Grand Prix

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
The danger? Well, of course. But you are missing a very important point. I think if any of us imagined - really imagined - what it would be like to go into a tree at 150 miles per hour we would probably never get into the cars at all, none of us. So it has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Before you leave I want to tell you something. Not about the others, but about myself. I used to go to pieces. I'd see an accident like that and be so weak inside that I wanted to quit - stop the car and walk away. I could hardly make myself go past it. But I'm older now. When I see something really horrible, I put my foot down. Hard! Because I know that everyone else is lifting his.

Louise Frederickson:
What a terrible way to win.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
No, there is no terrible way to win. There is only winning.

Jeff Jordan:
Let's try to get the season off to a good start. Shall we? Drive the car! Don't try to stand it on its bloody ear!

Nino Barlini:
I used to think nothing could be better than motorbike racing. Three times I am a World Champion on my motorbike. I am happy. Then I go into one of these, these cars: you sit in a box, a coffin, gasoline all around you. It is like being inside a bomb! Crazy, but of course the cars are faster, and that is the most important thing.

Nino Barlini:
And what do you think of this man? In the middle of the race, he decides to take a swim! It cost me two seconds!

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Pete, do you ever get tired, of the driving?

Pete Aron:
No.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Lately, I sometimes get very tired, you know? Very tired.

Agostini Manetta:
What means far more to me than anything else is: our good name! Our reputation represents desire for perfection of the highest quality. I gamble that reputation gladly, because I have *absolute* faith in every car that leaves this factory. But I will not risk it on a driver in whom I cannot have an equal faith. There are fewer than thirty men in the world qualified to drive Formula One; a mere half-dozen, perhaps, to win. At this moment, I am inclined to think you are not one of them.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Well, I can see I'm not properly dressed for the occasion. I should be wearing something fashionable.

Louise Frederickson:
Well, your driver's suit isn't bad. Maybe you could start a new style.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Spun glass, form-fitting, waterproof, flameproof.

Izo Yamura:
Right after the war, my house in Tokyo was used by an American general and his family. When it was returned to me, it had: flowered wallpaper, three new bathrooms, and four new closets. Americans, I think, are over-devoted to bathrooms and closets.

Pete Aron:
Well, we accumulate things.

Izo Yamura:
And then you lock them away in closets. And the bathrooms?

Pete Aron:
No, no, you don't get me on that one.

Pete Aron:
Ah, were you in the war?

Izo Yamura:
Yes, and you?

Pete Aron:
No, I missed it by a year.

Izo Yamura:
In the war, I was a fighter pilot. I shot down 17 American planes.

Pete Aron:
Okay.

Izo Yamura:
I believe that some things must not be left unsaid. There will come a time when you will ask yourself, "What did he do in the war, this man, Yamura?"

Pete Aron:
Mr. Yamura, I like you.

Izo Yamura:
Why?

Pete Aron:
Well, because... because you come right to the point.

Izo Yamura:
In a sense, you are here because you drive a car the way I conduct my business. You come right to the point.

Scott Stoddard:
Y'know one of the most beautiful things about a car? If it isn't working properly, you can strip the skin off, expose the insides, find out exactly where the trouble is, take out the faulty part and replace it with a new one. If only we could do that with people!

Izo Yamura:
Some years ago, when I decided to race cars, I tried to buy the Jordan-BRM company.

Pete Aron:
Oh yes, I had heard that.

Izo Yamura:
Impatience on my part. I also manufacture radios and sewing machines. In order to save time, I wanted a proven product. That was not to be, however. Racing cars are not merely another product. They require great attention if any success is to be hoped for.

Pete Aron:
Then that's why you're here.

Izo Yamura:
I have been racing my cars in Formula One for two years, and have yet to win my first Grand Prix. I intend to win, by whatever means are open to me.

Pete Aron:
That's the right attitude. All you have to do is go fast enough and long enough.

Izo Yamura:
And with the best drivers! Do you want a job with me?

Pete Aron:
Driving?

Izo Yamura:
Driving, of course.

Pete Aron:
Who are you dumping?

Izo Yamura:
Dumping?

Pete Aron:
Ah, which one of your drivers are you getting rid of?

Izo Yamura:
Neither one. I am entering a third car.

Pete Aron:
That'll be expensive.

Izo Yamura:
Yes.

Pete Aron:
You've got a driver.

Izo Yamura:
My racing headquarters is at Silverstone, in England. Can you be there next week?

Pete Aron:
Yes, sir.

Izo Yamura:
We must begin to think about - Spa!

Pete Aron:
Next week, then.

Izo Yamura:
By the way, you are a terrible broadcaster!

Izo Yamura:
Oh, Mr. Aron, if giving you the job would have meant firing one of the other drivers, would you still have taken it?

Izo Yamura:
Good!

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
I suppose what's wrong with me is my life. But I can't change it, or won't. So there's nothing you can do for me.

Louise Frederickson:
What's wrong with your life?

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
I've begun to see the absurdity of it. All of us, proving what? That we can go faster, and perhaps remain alive? Nino gambling his life for a trophy, then fills it with beer, and does tricks. Stoddard filling himself with drugs in order to drive, and still passing out with the pain. Don't you see how absurd it all is? Who cares?

Louise Frederickson:
I thought you cared, for yourselves. I didn't know you asked of anyone else. Nevertheless, others do care. 100,000 of them cared today.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
And did you see them rush to see Peter burn? Did you see the looks on their faces? *I* saw. For the first time today I *really* saw those faces.

Louise Frederickson:
But not all of them, Jean-Pierre. There are some who come for that, for the accidents and the fires. But the others... the others ride with you all. You put something in their lives they can't put there themselves.

Izo Yamura:
Why do you drive racing cars, or do you not think about it?

Pete Aron:
Oh, Mr. Yamura, I don't think there's one of us who doesn't ask himself at least once in the middle of a race, "What the hell am I doing here?" Of course, when it's over, we conveniently forget that we asked ourselves that question. I think about it and a lot of reasons I don't know. Maybe to do something that brings you so close to the possibility of death and to survive it is to feel life and living so much more intensely.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
You have to grasp the mind of Sr. Manetta, my darling. If a driver can be reached by those tactics, it means he probably will fear for his place on the team. That is exactly what Manetta wants, because that driver will try all the harder to win. He will perhaps take a risk which he would ordinarily avoid. And risks are always risks.

Monique Delvaux-Sarti:
He now wonders if you're ready to be beaten.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
No one is ever ready for that.

Monique Delvaux-Sarti:
You will never retire, Jean-Pierre.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
What does it matter to you, Monique?

Monique Delvaux-Sarti:
To me?

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Yes.

Monique Delvaux-Sarti:
As always, as a hero, you're a good asset to the company.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Well, perhaps, I'm tired of being an asset to the company. And tired, too, of this farce we perform, you and I, for public consumption.

Monique Delvaux-Sarti:
Well, it doesn't really matter that you are tired of these things, Jean-Pierre. If you should decide not to continue with, eh, the farce, as you call it, that of course is up to you. But it will make no difference. As long as you're my husband, the company will have the prestige of your name, and whether or not you ever step into one of these again. And you will always be my husband. You know that, don't you. This one may be different to you, but not to me. To me, she's just like all the others, and we will always be married, you and I.

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Stay away from me, Monique! Let me alone, please!

Jean-Pierre Sarti:
Tell me, what terrible thing have I done to you that make you want to labor me to this absurd life we have together? What terrible thing, Monique?