Epic! There are no other words.

Hunt was far from a flash in the pan, my man. I'm not for one second going to try and compare his career against the true legends of the sport, or suggest that he was even the best of his day...but he was certainly one of the best 20 or so drivers in the world for 6 years in very cut throat, dangerous sport. To have a 6 year career then was pretty bloody good! He had that 6 year career in F1, which back then when drivers were being killed on track annually, badly injured in almost every race and the transition from the old playboy drivers to the new breed of professional, highly disciplined, almost conditioned sportsmen was in progress, he was one of the last of a dying breed.

Bear in mind to that for almost half of his F1 career he was in the Hesketh. A quick car in various guises on the right day, but never a serious race winner, let alone title contender. To do what he managed to do with that car goes quite some way to showing how good of a driver he actually was. Hesketh too were hardly a team lurking in the shadows then either...they were very well know at the time.

I think the reason that people seem to forget about just how well known James was at the time...and if you're British and old enough to remember the BBC F1 commentary, for some time after too...is simply because he is no longer here. Of course, he would never be remembered as the likes of Fangio. Senna, Jim Clarke and the like, but if he were still here, would he be so often forgotten about? That aside, F1 is a squeaky clean business these days where image is everything and P.R is king. Hunt's personality and certainly his legendary antics don't really fit that image these days. I'd never say that he was a villain, but he was definitely a rough diamond. He raced drunk, he raced stoned. He got blow jobs before races and he punched officials. He shagged an entire flight of British Airway's cabin crew and went bare footed to official dress code events. I think in Bernie's era, Hunt is someone they'd rather forget and not really a name they want to be associated with much these days.

I think that perhaps one way to consider it is can you think of any other playboy driver who's had the success that Hunt had since? Hunt was one of the last of his kind, where as Niki was one of the first of the new breed. Pretty much every driver, with perhaps the exception of Alan Jones, has followed the example that Niki set.

You could say that Button showed some of the same off track lifestyle in his early days as Hunt had through and beyond his career and that in 2009, the Brawn G.P story might even be just as much as a 'you couldn't make it up' movie plot, but when you compare the modern to the legend, well it's not really a comparison.

SEX - Breakfast Of Champions!

It wasn't just the racing though was it, even though that was awesome!
But the fact that it was a true story had me in disbelief most of the time.
Like I said earlier, I'm not an F1 fan, but to watch this movie, you really don't have to be.
I'd been looking at it for months, thinking, I'll catch it one day, mainly because I like Thor from The Avengers, but like you, within 10 minutes of turning it on, I was absolutely fixated on the movie.
So many emotional scenes. The one where Nikki gets burnt and they show the actual footage of the fire, that was astounding! Then for him to make that insane come-back.... Amazing!
I don't know if you watch Top Gear, but Ron Howard was on there, and he was talking about when Nikki saw the movie, and it was only then that he realised what he'd put himself, his wife and his family through. Seeing it on screen brought it home for him.
They should have BOTH got oscars for this movie, it was simple and brilliant at the same time.