy that he hadn't felt since the Nürburgring.
The press conference went about as well as one could expect. James drifted through the back area, leaning against a wall where the reporters didn't seem to spot him, their cameras and microphones stubbornly trained on the man who defied the odds. He was curious, too, and maybe just a bit protective. The media was merciless, after all.
As expected, Niki'd been asked about his injuries and was already deep into recounting exactly what had been done. True to form, he was honest. Poised. Nothing to hide. His humor was as dry as ever, earning a chuckle from the tense crowd of flashing lights and boom-mics with a frank observation about skin grafts and the lack of ability to sweat.
"When they heard about your condition, Ferrari immediately hired a replacement driver, Carlos Reutemann."
"Jup," Niki affirmed with a nod, the Austrian accent shining through. "Before even reaching the hospital."
He turned toward Luca Di Montezemolo with an accusatory stare under which the Ferrari team lead seemed to wither, just a bit. Good. It wasn't fair to Reutemann, it wasn't his fault, but Ferrari? Sure showed how much the word family meant to them - which is, not at all. Despite their insistence on being a family, they were a business and the human factor didn't matter even a little bit to their bottom line. Niki could have died, and it wouldn't have mattered, because they'd replaced him regardless the moment he stopped being useful to them. Just another cog in the machine. Just a driver. In a past life, Niki might have agreed with their business decision, but James wasn't Niki, and James had been furious to see a second Ferrari on the track in Austria, red like the blood Niki had spilled in racing for that sorry fucking bottom-line.
To his credit, Niki seemed equally neutral about Reutemann, speaking his name without resentment. He'd be keen to make an impression, he'd said.
"Let's see where Mr. Reutemann finishes, and where I finish today."
And oh did James not envy the position that Reutemann was in. Facing off against Niki on a good day was bad enough, but on a day where he had something to prove? God help him. God help all of them, actually.
Call him vain, but the next question piqued James' interest more than he cared to admit.
"James Hunt and McLaren have caught up a lot while you were away."
"Yes. Is that a question, or are you just trying to piss me off?" Niki responded lightly, without any bite. The reporters laughed. Even James couldn't help but smile in faint amusement.
"Do you still think you can win?"
"Yes, of course. I have the better car, and possibly I am the better driver."
The possibly didn't escape James' notice. That wasn't the old Niki at all, and judging by Regazzoni's quirked eyebrow, he wasn't the only one to notice. He should have been overjoyed that the rat had finally been knocked down a peg, but given the circumstances, it just made his heart twist uncomfortably with the certainty that things would never be quite the same after Nürburg.
But Niki carried on, tone still light. "He's a clever guy, and he's used his time well while I was half-dead in hospital to win some points."
There was the old, infuriating Niki. And somehow, that didn't make it better, because as usual, his sharp-tongued remarks weren't exactly wrong. No, they were daggers aimed to hurt, underlying bitterness masked with flippancy.
In the end, James had no right to criticize Ferrari when he'd done exactly what they had. Niki was nearly killed, and James had taken full advantage of the lack of real competition. He hadn't even managed to write his only real competitor a goddamn get-well-soon card.
He wondered if Ferrari had.
He didn't have a lot of time to wallow in it before the next question came.
"What did your wife say, when she saw your face?"
A hush fell over the room. The question was indelicate, almost salacious, but that was typical of the media. Expected, in the most disappointing way. Niki remained quiet for a long time before he finally replied, skillfully dodging the question with another joke.
"She said, 'Sweetie, you don't need a face to drive, you just need a right foot.'"
He earned another chuckle from the room and seemed rather pleased with himself for it, until the reporter, that fucking asshole, piped up again, clearly not knowing when to shut the fuck up.
"I'm serious. Do you really think your marriage can survive, with the way you look now?"
The other questions before had at least been polite in tone. Provocative, sure, but not... not that. Not laced with pure malice and bloodlust. James had half a mind to go out there and punch some manners into that man, but Niki didn't need a protector. He could stand up for himself.
Voice lowered, he leaned into the microphone. "And I'm being serious too," he sneered, "Fuck you. Press conference over."
With that, he got up without another word and stalked out of the room, leaving behind the clamoring reporters. James caught a glimpse of the culprit of the final question, smiling and laughing it up with one of his buddies, thinking he'd won.
Asshole.
James certainly didn't feel any guilt for the admittedly impulsive decision to rearrange his face in a boiler room as everyone was filing out. It wasn't his fault that the opportunity presented itself so easily, or that it was so simple to lure the man back with the promise of more vitriolic gossip about Niki's injuries and relationship with Marlene for his rag. He was practically salivating like a starving dog over fresh meat when James had said that he had something for him, about that last question. James saw red.
Niki didn't need a protector, but this guy clearly needed a little lesson. For Niki and Marlene's sake. And for the sake of the next poor carcass this vulture would decide to descend upon.
"Now go home to your wife and ask her how you look."
For James Hunt, the Italian Grand Prix was a disaster. His head wasn't in the game, he knew it wasn't. He couldn't seem to stop glancing back in the dogshit little mirror affixed to the side of the cockpit, looking out for a familiar flash of red. And then it seemed that everything that could go wrong, did, leaving him stranded in the green with the smoking husk of his misbehaving car that'd spun out in a curve.
And he was uninjured.
Unburnt.
And then he saw it; the blood-red Ferrari emblazoned with the number one, driving like hell and keeping pace just fine with everyone else, taking the same curve that had just thrown James with ease and grace.
He couldn't even be too mad about his forced retirement from that race. He figured he owed it to Niki to let him make up for lost time, just a little. Just this once.
Niki Lauda finished an astounding fourth place. The man had done it, he'd gone from his deathbed right back into racing, outperforming his replacement with apparent ease. Even grounded to the pits, without a car and without points, James felt nothing but relief. Maybe even a little joy.
No one really cared who was on the podium that day, all eyes were on the man who'd risen from the flames like a goddamn phoenix and showed everyone what for. He charged through that finish line, a fist raised to the sky in victory in an unusual show of enthusiasm so unlike himself, as though he, too, was in disbelief to have actually done it.
When the helmet came off, his bandages were nearly soaked through with blood. But none of that mattered. He was hoisted into the air by his pit crew, celebrating his victory. James looked on with a small smile.
Niki Lauda was back.
And James Hunt finally had some real competition again.