In a "Rush": view of "I knew nothing"-fan

I wanted to record the second pilot episode of my podcast, but now it’s too late to actually try to speak. And one of the best English practice for me is to write in it (along with the Rus-Eng translation).

I was to tell you the history behind me and F1, but yesterday I watched Rush, and it just stuck in my mind, not allowing to move somewhere else until I’ll tell you all that I can tell about it.

We’re in Russia had to wait for quite a time before it came to us. “Rush, Rush, Rush!” – people we’re screaming outside, tempting and torturing you with one single thought: “Is it really that good? Is it worth to wait for it?”

It is.

In Russia the title was translated as «Гонка», which means “The Race”. Surely, not the best option possible, but one have to keep in mind that F1 here is not nearly as popular, as in England, Germany, etc. I do not claim to be precise, but the main attraction to F1 in Russia began somewhere in 90s, also an interesting, but quite different time. I have to confess: I do not know much about Senna-Prost fight, but I’m looking forward to learn something about it someday. Now I’m concentrated on modern F1 because even that boredom that we have now is time-consuming enough.

And it wasn’t always boredom, after all…

The relationship between me and F1 began back into 2009. Our excellent sports commentator Alexey Popov was brilliant just enough to make me feel the need to watch another race. Yeah, he did it with third show of Australian GP only, but he did it. The season was very easy to deal with: or KERS, or double diffusor, or future RB aerodynamics. I became a fan of winning Jenson Button, and I’m not at all shy to confess. One need to begin with something – my ticket was in powerful Brawn GP and its brilliant leader.

Just imagine how devastated I was to find out that Button is to leave for McLaren. I had to leave Brawn… or Jenson.

I was saved with Brawn by luck. I’m a girl, after all, and a girl could just be attracted. That was the thing that connected my fan feelings with Nico Rosberg. I still can’t figure out how it actually happened – he is not my type at all, he is too chic in my opinion, and this is just one thought of some against him. But it happened anyway, and the comeback of Michael Schumacher did the rest of the job.

Alas! Mercedes appeared to be problematic one while Red Bull’s aerodynamics was taking all possible advantage. Now let me just skip all these seasons of small wins and big disappointment: my fan feelings eventually came to Mercedes itself as a team, and now this is my leading principle. Plus, I wish the best luck for those who uses Mercedes’ engine, I consider them as somewhat colleagues in a war against Renault. So, if I we to sum up, the actual list of those, whom I care about, looks like this:

Rosberg / Hamilton

Button / di Resta

the rest of Mercedes-using company.

I was extremely glad to hear that Williams are to get to a Mercedes’ engine, but just as well as I was sad to think that McLaren are to go to Honda.

But the main source of worrying is the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, which brilliantly replaced problematic McLaren in leaders group. Three wins – it is something indeed. It’s already more than what was in three previous seasons. And for that I’m really grateful to my favorite team, because now I see that I was right when I was to choose between Button and team he left. Maybe, it’s still not like this from the statistics’ point, but I think that my loyalty to sole team means something.

Just imagine, how many we were waiting from this ’13 season, how many things were changed, how unpredictable was the very situation in the beginning. Lewis came to replace leaving Michael, and for some fans that should be the end. But it was also the beginning for many others. I mean, of course, fans of Lewis, and don’t try to tell me that there are not enough of them. Even in Russia their amount is relatively big, so I think that the team got quite an impact when Lewis decided to come to them.

This season introduced me to two new people in Mercedes’ structure: Toto Wollf and Niki Lauda. Yeah, I didn’t know anything about both of them. I wasn’t interested, after all. The situation is just changed and suddenly this amount of F1 that we have now is simply not enough for me. I got interested in new persons, but if the case of Wollf is pretty simple, Lauda’s appearance was completely different.

I knew that he’s old and that he was a successful F1 racer. That’s it. I knew nothing about James Hunt, I knew nothing about Lauda’s crash in Nürburgring and so on. I learned a few common things, of course, I was amazed by history’s irony and whatever, but the situation remained the same: I knew nothing.

On Monday I saw documentary “1” which was narrated by Michael Fassbender – brilliant piece of documental movie, not at all boring. I think that one can also make a non-documental movie about this fight for safety which turned F1 into something completely different from what it was before. And still, I was waiting for Rush to come.

First interest to that appeared when Kimi’s helmet in honor of Hunt was banned from race. I wasn’t still interested much, because the movie was introduced as the one about James Hunt, and, I repeat, I knew absolutely nothing about him. Plus, I was too busy in that time, it was just enough for me to pay attention to the races, write in blog (in Russian, of course) after them.

The next step was somewhere during pauses. Long-awaited Hungary, the triumphal race and even longer pause then, enough time to lose mind, asking “why is this all goes so long and slow?”. Anyway, I tried to keep myself busy and I ended up with the book “No Angel” about our dear Bernie. Yeah, Bernie is Bernie regardless of the country; he’s just an amazing man and the book proved this once more. One could not to mention Lauda and Hunt there, so this was the first relatively full attempt to understand something about this legend – yes, now this all sounds just like an old legend. And I guess that that was it: I started to actually wait for Rush.

Another step in this direction was done with the help of Will Buxton. I discovered his blog during this season and I liked it much. I still can’t find any English blog which can interest me as much, as his, but, maybe, I just bad when it comes to searching? Anyway, Will did everything to turn my waiting time into one long problem.

Lauda’s actions as Mercedes’ non-executive chairman, his opinions and even his presence did, does and will be doing just better the situation around. Some did not think well about his abilities, considering that he’s too old and that he’s simply can’t be objective enough, but now, in the end of a season, I can’t say anything bad about Niki. On the contrary, I like his approach, and through his work in Mercedes I start to like him.

Even knowing the result of 1976 season, I came to cinema just like Lauda’s fan, waiting in eager to see something new about him. And the film just did it. In about 2 hours I saw the youth of legend, the legend itself, the fight and its grand finale.

Another reason for thoughts like “Lauda to win!” was because of Daniel Brühl. Yet in the Will Buxton’s post he was described as the real Lauda, and I just had to keep in mind the rest. I knew Brühl because of the whole lot of his movies, including “Good bye, Lenin”, “Ladies in Lavender”, “Joyeux Noël”… As was mentioned by lot of people, Brühl’s task was much harder than that of Chris Hemsworth. And Brühl really did his best. Come on, it is Lauda’s opinion, how can I judge about it when the exact person can say everything about it?

"I think he did an incredible job because when I first saw the movie, I said, 'S---! That's really me.'"

And you know what? It’s time for me to stop. I like the movie. I don’t want to really write more unless I’ll see it in original.

I didn’t even remember anyone but Hunt and Lauda. Well, I knew Alexandra Maria Lara before – she played Marlene Lauda, in case if you forgot, but that was the exact reason why I remembered her too. But that’s pretty much everyone which I did remember. The rest is up to future re-watching and so on. Now I’m to wait for original. It wouldn’t be nearly as tough as it was to wait for “Rush” in Russia’s cinemas. But I’m sure as hell that it wouldn’t be easy as well!