- 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.
- 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.
- Pete Aron: [voiceover, during the race at Monza] Well, none of us like Monza very much. It's so damn fast and they run so close together, it requires fantastic concentration and special skills. Slipstreaming, for instance. At speeds reaching 180 miles an hour, a race car's making a big hole in the air. As the car goes through, the air rushes back into the hole and creates a hell of a draft. And that draft's strong enough to pull a following car along at, oh, 10 miles more than his usual speed. If yours is the last car in a bunch, you can get a terrific tow. You can back way off the gas pedal and maintain the same speed. Then you can put your foot down, pull out of the slipstream and maybe overtake two, three cars at once.
- Pete Aron: [voiceover continues] The only thing to do here is to drive just as fast as you know how, and hope your car doesn't break.
- 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.
- Louise Frederickson: I love you, Jean-Pierre.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: And I you... We'll have to discuss the consequences of those terrible words, huh?
- 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.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Are you one of those?
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Did you see them rush to see Peter Aron 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, maybe. You put something in their lives that they can't put there themselves.
- 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.
- [Addressing Pete Aron at the Ferrari factory]
- 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.
- Pete Aron: [voiceover] You have to remember that at Monte Carlo, because of the nature of the circuit, you have to shift gears over 2600 times during the race. That's an average of once every three seconds. No reason to expect gear-box trouble... on the other hand, potential problems *are* in the back of your mind at all times.
- 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.
- 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!
- [Aron turns and starts heading for the door]
- 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?
- [Aron glares at Yamura]
- Izo Yamura: Good!
- Nino Barlini: [With a Japanese maiden on each arm] Hey, sayonara!
- Scott Stoddard: My goodness, Nino, I thought they belonged to the Yamura boys.
- Nino Barlini: I have them on temporary loan.
- Pat Stoddard: Really, two of them?
- Nino Barlini: They are very small. See you later, maybe!
- Lisa: I'm leaving you
- Nino Barlini: Leaving? For how long?
- Lisa: For always you fool. Forever.
- Lisa: I met a boy, an American who want to go to the Greek islands and dive for relics.
- Nino Barlini: In the first place, diving is a great bore.
- Lisa: How do you know? Have you ever done it?
- Nino Barlini: Some things one can tell without doing them that they will be a great bore and the underwater is for fish not for people.
- Nino Barlini: In the second place, they are not relics at all.
- Nino Barlini: I have on authority from a close friend that things are manufactured and then dumped into the water to be found by foolish American boy tourists and the girl who are foolish enough to go with them.
- Lisa: This is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.
- Nino Barlini: I have on authority from a close friend
- Lisa: Do you want me to stay?
- Nino Barlini: You are old enough to make your own decisions.
- Lisa: Then I'm going, all right?
- Nino Barlini: Yes, I definitely think you should go to the Greek islands with your Amerrican boyfriend. I think you should go to hell.
- Nino Barlini: Dance?
- Lisa: I don't dance.
- Nino Barlini: Have a drink with me.
- Lisa: I don't drink.
- Nino Barlini: Smoke?
- Lisa: I don't smoke.
- Nino Barlini: What do you do?
- Pat Stoddard: Hugo, have you ever had ouzo?
- Hugo Simon: I have had everything, my dear.
- Pat Stoddard: I was with two Greeks last night and we drank lots of ouzo.
- Hugo Simon: And where, may I ask, was your husband, while all this Greek and ouzo business was going on?
- Pat Stoddard: Where he always is the night before a race: trying to sleep.
- Pete Aron: I wanna' drive for you again, Signor Manetta.
- Agostini Manetta: Aron, your last season with me, you did nothing but tell me what was wrong with our cars. Then you left us, to follow hopes that lasted only a season. Then to Jordan, now back to me.
- Agostini Manetta: [continuing] You confuse me, Aron. And I don't like men who confuse me driving my cars.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Agostini Manetta: The question is, Jean-Pierre, what are you doing to do about it?
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Do? I don't understand.
- Agostini Manetta: The time for losing comes to every man, of course. I had not expected yours to come so soon.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: There have been problems with the car!
- Agostini Manetta: Come, come, Sarti. I expect excuses like that from lesser men than you. You have been one of the best that ever lived, there is no question of that in my mind. Never a wrong move, concentration always there, 100 percent, till this woman.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: You have been misled, Sr. Manetta. Do you take me for a trained dog, to jump at the snap of your fingers? My life belongs to no one but myself!
- Agostini Manetta: I have been thinking seriously of your retirement, Sarti.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: [Angrily] Then retire me now!
- [Manetta pulls Sarti away from bystanders]
- Agostini Manetta: [Quietly] Kindly lower your voice! Of course I will not retire you now. Tomorrow there is a race to be run, and I also well know that you want to drive it. After tomorrow, who knows, Jean-Pierre?
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: After tomorrow, Sr. Manetta, *I* will decide to retire or not.
