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The 1996 champion: 🇬🇧 Damon Hill 🇬🇧

The song: Return of the Mack (1996) by 🇬🇧 Mark Morrison 🇬🇧

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Cassandra Frederick Sandys (1829–1904) Ulster Museum

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"With James it was different. James was different."

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I mean obviously Rush (2013) leaves out a lot of important details in the name of shaping a narrative, and they don’t really do James justice, but. I gotta tell you when they played that footage of real old man Niki watching the old races at the end I sat up and went oh. cause it suddenly sank in that this was kind of a love letter to a friend who’s gone on ahead. cause it’s no-bullshit Niki we’re talking about, who sure doesn’t need the money, so why else would he cooperate with the fuss of a Hollywood production about his life if not to keep those memories alive. and it does kinda hit different now that he’s gone too.

YES OMG this is so true.

In a lot of the press interviews for Rush, he said that his one regret was that James wasn't there to see the film with him. He said repeatedly that James would have loved that there was a film and would have loved Chris Hemsworth's performance (which was pretty decent of Niki since a lot of people criticised Chris Hemsworth). (Niki also said *in a literal newspaper* that "the butt of Mr. Hemsworth is sensational. The butt makes the movie," except Niki's absolute favourite word was "ass" so I don't believe for a moment that he said "butt." ANYWAY that is a real thing that happened).

But yes, Niki had been approached about doing films about his life a lot apparently, and he said no to all of them until Peter Morgan came to him and said he wanted to do just the 1976 season between Niki and James, and he agreed to that. I think that's very telling.

(Fun fact: Peter Morgan knew Niki because Niki asked out Peter Morgan's then-wife, Anna "Lila" Schwartzenberg, long before she met Morgan and even though she said no, they remained in the same circles. You can't take that man anywhere honestly).

Also, there is a photo I cannot find anywhere, which shows Niki on a press trip after he had seen the ending (not for the first time, he'd seen it before). But when the camera cut back to him, he looked really stricken, like the loss had hit him again. I'm kind of glad I can't find the picture, because I don't think it should have been released tbh. But I think it does show that he was deeply affected by seeing James back on screen, even twenty years after James's death. Plus, in the Graham Bensinger interview, Niki says that James was still alive for him, which is really moving and sweet.

Niki, of course, said he did the film because he had a young wife and needed to bring her to the Oscars to keep her happy. His wife has never once ever said anything publicly or some any kind of activity that suggests this is true, but Niki naturally had to be a troll about the whole thing.

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John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925). “Tommies Bathing,", c.1918. two watercolor paintings

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"why do you write?" because it’s the only way to silence the characters pacing around my brain like victorian ghosts with unresolved issues that prevent them from moving on.

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i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Damon Hill (@96f1champ)

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[The first time I met Senna] was fantastic. It was in Rio, at the Brazilian Grand Prix. We were at the hotel, me, Johnny Rives, Jean-Louis Moncet [two French journalists] and Alain Prost. When we entered the restaurant, Ayrton —whom we didn’t really know yet, it was 1984 and he’d just arrived in F1— was sitting with someone from his family. We waved hello and sat next to the door. Fifteen minutes later at most, the waiter arrived with a bottle of Bordeaux wine on which was written: Welcome to Brazil, Alain and Jacques. That was my first impression of that young man.

Jacques Laffite in an interview with Motorsport.tv, in French here 0:26-1:11

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Weeyums

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John Singer Sargent, (1856-1925)

The Black Brook, 1898

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1995 Damon Hill / Michael Schumacher

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1994 British GP press conference

before (the podium)

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enemies to lovers writers be like “they tried to kill each other three times, but in a sexy way” ok. and i ate it up. thanks.