- Agostini Manetta: Sarti, you're further gone than I'd thought. A pity, a great pity. I always considered you to be the best.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: I'm *still* the best!
- Monte Carlo race announcer: [voiceover] Tim Randolph, another American, driving a Japanese Yamura, also on the second row. This team's only been in Formula I racing for two years, and so far the car's not been reliable enough to win a Grand Prix. But the Japanese have the most powerful engines of all.
- Pete Aron: Jordan says I was blocking Stoddard. Said I didn't give him a signal to pass.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Did you?
- Pete Aron: Of course I did. The gear box froze coming out of the tunnel and I waved him through. Got on the brakes, locked up, and threw me in front of him. Next thing I knew, I was in the Mediterranean.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: What are you going to do now?
- Pete Aron: I don't know. Gotta' get a ride for the rest of the season. I don't know where.
- Louise Frederickson: I work for an American fashion magazine. We're going to do an issue around racing cars.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Yes! Now I have it! Of course: Louise Frederickson. You once did an article about my wife, Monique Delvaux. "One of the 27 best-dressed businesswomen in the world." - or something like that.
- Louise Frederickson: Only ten. You were away at the time, as I recall.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: [recalling the article] Yes... "While... while her husband is off racing motor cars, this busy woman executive spends long hours in her office administering the complex affairs of the Delvaux Motor Company." I remember that part very well. It had about it the slight hint of feminine prejudice toward the footloose male.
- Louise Frederickson: It wasn't meant to sound that way.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Very bad for a woman to be too independent.
- Louise Frederickson: Very bad for whom?
- [Addressing Pete Aron in the cockpit]
- 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!
- 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!
- [pause]
- 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?
- Hugo Simon: [noticing a commotion during the Monaco Grand Prix] Something's wrong! There's been an accident!
- Pat Stoddard: Well, that's what they come for, isn't it? To see somebody get killed.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Sun, food and sex. It's hard to think of them 10 years from now. Fat and married. With five fat children.
- Louise Frederickson: Maybe. Maybe they'll avoid it.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: The marriage or the fat?
- Pete Aron: I apologize for that.
- Pat Stoddard: Why?
- Pete Aron: Because it was bad manners.
- Pat Stoddard: What does it matter to you what I do or don't do? Girl has to make a living.
- Pete Aron: Last time a girl said that to me, she was stepping out of her skirt and asking for a hundred-dollar bill.
- Pat Stoddard: Making a comparison?
- Louise Frederickson: You're very superior, Mr. Aron. For the man to put Scott Stoddard where he is.
- Pete Aron: Scott put Scott where he is.
- Louise Frederickson: I like to be free. I like traveling. I like making my own decisions. Meeting new people, working. I like to be free.
- Pat Stoddard: Why are we being so offensive?
- Pete Aron: Probably because we don't like each other.
- Pat Stoddard: Speak for yourself.
- Louise Frederickson: How do you know I'm not married?
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: I have noted the unmarried woman's brave air of independence, mingled with vague longing.
- Louise Frederickson: Independence, maybe. Vague longing. I wasn't aware of that.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Something perhaps only a man would see.
- Louise Frederickson: Or imagine.
- Nino Barlini: Am I expected to account for my whereabouts at every moment?
- Lisa: Am I?
- Nino Barlini: It is not the same thing. You are a woman.
- Pete Aron: The only thing to do here is to drive just as fast as you know how and hope your car doesn't break.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: To health, wealth and happiness.
- Louise Frederickson: You are very greedy.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: No. Hopeful.
- Scott Stoddard: I really can't promise you anything.
- Pat Stoddard: That's all right. That's the problem, really. People promise each other too much.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: You're being very foolish, you know.
- Louise Frederickson: Let me be foolish, then.
- Scott Stoddard: Look, I'm getting up the stairs, I can certainly get down them. If worse comes to the worse, I can always slide down the banisters.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Pete... do you ever get tired of the driving?
- Pete Aron: No.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Lately, I sometimes find myself getting tired. You know what I mean? Very tired.
- Pete Aron: Why do you all do that?
- Pat Stoddard: Do what?
- Pete Aron: Wear your sunglasses on top of your head.
- Pat Stoddard: I don't know...
- Pete Aron: It looks ridiculous.
- Louise Frederickson: The risks you take. Aren't they ridiculous? I mean, I might understand it if you made a great deal of money, but I'm told you don't at all.
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Some of us do. But money is not an important part of it.
- Louise Frederickson: Then what is?
- Jean-Pierre Sarti: Many things.
- Lisa: It's marvelous to go very fast.
- Louise Frederickson: Why is it so marvelous to go very fast?
- Louise Frederickson: Answer that one, Lisa?
- [Lisa shrugs her shoulders]
- British Grand Prix Announcer: The Yamura's smoking badly. It's on fire. He's on fire! The Yamura's second, ahead of Sarti's Ferrari. It's on fire. It's well and truly on fire.
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